Baking With Sourdough

Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast (Saccharomyces). It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast does not produce comparable results. In comparison with yeast-based breads, it produces a distinctively tangy or sour taste, mainly because of the lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli; the actual medium, known as "starter" or levain, is essentially an ancestral form of pre-ferment. (Courtesy Wikipedia)

The American Institute of Baking describes the San Francisco sourdough as the benchmark by which all other sourdough breads are judged, and I am in full agreement. The reputation of this sourdough is, indeed, worldwide. To achieve the fabulous flavor, it requires the organisms of that culture. We call ours the Original San Francisco culture.

1/2 cup cold liquid culture
6 cups flour
2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Mix the liquid culture with 1 cup of the flour and 1/2 cup of the water in a large mixing bowl. This is the working culture. Proof 12 hours at room temperature (68 degrees to 72 degrees) or 6 hours in a proofing box at 85 degrees.

2. Add 1 cup of the flour and 1/2 cup of the water. Mix and knead until smooth. Proof 8 hours at room temperature or 4 hours in the proofing box. After proofing, this is the fully active culture.

3. Punch down. Dissolve the salt in the remaining 1 cup water and mix into the dough. Reserve 1 cup of the flour for flouring the board. Mix and spoon knead the remaining 3 cups flour into the dough 1 cup at a time. When too stiff to mix by hand, transfer to the floured board and knead in the remaining flour.

4. Form 2 pan loaves or French loaves, and proof them at the same temperature used above until ready to bake (3 to 4 hours).

5. Bank in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the pans and cool on wire racks.

* Note: If you really want sour sourdough, repeat step 2, adding another 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water.

Reprinted with permission from Classic Sourdoughs by Ed Wood. Copyright © 2001 by Ed Wood. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. www.tenspeed.com

Sourdough cultures should be stored in your refrigerator when you aren't baking; your culture can last 5 or 6 months without feeding, because the cool temperature pushes the culture into a dormant state.

Dormant cultures will not produce good bread. For that, they have to be fully active like the one below. Notice all the bubbles!

After removing my culture from the fridge, I stir in the hootch (the liquid that forms on the top), add a cup of unbleached white flour and a half-cup of tepid water. Then I put the crock into the proofing box.

Four or five hours later, after a feeding frenzy that would embarrass a pride of starving lions, it looks like this:



This culture is ready to use, so I will put a half cup or more of active culture into my mixing bowl, add a cup of flour and half-cup of water, and put it in the proofing box for 12 hours. The crock goes straight back into to the fridge.

Note: Six hours in the proofing box is probably sufficient, but I've settled into a schedule of feeding twice a day, so 12 hours works well for my lifestyle. (I reduce the temperature of the proofing box after the evening feeding to 75 degrees F.)

NOTE TO ACTIVE BAKERS: If you are going to bake on a regular basis, weekly or more often, I recommend that you keep your starter at room temperature and feed it regularly. If necessary, simply through some away if the crock gets too full. This will eliminate the need to activate cold starter, and contribute to an improvement in taste.

"A bread baker, like any true artisan or craftsman, must have the power to control outcomes," says Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice. "Mastery comes with practice."

As in many arts, you must know and understand the rules before you can break them. Reinhart encourages you to learn the science of bread making, but to never forget that vision and experimentation, not formulas, make transcendent loaves.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice is broken into three sections. The first is an amusing tale of Reinhart's visit to France and his discovery of pain à l'ancienne, a cold-fermented baguette.

The second section comprises a tutorial of bread-making basics and Reinhart's "Twelve Stages of Bread."

And finally, the recipes: Ciabatta, Pane Siciliano, Potato Rosemary Bread, New York Deli Rye, Kaiser Rolls, and Brioche, to name a few. All recipes include bread profiles and ingredient percentages. Reimagined for modern bakers, these mouthwatering classic recipes are bound to inspire. --Dana Van Nest


The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread (Hardcover),
by Peter Reinhart (Author) and Ron Manville (Photographer).

Sourdough cultures perform at their best in conditions where the temperature is stable, particularly in Canada, where the temperature can fluctuate widely due to the changing seasons.

A proofing box makes it possible to accurately predict how long the process will take from beginning to oven, and that's an important bonus when proofing can take 12 hours after a feeding.

If you want to place freshly baked sourdough on the dinner table Friday night, you need to know - exactly - how long it will take you to produce the bread.

Without a proofing box, that simply isn't possible.

My first proofing box was made from inexpensive materials... a cheap foam cooler, lamp socket and dimmer switch from the hardware store, a 40w appliance bulb to provide the heat and a cheap piece of plexiglass to protect the foam.



I use an old digital timer to help me maintain the proofing temperature at 84 degrees... the next time around, I'll use a thermostat instead, simply because it will be more reliable.



Your oven may provide an alternative to a proofing box, because its light generates heat. Ovens vary widely, however, so before using your oven as a proofing box, make sure to check the temperature with a digital probe for at least 2 or 3 hours before putting it to work.

How long you feed the active dough is up to you. I like to feed a cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water every 12 hours for 2 or 3 days. Most of the recipes I use call for a total of 4 1/2 cups of flour, but I've found it really isn't important whether you end up using 4 1/2 or 6... it's the moisture content of the dough that counts (the ratio of dry ingredients to water). (I use formulas designed to produce a moisture content of 70% to a high of 80%.)



Once you're ready to prepare loaves for baking, add enough flour to stiffen the dough sufficiently to work it by hand and dump it onto a floured surface so you can knead in enough flour for proper consistency. If the dough is too dry and stiff, the loaves will not rise properly.

I used to think that the dough should be kneaded 8 to 10 minutes, but lately I've found that 4-5 minutes seems to work just as well, and i get better oven spring (rise) with shorter times, as the moisture content of the dough is higher. I add extra ingredients in the last few minutes... cored, chopped Jalepeno peppers, aged Cheddar, chopped fresh Rosemary, crushed Garlic, sun-dried Black olives, stuffed Greek olives... there's really no limit to what can be added. Making that decision is half the fun!

Heavy doughs, like the two loaves shown above, which contain whole wheat flour, can be encouraged to rise by adding a 1/2 cup or so of Flax or Rye flour early in the proofing process.

The prepared loaves should be proofed 1.5-2 hours, or until they rise to the top of the pan, and then baked. (I set my oven to 375 degrees and bake for 40 minutes.) You can proof for longer periods, but the result may be poor oven "bump" and blistered skin, because the surface tends to toughen during long proofing periods. Over-proofing will also pretty much eliminate oven spring, because the yeast will have exhausted their food before baking.

A lot of sourdough bakers recommend retarding dough by putting it in the refrigerator for varying periods of time. This is a complicated subject, and I refer everyone to the various sourdough sites on the net for discussions about retarding. A local artesan baker recommended shaping the dough and proofing at room temperature for an hour or two (too encourage the yeast), then refrigerating for 16-24 hours at 40-50 degrees F. to improve the sourness of the bread.

One cup of unbleached white flour has been mixed with a half cup of tepid water. A half cup of active starter was added, and the dough was ready for the proofing box.



The culture is fully active (note the bubbles) after 8 hours in the proofing box at 86 degrees.



A cup of flour and half cup of water have been added to the active culture, and the dough is ready to be returned to the proofing box.



Five hours later, it looked like this - you can see how active the dough became after proofing:



Now we add one cup of whole wheat flour and another half cup of water, mix well and return to the proofing box.



After 3 hours in the proofing box, the dough completely filled the bowl, and was ready for kneading. I added 2 more cups of whole wheat flour, a heaping teaspoon of finely chopped garlic and about 1/8 cup of finely chopped rosemary, kneaded the dough for 8 minutes, put the loaves into pans and put them into the proofing box.



90 to 120 minutes later, we're ready to pop the loaves into a 375 degree F. oven for 40 minutes:



Can you taste it yet?



Hot out of the oven - Eat your heart out :-)

This is - without a shred of doubt - the best book about sourdough in my library. Everything I've learned about sourdough, I've learned from Ed Wood.


Classic Sourdoughs: A Home Baker's Handbook (Paperback),
by Ed Wood. This is the Sourdough Bible, folks!

From the author's website:

Classic Sourdoughs by Ed Wood, insures that sourdough bakers are familiar with the fermentation techniques of traditional sourdoughs that have produced naturally leavened breads for centuries. Wood has developed many new methods to produce better sourdoughs without commercial yeast. Those methods and techniques are the backbone of Classic Sourdoughs.

Wood's book tells the baker how to produce exquisite sourdoughs using smaller amounts of authentic sourdough culture with longer proofing times at either room temperature or higher temperatures with the proofing box. These long proofing times produce better flavors and texture.

There are surprises for even the experienced baker. Wood will convince you that unbleached all-purpose flours produce better sourdough breads than flours from hard red winter or spring wheat. And he will tell you why. Have you ever envied the sourdoughs produced by artisan bakers in their masonry ovens? Wood will show you how to do it in your own conventional oven.

The bread machine section describes how to produce authentic sourdoughs with long proofing times in any machine. And the method does not require using the "dough cycle" and forming loaves by hand.

The section on ingredients has directions for using flax, soy flours, kamut, spelt, bulgur, organic flours, cranberries and others

This 215 page book has more than 90 sourdough recipes.

THE AUTHOR'S QUALIFICATIONS

Ed Wood is an M.D. pathologist with a background in nutrition. He pursued a Ph.D. at Cornell where he studied under Dr. Clive McCay, one of the foremost pioneers in nutrition research. In 1983 Dr. Wood became Chairman of Pathology in a new hospital near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A particular class of truly unique organisms had long ago captured his imagination, the organisms of sourdough that produced man's bread for 5 ,000 years. Knowing that the Middle East was the historic birthplace of bread he began a quest for sourdough cultures passed down through generations of bakers from the beginning of civilization. His adventures, ranging from the humorous to the serious, produced a collection of sourdough cultures and recipes from around the world dating back to antiquity. Four years and hundreds of baking experiments later, he produced the first book on the science and art of sourdough.

In 1993 he collaborated with Egyptologist, Dr. Mark Lehner, to determine how man made his first leavened bread in Egypt, a project supported by the National Geographic Society. (National Geographic Magazine, January, 1995).

1993-94 Giza annual Report

I like to add interesting flavours to my sourdough. One of my favourite combinations is jalapeno peppers and nippy cheddar cheese.

The peppers should be cored to remove seeds and pulp, since that will provide the incredible flavour of the pepper without the heat.

I use 6 large Jalapenos for one batch of bread. If I want heat, I will either leave one pepper un-cored, or throw in a couple of Seranno or Habanero peppers, finely chopped to distribute the heat.

I shred the cheese and knead it into the dough with the finely chopped peppers, saving a bit as decoration on the top of the loaf.

A magnificent sourdough can be made using 50-75% whole wheat flour and pitted sun-dried black olives. The olives can be chopped up or left whole - it's up to you. Either way, be judicious, as too many olives will overwhelm the sourdough and spoil the effect.

Stuffed olives (I get mine from the Olive Pit, in Corning, California - see link below) also work wonders when you want to share a unique and exciting taste treat with your guests.

Add them as they are, or slice them up with a sharp knife - either way, you'll get delightful results.



Here are two loaves of San Francisco sourdough using six chopped Spicy Sicilian Garlic-stuffed Olives from the Olive Pit. After 3 hours in the proofing box, they're ready for the oven: You can see bits of olive in the dough.



Thirty five minutes later, hot out of the oven:

Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible introduced readers to a newly illuminating baking-book approach--a precisely detailed yet accessible recipe format emphasizing baking science.

The Bread Bible follows the same plan, offering 150 recipes, arranged by type, for a great variety of baked goods--from muffins, popovers, and English muffins to sandwich loaves, focaccia, rolls, hearth breads, rye bread, challah, and more, with a particularly vivid (and passionate) stop at sourdough loaves.

Instruction is abetted by 32 pages of photos plus 300 step-by-step illustrations that depict, for example, bagel forming, in exact, imitable detail. In addition, an introductory section, "The Ten Essential Steps of Making Bread," includes a particularly lucid discussion on the way yeast works plus an invaluable comparison of kneading methods. Like the book's final look at ingredients, these "mini-texts" provide information uncommon to most home bread books, rendered in simple language that allays fears of putting one's hand in the dough.

All this is impressive indeed, and readers bitten by the bread-baking bug will welcome the ultra-thorough Beranbaum approach. The less committed may find her technical demands too painstaking (her baguette recipe requires two starters, for example; though simpler loaves are, of course, offered) or even impractical (ingredient quantities using grams are sometimes given in minute fractions, requiring a special scale). The frequent inclusion of alternate mixing methods and equipment options can also make the formulas unwieldy. On the other hand, features like Pointers for Success and Understanding often yield exciting discovery as well as rewarding results.

In short, this Beranbaum bible answers virtually every bread-making question, as well as providing exemplary formulas. It's the real deal for those willing to bake along with Rose. --Arthur Boehm

The Bread Bible (Hardcover), by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

The combination of white and rye flours produces a moderate rye flavor. The bread rises well but results in a somewhat heavier loaf than an all-wheat bread. The addition of anise and caraway imparts the typical flavor characteristic of a European rye loaf.

2 cups rye flour
2 3/4 cups white flour
2 cups cold liquid culture
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon aniseeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin

1. Combine the flours and mix well. Mix the liquid culture with 1 cup of the flour mixture and 1/4 cup of the water in a large mixing bowl. This is the working culture. Proof 12 hours at room temperature (68 degrees to 72 degrees) or 6 hours in a proofing box at 85 degrees.

2. Add 1 cup of the flour mixture and 1/4 cup of the water. Mix and knead until smooth. Proof 8 hours at room temperature or 4 hours in the proofing box. After proofing, this is the fully active culture.

3. Punch down. Mix together the milk, salt, sugar, caraway seeds, aniseeds, and cumin. Add to the dough and mix well. Reserve 1 cup of the flour mixture for flouring the board. Mix and spoon knead the remaining 1 3/4 cups flour mixture into the dough 1 cup at a time. When too stiff to mix by hand, transfer to the floured board and knead in the remaining flour mixture.

4. Form 2 pan loaves, and proof them at the same temperature used above until the dough rises about 1 inch above the pan tops (2 1/2 to 3 hours).

5. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the pans and cool on wire racks.

Reprinted with permission from Classic Sourdoughs by Ed Wood. Copyright © 2001 by Ed Wood. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. www.tenspeed.com

You don't have to buy a culture (although I enjoy playing with the international cultures available from sourdo.com) to enjoy making your own sourdough. It's easy to stalk and capture your own in your back yard - or, for that matter, in your living room.

All you have to do is mix a cup of unbleached white flour with a half-cup of water and put it outside in a safe place. (Note: If there are raccoons in your neighborhood, you may want to do this inside.) I prefer using bottled water for this job, as I the chlorine in the city's water could harm the culture or kill it completely.

Make sure your container is clean, well-rinsed, and dry.

Within 24 hours, you should notice some bubbling in your flour & water mixture. If so, feed your new culture with another cup of flour and half-cup of water to encourage rapid growth. When the bubbling becomes intense, bring your culture inside and continue to feed it. Once it becomes active, yoiu can put it to work!

If your first try results in a stinky black mess instead of an active culture, throw the mixture out and try again. (Be of good cheer - eventually you will succeed in capturing a local culture.)

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