I haven't done a food post in a while, and since I've been trying something new in the kitchen, here's the chance to blog it.
This is my second attempt at baking a sour dough bread. I think it was rather successful. It rose nicely and most important of all, tastes great. There is an endless supply of sour dough recipe video recipes to find. As luck would have it, I came across one from an Irish baker. He had all of the professional tricks to streamline the process.
Long ago, our ancestors discovered, that if their bread dough mixture was exposed to the air, it would sour, and bubble. At some point, some one rather than throwing it away, perhaps because food was scarce, baked it anyway and were presented with a pleasant surprise, when the bread was removed from the oven being bulging and fluffy rather than flat and dense.
There are airborne yeast bacteria everywhere. All you have to do is expose your semi-liquid dough mixture to the air, and the yeast will colonize your dough, hence the sour smell and bubbles.
I assume almost any type of flour can be used, but for this bread I used spelt (DE: Dinkel). The initial starter culture is 50 / 50 water and flour, which is exposed a day or so to the air. Outdoors is best as there is more airborne yeast. You then place it in a covered container for up to four days, occasionally stirring it and checking that your new house pet (yes, it is alive!) does not bubble out of it's new home.
Once you have the starter culture, you can now take a portion of it, and add it to your bread mixture.
- 1/2 flour
- 1/8 starter culture
- 3/8 water
- salt
- dash of olive oil
All of this is mixed and then kneaded until it reaches an elastic consistence. Something I worked out, was kneading the dough in a bowl with a bakers scraper, minimizes the mess on the kitchen surfaces.
The dough is then placed in a container lined with baking paper, covered, and left to rise for 6 - 8 hours, in a warm spot, during which the yeast will get to work and cause the dough to rise.
When the dough is ready, if you hadn't already placed in a baking form to rise, you can do so now or lift it out by the backing paper and place it on an oven grill, which will end up in a flatter bread.
Pre-heat the oven to 220 Celsius / 428 Fahrenheit, and then bake the bread for 20 - 30 minutes.
Your nose will forewarn you when it is ready!
When it is done, take it from the oven and let it cool a little as it will be extremely hot. Then cut yourself a slice of delicious sour dough bread and enjoy it whatever way you please.