Yes, that’s right. An oven, preferably one that works!  I had such plans for this week but my oven had other ideas.  Currently waiting on the landlord to repair (prefereably replace with an Aga but that’s just me dreaming again) the said appliance so I’ve been breadless for the past few days *insert sympathetic comments here*

So what can I do with all this spare starter that I carefully remove before feeding the remainder? Make pikelets of course!  Do you remember them, those soft fluffy uneven circles of Sunday teatime happiness?  A cross between a crumpet and a drop scone, these little treats are easy to make and even easier to eat … (yes, the diet will have to start again soon)

I poured off 300g of my starter and to that I added 3 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder and a splash of milk.  Whisk it all up and it starts to bubble straight away.  I put a little vegetable oil in my frying pan and was able to fit 3 spoonfuls of mixture in at a time.  The pikelets are ready to flip when they look like this …

How did I eat them?  We had them with a little bit of butter dreamily melting into the holes and drizzled with copious amounts of maple syrup (me) or honey (my daughter).  You have to ensure that you have enough butter and syrup on them so you end up with a buttery sticky mess dribbling down your chin 🙂

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I cleaned my starter jar the other day too, it doesn’t matter that it gets gunky and a bit dry around the top of the jar but it irritates my very very mild baking OCD.  It made it easy for me to be able to show the best point to feed your starter.  This photo shows you how the starter looks just after feeding with fresh flour and water …You can then watch the starter bubble and rise in the jar … it’s quite fascinating really (yes, I’m becoming a bread geek. You don’t need to tell me, I already know). When the starter has finished feasting it will slump back down and look like this ~ See how the level has dropped back down? This is when you know it is time to remove half and reresh with more flour and water.  You can use the starter you’ve removed for your recipe, use it to start another batch of starter,throw it away or make pikelets, pancakes, bacon, maple syrup, butter, cream.  Oops, went off on a little foodie daydream there!

Tomorrow I’m planning a day of juicing and experimenting with flavours.  I shall let you know how I got on.