Not for nothing is sourdough bread known as The King of Breads. It is beautiful stuff, far superior to its yeasty cousins, with an intense, tasty, crunchy crust and a chewy, slightly sour, amazingly bready flavoured crumb. We've trawled South London for a good sourdough, and while we've found Blackbird in Crystal Palace and Chaz and Momo at Crystal Palace Market do superb loaves, we honestly feel that this is lovely too. Blackbird also sell Shiptons Strong White Bread Flour, and that's one we've had great results from. Doves flour too is excellent, as is Wessex Mill; we mostly use a 50/50 combination of these last two, and it's superb. In economic terms, making yeast bread at home doesn't usually save you money. However, sourdough bread is expensive, and making it at home can work out cheaper

The trouble is, sourdough is often seen as a real pain to make, not least because of the whole ‘levain’ thing. Basically, sourdough doesn’t use added yeast. Instead, you use a levain, a big glass jar half full of fermenting flour and water, and you need to get it going at least a week before the bread is required. We, for a long time, shied away from making a full sourdough because it seemed too complex and prone to failure; instead we made an Express Sourdough that used a tiny amount of yeast to get the fermentation going. One chef whose levain mix we tried stated somewhat didactically that you had to use spring water. We did so, and ended up with a jar full of watery grey gunk that smelt like baby sick

Then we came across Paul Hollywood from BBC TV's The Great British Bake Off, a man who knows his baking; pastry, desserts, pies, cakes and, of course, bread. We flicked through his book How To Bake in a bookshop, and saw that he’d broken down the making of this gorgeous loaf into a serious of easy to understand instructions. Basically, he’d take all the ‘scary’ out of it; so we bought the book! And this, with one tiny tweak, is it. It's quite a simple process, we set it in motion on a Sunday afternoon, and we end up, seven days later, with two gorgeous loaves of bread. There’s even enough levain left over to set the next weekend’s bread going. Thanks Paul!

Sunday - Put 500g of strong white bread flour with one big or two small grated organic Cox apples (non organic apples may have chemicals in them that can kill the fermentation) and 360mls of tepid water into a bowl. Mix well, then pour into in a wide necked two litre sized glass jar with a tight sealing lid eg. a Kilner jar. Mark the level with a marker and put it in a warm place (no cooler than 15C, no warmer than 25C; 22-24C is perfect)

Wednesday - It should have a sweet cidery smell, and be a little darker in colour. It should also have grown a little, check the mark to see how much. Pour it out into a bowl. Discard half of it. Add 250g strong white bread flour and 170mls tepid water, stirring it in well. Put back in the jar, close the lid and put it back in its warm place

Friday - By now it should be active. There should be lots of little bubbles in it. There may also be a mark on the inside of the jar showing where it has risen and fallen; a good sign. Pour it out into a bowl. Discard half of it, add 250g strong white bread flour and enough tepid water to make a very wet sloppy dough. Seal the jar and leave overnight in its warm place

Saturday mid-morning - You now have a ‘levain’ in your jar. This is the starting point for all sourdoughs, and it could potentially last for decades if you feed it properly. Seriously, there are Italian bakeries that feed their levains every day for 50 years, even selling off ladles full of it to other bakeries

Now, it’s time to start making bread. You will need two baking trays lined with silicon sheets, or sprinkled with flour, and one large mixing bowl. We've invested in a pair of proving baskets which make life an awful lot easier, but two large sieves each lined with a clean cotton teatowel will work well too. You'll also need another teatowel and, vitally important, a bread Scotch scraper

As you get used to making the bread, build up the amount of water that you add. The more water, the more the bread will rise, but the stickier the mixture gets, so we suggest that you don't start with adding all 450ml of water. You'll also find that the levain's consistency changes from week to week, and sometimes you'll want to add more water, and sometimes less.

Ingredients:-

500g of your levain (put a decent sized bowl on your scales, zero the scales, and put 500g of the levain into the bowl)

750g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting (zero your scales again, and add the flour)

15g salt

350 - 450mls tepid water (see the note above)

Groundnut oil for kneading

• Add the flour and salt to the levain in your mixing bowl. Lightly oil your hands. Add 350ml of the water, and start stirring with your hands, working it until you have a soft rough dough that has picked up all the flour from the sides of the bowl. Add as much more water as you dare after this

• Set your timer for 10 minutes. Sprinkle a little groundnut oil on your work surface and spread it around. Tip the dough out onto the work surface and start to knead it. Now, this dough is incredibly sticky, and your hands will soon be two great puddings of dough. That's fine, you just need to scrape it all off every now and then with your Scotch scraper, and back onto the work surface. (If you have any rings on your fingers, it's worth taking them off beforehand too; Nik nearly lost his wedding ring in the dough one Saturday morning!). Keep the dough moving all the time, using your scraper to scrape it up from your work surface, and pull it up into longs strings. Knead energetically for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, silky, albeit still quite sticky dough (Zen-like calm can come in handy during this process). Clean and oil your mixing bowl, put the dough into it, cover with a teatowel and leave for at least 5 hours in a warm spot

• When it’s doubled in size dust your proving baskets heavily with flour, or cover your two sieves with tea towels, and dust them heavily with flour. Put each one on a baking tray

• Lightly flour your work surface, and tip the dough out onto it. Flour your hands and sprinkle more flour over the dough, and ‘knock it back’ by folding it inwards from the edges and pressing it down until all the air is forced from it. This stage can sometimes get quite sticky, so keep lightly flouring it, and keep it moving with your hands and the bread scraper. Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a smooth round ball, and dust with flour. Put each half into one of your floured proving baskets or onto one of your floured towels in the sieves. Oil a piece of cling film big enough to cover both, and lay it oil side down over both doughs, making sure the dough is covered. Put the two trays back in your proving place for another 13 or so hours. We do this bit over night on Saturday, but before you retire for the night, remember to stir 300g (winter) or 250g (summer) of strong white bread flour into the levain, and enough water to return it to the wet sloppy consistency you had earlier, and put it back in its warm spot.

Sunday morning - Baking time!

• Your two balls of dough should have doubled in size and should spring back when lightly prodded with a finger. If they’ve over proved, they will be kind of wrinkly, in which case you’ll need to form them back into balls (without actually kneading), and give them another 5 or so hours to reprove in their baskets or cloth lined sieves

• When the dough is ready, turn your oven up to 240C, and line two baking trays with silicon sheets. Alternatively, flour them well

• When the oven is up to temperature, gently turn the doughs upside down onto the baking sheets. Put into the oven immediately - seconds count. It can make the difference between a flattish bread, or one that is round and well risen.

• Set your timer for 20 minutes. When it beeps, turn the oven down to 200C, and set your timer for another 25 minutes. When it beeps, whip out a loaf, quickly closing the oven door, and tap the bottom with your knuckles. If it makes no real sound, back in it goes for another 5 minutes, if it makes a hollow knocking sound, it’s ready to go onto a cooling tray for 20 minutes before you are overcome by the delicious smell and grab the nearest bread knife and some butter

Sunday evening - put the levain jar back in the fridge for next weekend, but remember to take it out on Friday for baking the next day. If you don't take it out next weekend, if you leave it for two weeks or more, take it out on the Thursday, pour off about 250mls (check out our Sourdough Chapatis for what to do with it; we've also tried making pancakes with some of it, it's got a lovely sharp sourdoughy taste and a great chewy consistency), add 250g of strong bread flour, and enough water to take it back to the same consistency. Then leave it in its warm spot until Saturday morning when you can bake as normal again.