End to End

This is called a sponge. I suppose it really does look pretty similar to the way bath sponges used to look, when a sponge in the bath was normal, and the sponge was the product of a sea creature - Spongia officinalis. I remember as a child wondering if I was being teased when told that sponges were animals. My scepticism was not unreasonable; they are an odd evolutionary backwater - multicellular but having no nervous system and no proper organs, believed for many years to be plants. The sponge we use is the pliable skeleton, with all the living cells removed

This is a sponge by analogy, but its a regular baking term for a preliminary yeast fermentation, made in advance of mixing the complete dough. Yeast, of course, is another organism that causes classification head-scratching. At one time, fungi (along with everything not-animal) were classified as plants. These days, fungi get an entire kingdom to themselves, separate from plants, animals and some other microrganisms. At a cellular level, they are more similar to animals than plants, but we veggies are (usually) happy to munch on them

To make this, I dissolved a small teaspoon of honey in 130g of tepid water, added 100g of white flour and about 1.5 teaspoons of dried yeast, stirred it, and covered it for two hours. At the same time, I put 400g flour into a bigger bowl and added another 130g of the same water. I shake it briefly to disperse the water. This starts the process of 'autolysis': the enzymes that come from the grain start to break down the starch in the flour into sugars. This is exactly what happens when a grain begins to germinate, and also what a maltster does when turning barley grains into malt for brewing

After making the picture, I added 2 teaspoons of salt and 3 tablespoons of oil to the big bowl, then 150g of sourdough starter (also called 'mother'). The starter adds some acidity but the slow-growing yeasts it contains are no competition for the sponge - this is not sourdough bread. Finally, I poured in the sponge, mixed it all together with my hand, kneeded it and folded it for five minutes or so, made it into a tight ball and left it in the covered bowl to rise. An hour or two later, I folded it a few times and remade the ball. After another hour or two, I repeated the folding and balling, shaped it into a sausage and pressed it into a bread tin. Again, I left it to rise - this time in a sealed plastic bag - for two or three hours

After 45 minutes in the oven, I have bread. It is ridiculously easy and ridiculously good