NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
June 25, 1998
One whiff and the nose of anyone who's ever experienced the pleasures of fresh-baked bread knows what's in the oven. People have eaten bread for centuries—millennia, really. Many of the ancient stories involving bread that most of us are familiar with feature unleavened bread, yet I think it's accurate to say that unleavened bread is a comparatively minor character in the cast of today's bakery products. So how did our bread-baking forefathers get us to where we are today? The answer, in part, involves yeast starters, of which sourdough is the most famous.
Prior to the advent of commercially available baking powders and yeasts, which evolved during the 19th century, yeast starters were the leaveners of the day, says Sharon Tyler Herbst, author of "The Food Lover's Companion." These starters were a simple mixture of flour, water, sugar and in many cases, airborne yeast (Herbst doesn't elaborate on how bakers of yesteryear captured airborne yeast).
Bread made with a sourdough starter tends to have a lighter, more sponge-like texture compared to bread with yeast as the only leavening agent. Sourdough bread also has a tangier flavor. Once you've got a sourdough starter going, you're not limited to making the classic San Francisco Sourdough. There are sourdough recipes for English muffins and French bread and breads containing whole wheat flour, corn meal, rye flour—even cheddar cheese.
Recipes and procedures for replenishing or refreshing sourdough starters appear in virtually every bread cookbook and on the Internet, so I won't provide one, but Herbst offers a couple of pointers that bear repeating. Two cups of yeast starter is roughly equivalent to one package of active dry yeast. Before using or replenishing, bring yeast starters to room temperature. Toss any starter that turns orange or pink and develops an unpleasantly acrid odor. The color and smell signal the presence of undesirable bacteria.
The recipe that follows is one my wife, Nicki, adapted from "Baking Bread at Home: Traditional Recipes from Around the World," by Tom Jaine, and the "Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Bread Cook Book." Be forewarned: this bread demands about 5½ hours of your time from start until you're tearing in, but most of that time is waiting for the bread to rise. If you like fresh-baked bread (and who doesn't?), it's worth the effort.
Sourdough Focaccia
Yield: 2 loaves, 6 servings eachIngredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1½ cups warm water (105 to 115 F)
1 cup sourdough starter
2 tablespoons olive oil
5½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
Procedure:
In a large bowl, combine yeast, sugar and water; blend in
starter, olive oil, 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir until
smooth. Add 1 cup flour and soda and stir until well blended. Add
enough of the remaining 2½ cups of flour to make a moderately
stiff dough. Gather dough into a ball and transfer to a floured
work surface. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes until smooth. Place in
large greased bowl; turn dough once. Cover and let rise until
double. Turn onto floured surface and divide in half, molding
each half into a ball. Flatten each ball and then extend with
palm and fingers into 10-inch rounds. If dough is resistant, let
rest for a few minutes covered with oiled plastic wrap. Put
shaped loaves onto well-greased baking pans. Cover with oiled
plastic wrap and let rise for a half hour. Remove plastic and use
fingertips to "dimple" loaves by pressing nearly to the
bottom of each loaf. Replace plastic and let dough rise for
another 2 hours. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 450 F. Sprinkle
loaves with coarse salt and drizzle olive oil into the dimples.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. To aid browning, use a sprayer to mist
water into the oven three times during the first 5 minutes of
baking. Halfway through the baking, switch pans on racks. Cool
loaves on wire racks.
What's Your Take on This, Julie?
With all the headlines about food safety, microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds have gotten a bad name. While microorganisms can spoil our food or make us ill, we sometimes forget about the valuable ones that give foods a distinctive flavor or texture.
We wouldn't have blue cheese if it weren't for certain strains of mold. We wouldn't have cultured dairy products such as sour cream, yogurt and buttermilk without certain types of bacteria. And, without certain types of yeast, we wouldn't have bread, wine or beer.
Tasty and nutritious, a serving of this recipe for sourdough bread (one-sixth of a loaf) contains about 120 calories and has about 1.5 grams of fat.
"Classic" sourdough starter cultures are mixtures of water and flour, which when exposed to air, are inoculated by wild yeasts. The bubbles which form in three to five days are from the yeast fermenting the carbohydrates in the flour and producing carbon dioxide gas.
But it pays to be cautious with starter cultures. For safety and consistency, some researchers suggest beginning with cultured buttermilk or yogurt, which contains active bacteria. Whole wheat or rye flour may provide a better carbohydrate source for the cultures than white flour.
Pasteurized milk is not a good liquid to use for starter cultures, since the lactic acid bacteria will have been inactivated and most likely, you'll end up with a foul smelling mixture in a few days as other organisms grow. Raw milk should not be used, because it can be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.
A starter also can be made with commercial dry yeast. While commercial yeast is a more reliable source of leavening power, the products may lack the distinct flavor of true sourdough. A starter should have a yeasty, slightly sour smell. Once active, the starter should be refrigerated until use. To remain active, the living yeast cells in the starter culture need food, usually flour and sugar.
Sourdough bread has become a hot item in upscale restaurants in recent years. Regardless of how you "start your starter," try making sourdough bread. It could become your trademark recipe.
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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136 & Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187
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