Strictly Sourdough

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Strictly Sourdough

A showcase dedicated to design and development of sourdough without gluten.

17/08/2025

On vacation, so a rough and ready bake using ‘Strictly Sourdough’, stabilized starter. (Yes, it is dried, but not like you may know it!)

The flours are new to me, so it was a bit of a guess, not being familiar with the hydration they need.

Overall, a very satisfactory result! Tasty, soft, despite the crumb being a little ‘tight’.

Dough mixed at Akaroa on Thursday evening, baked in Christchurch on Friday evening. Buckwheat (67%), GF flour mix (33%), psyllium, stabilized starter, salt, water, olive oil. (note to self: more water next time - that will open the crumb a little more)

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08/08/2025

Test bakes in the bakery today:

Brioche rolls (the photo makes them look darker than they are!) - soft, pillowy, and delicious! Watch out for them on our order menu soon!

Ciabatta rolls: are you interested in baking your own - a simple, no fuss approach to sourdough. Our breadarchitect has developed a method for stabilising one of his amazing starters so that is can be provided as a dry, ready-mix. All you do is mix in the water and olive oil, allow it to ferment, shape it (for ciabatta that is as simple as!) and bake it!
By the way, the same mix can be used for pizza bases or focaccia.

Watch out for our no-fuss sourdough kits on our order menu in September.

30/07/2022

Buckwheat on a quinoa starter.

Quinoa is a reliable, robust and versatile starter.

This 66% wholeseed buckwheat loaf used a 100% wholeseed quinoa starter.

Quinoa is one of the range of easy-to-use sourdough starters developed by Strictly Sourdough.

Follow to hear when they will be available.

26/01/2022

Whole foods for nutrition.
Flour, water, salt.
Local ingredients.

These are 3 keys to baking tasty, wholesome, sustainable bread.

Working without gluten adds a challenging constraint. Making free-form bread is a chosen constraint.

The two test loaves here are two bakes in a project that began years ago. In my book 'Promise & Fulfillment: formulas for real bread without gluten' I included one formula from this project - the 'Kindred buckwheat loaf' - I uses ingredients grown within 20 km of where I live.

The first of today's loaves, like the Kindred buckwheat loaf, uses only Tasmanian ingredients. In this case 2 flours, salt and water along with one of my many starters. In the second loaf added a little Australian grown brown medium grain rice.

13/01/2021

The project continues! (Even on holidays - you still need to eat.)

10/11/2020

Continuing the big project ...

Testing mixes and starters: week 6 of this series.

And, just for fun playing with stencils. That's a work in progress - I'm more interested in the qualities of the crust and crumb than in ornamentation. A good bread, like a good building, is an expression of the user's requirements, satisfied through the skills and creativity of the designer and the designer's understanding of materials and methods.

29/10/2020

It's so long since I have made a fruit loaf!

This loaf is the final of 4 mixed on 18 October during a masterclass at the Farm to Ferment festival .

The dough (100% buckwheat) was mixed in two parts on 18 Oct, chilled and stored in sealed containers in a domestic fridge (about 4C) until 28 Oct.
Mixed in the morning, and baked in the evening. I added 15g EVOO, 30g raw honey, 100g diced dried figs, and 100g water to the dough before fermenting. I could have used a little less water as the dough was quite slack when I placed it in the loaf pan. Overall a good result. Delicious, but it would have been better with some walnuts as well as the figs.
I used a quinoa starter and my Basic Buckwheat recipe: both are available at www.breadarchitect. com

The buckwheat is from . It was milled using a MockMill Professional 200.

25/10/2020

Cold fermented for a week, but still showing its resilience!
This is based on my Basic Buckwheat Loaf, a 100% buckwheat loaf (used 20g quinoa starter in the pre-ferment).
It was mixed on Sunday 18 Oct at a masterclass held at the Farm to Ferment Festival at Mount Gnomon Farm. The two parts of the mix (pre-ferment and autolysis) were refrigerated until Saturday 24 October, then mixed with an additional 50g water. It was shaped and baked without a final proof.

22/10/2020

Work in progress ...
Next stop: lunch with these sourdough baguettes and cheese.

Simple approach: mix dough, 12 hour bulk ferment, shape, 1 hour prove, bake.

Based on the formula for Millet baguettes on page 75 of Promise & Fulfillment: formulas for real bread without gluten.

10/10/2020

Loving the translucency of this crumb ...

The ongoing quest for a good shokupan.

Milled the rice with a MockMill Professional 200.
Prepared a pre-ferment with a starter from one line of my magic pudding starters. Then didn't calculate the hydration correctly (!) And had to recover a very slack dough! I guess it worked.

Moist crumb, but no wetness or gummies - bread knife emerged clean and dry!

24/09/2020

And so the testing continues ...

So many questions about how natural leaven works: time, temperature, acidity, inoculation rate, and so it goes on ...

13/09/2020

Just for fun - raspberry, sourdough, wholegrain, croissants for brunch!

The colour wasn't as good as I'd like, but the flavour was!

I tried a few other changes in these, some interesting learning. Next time more butter, slightly cooler butter too.

Nice treat, well worth pursuing.
Base recipe (before my tweaking) is on pages 180 & 181 of Promise & Fulfillment: formulas for real bread without gluten.

Rice & buckwheat milled on a MockMill Professional 200.

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