How Noosa Sourdough began

My love for food started at a young age.

I grew up in a small town on the north west coast of Tasmania – Latrobe with my Mum, Dad, Sister and a menagerie of animals on a small hobby farm. We grew all our own vegetables, had fruit trees and also grew flowers for the local florist shop. We had our own horses, a cubby house and my cousins lived on the other side of our property.

My father was the local butcher and in the school holidays I would go and help make the sausages, black pudding and other ‘”small goods”.

My English Grandma also had a home on our property and she was the one that introduced me to cooking. She had married an Italian man and loved all the good things to eat…Brie cheese smothered on a good sourdough , anything on toast or bread really.

We grew up quite self sufficient and learnt that if you wanted to succeed in life, you had to work hard.

Fast forward to now….

I live on the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Queensland, with my husband Mike and son William.

When Covid 19 hit the world, things changed!

Forced to stay home saw new challenges as I am not one to sit still for very long. I had started making Traditional Sourdough Bread for my family about 12 months prior and had shared it with my friends.

People started asking if they could buy my bread and I was amazed.

So I decided to fill a basket with hot bread and walk around my street and meet my neighbours who were also now working from home.

Everyone loved it and wanted a regular delivery, then they shared it with their friends and so one.

I was getting messages on how people could get their own starter and learn the craft of making sourdough for themselves so I created a recipe sheet, using my tried and tested method and made it as simple as I could.

Everyone had success and messages were coming from afar. I couldn’t send fresh starter in the mail due to not being able to control temperature, breakage or how long Australia Post would take to get it to the destination.

I decided if I dried it and turned it into a powder, none of these confronting elements would harm it.

So the testing began……over and over again. The recipe I came up with was working beautifully so I asked fellow baking friends to test it for me, follow my method and see what results they could get, and thankfully, they all had success too.

Now it is time to share it with the rest of the world….if you follow my simple instructions, you will be baking beautiful sourdough in a few days time….and who doesn’t like bread?

Happy Baking…….Liz