Sourdough Breadmaking

The story of sourdough goes back a couple of centuries. Apparently an Egyptian woman was making primitive dough for some flatbread by the Nile. She regularly baked most of her dough on a hot stone but left some dough behind. When she returned the next day, she mixed the leftovers with freshly made dough. The bread turned out bigger and lighter than her previous breads.

The sourdough starter culture is made up of many tiny micro organisms. These organisms perform a fermentation process as they absorb sugar from the flour and processes gas bubbles. These gas bubbles have the leavening affect on the bread. In addition to fermentation, the bacteria produce acids which add to the wonderful sourdough aromas and flavours.

Sourdough cultures are formed by wild yeasts and bacteria. From various regions in the world, people have created different tasting breads due to the unique wild yeasts from that area. With the addition of some other ingredients, like boiled potatoes, other aromas and tastes are created.

Some families have passed these sourdough cultures down many generations. This is the reason why some sourdough cultures are hundreds of years old.

As your starter is a live culture, it needs to be fed regularly. Starter can be kept in a wet form in a glass jar. A good jar size will be anything from 500 to 750ml (16 to 25 oz) . It can be kept either at room temperature or in the fridge. Starters kept at room temperature needs to be fed daily and fridge starters weekly. To feed a starter, you would have to remove halve the starter from the jar and replace it with an equal amount of water and flour mixture. For example if you remove one cup of starter, then you replace it with a mixture which contains half a cup of water and half a cup of flour.

Ingredients
4 cups proofed sourdough starter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup Tepid water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons honey or Agave syrup (for vegan diets)
6 cups white flour
1/4 cup gluten flour

Before measuring out your 4 cups of starter culture, it must be proofed: To proof, you need to mix 2 cups flour with 2 cups of water. Then stir in a 1/4 cup or more of starter. Let mixture sit, covered loosely, for up to 12 hours. The longer it sits the more sour flavour it will have. Measure out the 4 cups required for recipe, and return leftover starter to your starter jar.

Pour starter into mixing bowl and keep separate
Add the salt and honey to water and stir until dissolved.
Add this mixture to the culture and mix well.
Add the oil and mix well
Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring until the dough is too stiff to mix by hand.
Turn onto floured board and knead in the remaining flour until the dough is smooth and satiny. (A dough mixer may be used to do this)
Pat dough into a 1-inch thick round and form loaf by rolling up, pinching the seam together as you roll the dough, and tucking ends to form the loaf.
Place in lightly greased loaf pan
Brush the tops with olive oil
Allow dough to rise, at 30 degrees C (85 degrees F) for 2 to 3 hours. (I normally switch oven on for about a minute and place bread in there with only the oven light on)
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).
Bake for 40-50 minutes, (baking time varies according to your oven and your personal taste).
Remove loaf from oven and turn loaf out of the pan on wire rack.
Slice and enjoy - Yummy
(This recipe makes for 3 medium sized breads)

Any leftover dough can be placed in a plastic container and stored in the fridge for up to a week. Middle eastern style flatbread can then be made from it by just adding the herbs and spices and baking it in a pan. I normally add sesame seeds, origanum, thyme and salt and then bake it in olive oil.
This dough is so versatile.It can be used as a pizza base with your choice of toppings. Small round balls of this dough can also be baked as buns.

4 cups proofed white sourdough starter
2 tablespoon olive oil
1&1/2 cup Tepid water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons honey or Agave (for Vegan diets)
Grains and seeds (3/4 cup overnight soaked wheat, 1/4 cup linseed, 1/4 cup hulled sunflower seeds)
5-6 cups flour (2 cups wholemeal flour, 3 to 4 cups white flour, 1/4 cup gluten flour, 1/2 cup flax meal)

Before measuring out your 4 cups of starter culture, it must be proofed: To proof, you need to mix 2 cups flour with 2 cups of water. Then stir in a cup or more of starter. Let mixture sit, covered loosely, for up to 12 hours. The longer it sits the more sour flavour it will have. Measure out the 4 cups required for recipe, and return leftover starter to your starter jar.
Pour starter into mixing bowl and keep separate
Add the honey to the water and stir until dissolved
Add the salt and stir until dissolved.
Add this mixture to the culture and mix well.
Add the oil to the culture and mix well
Add the dry flour mixture, 1 cup at a time
Add soaked wheat,and other grains
Turn onto floured board and knead until the dough is smooth and satiny. (A dough mixer may be used for this)
Pat dough into a 1-inch thick round and form loaf by rolling up from the one side, pinching the seam together as you roll the dough, tucking ends to form the loaf.
Place in lightly greased loaf pan
Brush top of bread with olive oil
Allow dough to rise, at 30 degrees C (85 degrees F) for 2 to 3 hours. (I normally switch oven on for about a minute and place bread in there with only the oven light on)
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).
Bake for 40-50 minutes, (baking time varies according to your oven and your personal taste).
Remove loaf from oven and turn loaf out of the pan on wire rack.
Slice and enjoy - Yummy
(This recipe makes for 3 medium sized breads)
This bread also freeze well. The frozen slices are nice when toasted.

Many things can be made from sourdough, as mentioned in the first paragraph at the top of this page. Good examples of other products made from sourdough include pancakes, pastry, pizza and cakes. To the right is a photo of a delicious, rich, moist sourdough chocolate cake which I made from a recipe found in the book "Wild Sourdough: The Natural Way to Bake" by Yoke Mardewi. Her book, as seen below, also includes other delicious recipes. All her recipes are step by step easy to follow with lots of photos.

Through trial and error we have come to the conclusion that you get the best results when cutting the bread if you leave the sourdough loafs to cool down to room temperature. It may take up to 2 or 3 hours, sometimes even longer. I know it is hard to resist a slice of hot bread when you first start baking. Losing a crust here and there will not be a problem.

For us, sourdough bread is a substitute for store bought bread so it should provide the same convenience of use, that is, sandwich size and pre-cut to the same thickness ready to be used when needed.

With each baking session we have five loafs to cut. My husband (Daniel) prefers to slice the bread with a food slicer. He bought one of the older model slicers which you turn by hand, on an auction site and is very happy with its performance. I don't like cleaning the slicer and prefer cutting the bread by hand with a knife on a glass cutting board. I wood cutting board will also work well. If you are worried that you won't be able to cut all the slices to the same thickness you can get a cutting guide to help. It's a case of practice makes perfect. You will soon be cutting uniform slices.

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