This week, we're going to make bread the old-fashioned way - the VERY old-fashioned way. We'll start off a new batch of yeast using flour and water. This is commonly called a starter and I may also call it a culture, as this is what a little colony of microbes is often called.
Whether or not they'd like to admit it, everyone has some experience with yeast. Yeast is in almost every bread that you've ever eaten. If it's not, you wind up with a flat bread or cracker. Some breads can also be risen with baking powder, but I'll write about that another time.
We'll create our starter this week and then someone will need to watch it closely, making sure that it gets fed every day so that it is ready for us by next week. It won't be superstrong at first, but will become much better and more flavorful as we work with it. In fact, we will maintain a culture throughout the whole year and I guarantee that it will be very popular with the teachers at our school.
