Fennel & Sultana Bread by Peter Sidwell

Fennel is delicious both in sweet and savoury bread, so when I spied this recipe in Peter Sidwell's book: Simply Good Bread, I thought I would try this.  Last Thursday, late at night, I quickly made up the starter dough as given...before I read the recipe in full.  The starter is made up of 1 tsp fast action yeast, 500g strong flour and 475ml water.....but the next morning when I came to read up the recipe again, it said use 500g of starter dough, but I had made nearly 1000g...yet earlier in the book they give an overnight sponge as 250g bread flour, 225ml water and 1 tsp yeast...that gives the 500g starter dough. 

The Fennel & Sultana Bread in the picture in the book was not made with dark rye flour, no way, maybe white rye or maybe with no rye....mine was a little overproven,  I had risked going out do do some shopping!!!!  Never the less, it tastes wonderful, and I shall certainly try this flavour combination again soon.

There is no point in crying over surplus starter, so I turned to a couple of books, and decided to add some of my rye sourdough, and used semolina flour, and made some ciabatta.  I remember the last time I tried making this type of bread, years ago, before I had read Andrew Whitley,  this time I was exceedingly pleased with the results....if it had not been for the surplus overnight starter, I would not have tackled this bread...