To start your culture

Get a glass Kilner Jar or a bowl and add 75g strong bread flour and 75ml luke warm water.

Mix, loosely cover and let it stand overnight. Continue this process for a week adding to it daily and standing overnight. This allows for the fermentation process to happen which is what gives sourdough its characteristic sour tang.

To make your first loaf:

Ingredients:

• 460g strong flour
• 300g of your very own culture (above)
• 10g salt
• 230ml luke warm water

Method:

Mix all of the above into a dough and kneed for a good 15 minutes (let's count that as part of our daily exercise, who needs a gym right?)

Place the dough in a covered bowl and leave for 1 hour. Shape it and cut along the top (Instagram will give you lots of designs if you want to get fancy but you really don't need to). Then allow to prove overnight in the bowl.

The next day place the dough in a parchment paper lined 'Dutch Oven' (which is chef talk for a Le Creuset pot or steel pot with a lid and some baking paper). Cook in the oven at 230 degrees with fan and the lid on, bake for 15-20mins then take the lid off and bake for a further 10 minutes to crust up. Remove from the oven and give it a tap, if it sounds hollow then you know it is ready. Rest for 5 minutes in the pan before popping on a wire cooling rack until it is cool enough to eat. We serve it at The Farmhouse with homemade butter or to be dipped into Mrs Middleton's rapeseed oil which comes from Whizz and her family farm just up the road in Shilligton. It is also delicious with our Farmhouse honey from the hives in our garden.

You can keep the starter culture in the fridge for weeks on end, to make another loaf simply take it out and get to room temperature. Use a spoon to remove any liquid on the top which has separated off, add 75g strong bread flour, 75ml luke warm water and restart the process all again.

Enjoy!