Over the weekend I made yoghurt – I think I overdid something, I used one of those easi yo packets, and it all separated into curds and whey.

So I drained the curds through a muslin square and was left with a big bowl of golden yellow whey which I stuck in the fridge, remembering that there was something about making bread with it.

I have been reading   Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz

Published by Green Books and  reviewed by David Whitehouse here which made me curious so I got the book at the weekend. Only part way through it, but very interesting so far…..

Yesterday I found the whey in the fridge and decided I had better use it.

I looked through the Handmade Loaf and based this loaf on Dan Lepard’s white maize and wheat loaf but used wheat and rye flours.  I used more whey and less leaven, simply because that is what I had to hand and was worried that the whey might go off if I left it another day while I built up the starter.

100 g white leaven (which had been fed a couple of tsp of the new yoghurt the day before and been refreshed and was a bit over excited and smelt sweetly lactic!)
400g or so of yoghurt whey
350g of very strong white flour
100g of whitewholewheat ( American flour)
50g of rye flour
8g  fine sea salt
5g of fresh yeast

I made just over one kilo of dough, which I proved in two oval bannetons.   They were quite slow to rise to start with as I mixed them with the whey from the fridge so it was all quite cold. Plus the initial amount of leaven was smaller so I expected it to take its time.

I mixed the dough at 11 am and popped the shaped loaves into bannetons 3.5 hours later. Finally into the oven at 220 C  with steam at 6.30 pm.

I lowered the temperature after 15 minutes to 200 C  and again to  190 C for the last 15 minutes.

It made a beautiful fragrant loaf with a pale yellow translucent crumb and a dark golden brown crust.

Well worth doing!  Definitely a bread to make again and again!