I am quite new to bread baking and fascinated by the alchemy of flour, water, air, time and temperature.

So audaciously, and unable to get past the idea of daily discarding half of my still maturing starter, I played every day baking rolls made from any remaining flour I could find in the cupboard, at first, and then my order from Shipton Mill arrived with the Biodynamic and Organic Fine-Gound Wholemeal flours. Over the next few days, I played some more resulting in some nicely crusty, some heavy but open crumb tasty rolls.

But today I didn't want to wait for the oven to warm up - didn't want to knock out all the air of the nicely puffy starter discard 150g to which I stirred in 150g mixture of the 2 flours the night before.

I didn't want to lose all this natural 'rise' as when I previously handled the dough it refused to rise as much afterwards plus it was difficult to handle without adding too much or too little flour

So in went my dome, still in the pyrex jug it had been proving in, straight into the (750w) microwave - for 8 minutes.

Took it out immediately and let it sit in the jug for a couple of minutes - there was a fair bit of steam but no sinking. Encouraged, I loosened the sides and tipped the jug over onto a teatowel on the cooling rack - waited for a couple of minutes until the bread released itself and let it cool.

No crust, not a problem but I got a good crunch from toasting slices.. .hmmnn

So in summary:

• Start the day before you want to bake:

• mix 150-200g sourdough starter discard (depending on how wet)

• with 150-200g flour of your choice (I love wholemeal but ..) remembering wholemeal needs a little more moisture than white

• Add and mix in any flavouring like salt and toasted seeds like caraway & sesame or poppy

• Leave to prove in a microwavable round container (like a see-through pyrex jug/bowl) overnight

• When doubled in size with visible bubbles throughout and before the dome begins to drop - microwave for 6-9 minutes depending on the amount, it's starting moisture content and your microwave strength)

Leave to cool, slice (and toast for crunch) and enjoy.

Baking in the microwave is more ecological as it is greener energy and no wasteful preheating involved plus shorter cooking

Have fun - what do you have to lose (or is it loose...?)