Post by speedysteve on Apr 26, 2016 12:24:02 GMT
I thought I'd share my experiences and basic recipe I've gathered from various sources and tweaked to suit my palette, flour type and oven.
Nothing comes close to good old fashioned fresh baked wholegrain sour dough bread IMO.
Do watch the Michael Pollen cooking programme 'Cooked', the air episode is all about air in food, focusing on bread. It's on Netflix.
New for me was that you could survive for a while on a porridge of just water and flour, leave it to become sour /ferment from natural yeast in the air, bake it and suddenly you could survive indefinitely on it! Magic:)
The process unlocks the whole goodness and nutrition in the grain.
It is also cited that the sour dough process negates the gluten problems found with 'modern' yeast bread!
It's interesting when you eat it that you naturally salivate, no need to gulp water down as with modern bread.
All this was worked out millenia ago by our forefathers by trial and error. Those guys knew how to survive!
Have a go!
My recipe
Sour dough bread
1. Make sough dough starter
50g white spelt,
50g wholegrain spelt
90g lukewarm water
Mix and leave part covered.
Discard 80% everyday and feed as above.
Mix 3-4 times a day until it goes yeasty and rises. Took 7 days until really yeasty and fermenting well.
2. Make sour dough leaven evening before you want to bake.
Take 40-45g of sour dough fermented mix, mix in 200g of flour, and 190g of luke warm water. Should be a nice porridge consistency.
Leave overnight or really more like 14 - 18hours, until nice and bubbly / smelling good and yeasty.
Next day,
Take sour dough leaven add
a mix which is 250ml of water, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil + 2 tablespoons of honey if desired (I prefer without) that's been heated to luke warm. You can also add a bit of fennel.
Then add 1000ml (about 600g) of whole grain flour. Sorry for the mixed measures:) You might need a little less so add bit by bit.
Knead the dough until elastic, about 10 mins.
Use the heel of your hand to push the dough away to really stretch it out.
Don't skimp!
Divide and place into two olive oil greased tins. Greased paper tin liners are also great.
Leave to rise to about double height.
Could be 2hrs or more.
3. Place in oven at 190 degrees for 10 mins then reduce to 170 for 30-35mins.
Turn out onto wire rack and cover.
4. After a couple of bakes, top up the sour dough starter.
Add 100g flour / 100g luke warm water. Mix and leave until yeasty and fermenting (about a day), mixing a few times, then put in fridge until needed for next baking session.
Happy eating!
Nothing comes close to good old fashioned fresh baked wholegrain sour dough bread IMO.
Do watch the Michael Pollen cooking programme 'Cooked', the air episode is all about air in food, focusing on bread. It's on Netflix.
New for me was that you could survive for a while on a porridge of just water and flour, leave it to become sour /ferment from natural yeast in the air, bake it and suddenly you could survive indefinitely on it! Magic:)
The process unlocks the whole goodness and nutrition in the grain.
It is also cited that the sour dough process negates the gluten problems found with 'modern' yeast bread!
It's interesting when you eat it that you naturally salivate, no need to gulp water down as with modern bread.
All this was worked out millenia ago by our forefathers by trial and error. Those guys knew how to survive!
Have a go!
My recipe
Sour dough bread
1. Make sough dough starter
50g white spelt,
50g wholegrain spelt
90g lukewarm water
Mix and leave part covered.
Discard 80% everyday and feed as above.
Mix 3-4 times a day until it goes yeasty and rises. Took 7 days until really yeasty and fermenting well.
2. Make sour dough leaven evening before you want to bake.
Take 40-45g of sour dough fermented mix, mix in 200g of flour, and 190g of luke warm water. Should be a nice porridge consistency.
Leave overnight or really more like 14 - 18hours, until nice and bubbly / smelling good and yeasty.
Next day,
Take sour dough leaven add
a mix which is 250ml of water, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil + 2 tablespoons of honey if desired (I prefer without) that's been heated to luke warm. You can also add a bit of fennel.
Then add 1000ml (about 600g) of whole grain flour. Sorry for the mixed measures:) You might need a little less so add bit by bit.
Knead the dough until elastic, about 10 mins.
Use the heel of your hand to push the dough away to really stretch it out.
Don't skimp!
Divide and place into two olive oil greased tins. Greased paper tin liners are also great.
Leave to rise to about double height.
Could be 2hrs or more.
3. Place in oven at 190 degrees for 10 mins then reduce to 170 for 30-35mins.
Turn out onto wire rack and cover.
4. After a couple of bakes, top up the sour dough starter.
Add 100g flour / 100g luke warm water. Mix and leave until yeasty and fermenting (about a day), mixing a few times, then put in fridge until needed for next baking session.
Happy eating!
