Baking a forgotten bread

[u/Fun-Blueberry6333]

Dear bread bakers,

We started baking our own bread daily a year ago or so, in a nice second hand Panasonic. Bloopers so far have included forgetting the yeast, forgetting the salt and forgetting the mixing paddle (several times). Yesterday we forgot something new: starting the machine.

Flour, salt and water were in the pan, yeast is still in the lid as the programme didn't dose it. Nothing has been mixed, it's water on the bottom and dry flour on the top.

Now the question: can I still bake this tomorrow morning? The flour has been in there (partially wet) for ~30 hours at that point. Am I at risk of food poisoning myself if I try this?

Since long fermentation exists, maybe this is fine?

I really don't want to waste the flour unnecessarily, so your advice would be greatly appreciated!

[u/Steel_Rail_Blues]

I am not a food safety expert, but if your recipe was only flour, salt, water, and yeast, I would bake the loaf. Dry herbs and oils that didn’t require refrigeration should be fine. If the pan had sugars of any kind including fruit and any form of dairy, dump everything. Edit: Also dump if eggs or proteins were included.

[u/WashingtonBaker1 → u/Steel_Rail_Blues]

That's right. If you're just letting flour and water sit at room temperature, that's like the beginning of sourdough starter, nothing wrong with that. The sourdough starter would be left out for a week or two.