I held the camera low to the ground trying to grab a picture of this allium, either chives or crow garlic, probably the latter, growing strongly in little clumps at the base of this Bronze Age mound at Badocks Wood.
Zeb always seems to get in the pictures whether I want him to or not, but I like the way his tail echoes the bent piece of allium so I thought I would show it to you.
I am looking longingly for the first signs of the wild garlic, but it will be a while yet.
You can see the stiff levain just after it has been mixed in the righthand bowl, this is mixed using more flour than water to form a dough like consistency, as opposed to a liquid levain which uses more water than flour. The liquid ones ripen faster and tend to be more acidic in taste in my experience, the stiff levains are milder in flavour. It is easier to mix the liquid ones into the final dough. If you are mixing by hand the stiff levains can be tricky to mix in so that you don't get a patchy crumb, something that happened to me a lot before I got a stand mixer.
Posts from last year’s sloe adventures here :
Sloes in Bristol How to make sloe gin and vodka
Hedgerow Tales What to do when you haven’t labelled the jars…
Zeb Bakes 