Baking bread is a great, rewarding hobby, but what if there’s no yeast in the shops! Making your own yeast with a sourdough starter is a fun way to get around this problem, as well as being a great way to try something new.

That’s why we’ve started our Pet Sourdough Project. From Tuesday the 12th May join us in making your own sourdough starter, your new ‘pet’ so to speak!

Tuesday is Day One, so we will create our starters then. We will give our starters a name and through the week we will send you email reminders on when to feed your new pet, along with our own progress (or disasters!) and any tips or tricks we’ve picked up. Eventually we will be able to bake our own bread with the starters, with no shop-bought yeast in sight.

What is a sourdough starter? Simply, it’s what makes sourdough sour. The starter is a variant combination of flour, water and usually a sugar source, such as an apple, pineapple, honey, milk, or grapes. It ferments, creating a culture of live yeasts which give the sourdough that distinctive flavour. It’s kept alive through a system of feeding and discarding. If kept correctly they can live for years. The oldest sourdough starter is reported to be 120 years old!

To begin you need a large sealable jar, bread-flour (unbleached is advised) and water. Although you can start a sourdough with just these ingredients a sugar source is recommended. Take a look at these Cookpad Sourdough recipes for some inspiration and ideas about what ingredients you will need to make your starter. There are so many ways to make one, so use what ingredients you have available!

Yui’s yogurt-based starter

Felice’s raisin-based starter

Sally’s apple based starter

Remember- there’s no right way to do this, so if you want to try another method please feel free to.  If you’d like to opt-in we will keep you up-to-date via email and we would love to hear your feedback too! How is your starter getting on? What's it's name? What ingredients did you use? Or is there a spot in the house where it likes to sit?

To join in the fun email sally-strong@cookpad.com. Let’s start this project together and make our own sourdough pet!