The Great South African Flour F-Up: A Sourdough Horror Story

“All I wanted was to bake bread. What I got was a WhatsApp war, a flour identity crisis, and spiritual trauma.”

Journalism taught me to be accurate — because accuracy ensures a message lands. So, naturally, when I set out to bake simple sourdough bread, I didn’t expect to descend into a flour-fuelled existential crisis.

(Your ingredients)

Enter Google, stage left. Recipe? Found. Spirit? Crushed. Patience? Lost.

I’m South African, dammit. Baking is in the blood. But when my local grocer failed to stock “all-purpose flour,” and the aunties of WhatsApp lit up my phone like a Diwali celebration, I knew I had fucked up.

(Your dough, once ready to rest)

Seventy-eight messages later, I had learned how to make a sourdough starter (which I already knew, but thanks anyway). Equal parts flour and water, cloth-covered jar, feed weekly. Mine feeds on Tuesdays. Like a needy plant with trauma.

The real horror? Flour names. Because in South Africa, “cake flour” is not what you think it is. I settled on it reluctantly, bracing myself for ridicule, only to discover — via Woolworths’ website and ChatGPT’s sassy wisdom — that it’s basically all-purpose flour in disguise.

(Ready for the oven)

Thanks to post-colonial flour branding, “cake flour” here is the go-to for general baking. Not just for cake. So I cried, stirred, and baked.

The loaf? Bubbly starter. Seven cups of white bread flour. Four tablespoons of starter. A bit of salt. Lukewarm water. Combine. Knead. Let rise. Bake at 180°C for 45 minutes.

(A freshly-baked fucking bread!)

When that crust cracked against the kitchen counter, I felt both vindicated and violated — by flour. By language. By the trauma of eThekwini odours being momentarily replaced by yeasty success.

The moral? I’m probably part of a small, oblivious club of clueless bakers. But if you’re reading this, maybe you won’t be.

(My vok, Marelize! Bel die polisie!)

Happy baking. You brave bastard.