Slow bread for busy lives
Andrew Whitley reveals the simple truth about sourdough bread
Sourdough bread is all the rage. It takes pride of place in every artisan or micro-bakery. It has helped countless people enjoy bread again after years of digestive discomfort associated with speedily produced industrial loaves. It even appears in supermarkets.
A product has well and truly emerged from its niche when it has been adopted by multiple retailers. However, their habitual tendency to dumb down and cut corners has, predictably enough, spawned loaves that are sourdough more by name than nature. As a result, many people’s first taste of sourdough is both disappointing and inauthentic. One sure way to avoid this experience is to bake bread at home, as more and more people are doing.
Yet while many of us feel an urge to try sourdough, we can’t imagine ever having the time (or skill) to master it.
The truth is, everyone — in fact, anyone — can DO sourdough. Here’s why.
Sourdough is …
… just flour and water. It’s that simple. Given time and a little warmth, the yeasts and beneficial bacteria that are naturally present in the flour begin to multiply. The yeasts produce the carbon dioxide gas that makes the bread rise. The bacteria bring flavour and make the bread more nutritious and digestible.
Sourdough is economical. No need to seek out fresh yeast or pay extra for ‘fast-acting’ dried yeast (and its questionable additives). Just make a ‘starter’ with flour and water. Once this is fermenting well it can be used to make breads of all kinds — wholemeal, white, savoury and sweet.
The sourdough process is easy to manage. Refresh the starter with flour and water, let it ferment for a while, then use most of this to make bread, keeping a little back for the next batch — and so on, for ever.
Time is of the essence
The best breads are fermented slowly, which is exactly how sourdough yeasts and bacteria work. But they can do this while you, the baker, are asleep, at work or otherwise enjoying yourself. The slower a dough is rising, the longer the ‘window’ for getting it into the oven in good shape. You can bake to your own timetable, not one imposed by impatient yeast. Not much of your time is involved, unless you want it to be.
What’s more, slow bread keeps better, lasts longer and is more satisfying. Quick loaves, puffed up with instant yeast, soon dry out and crumble. All too often, their fermentative legacy lingers on in the form of bloating and bowel trouble.
Above all, sourdough is fun. While it’s easy to get good results simply by following the instructions, few people fail to be fascinated by the ‘miracle’ of flour and water coming to life. Working with natural processes seems to spark a spirit of enquiry and experimentation. The more we learn, the more conscious we become of the profound beauty of what we see. Sourdough bread-making is a craft that produces not only nourishing daily bread but reasons a-plenty to keep having another go.
Andrew Whitley is a baker of over 30 years who has ‘changed the way we think about bread’ (BBC Food and Farming award judges). He is a co-founder of the Real Bread campaign, which aims to bring good bread to every neighbourhood in the UK, and his company Bread Matters runs some of the most authoritative bread-making courses in the UK. Originally a producer with the BBC Russian Service, Andrew left in 1976 to found the Village Bakery in Melmerby, Cumbria, which became one of the UK’s leading organic bakeries. In addition to Do Sourdough, he is also the author of Bread Matters (Fourth Estate, 2006).
Extract from Do Sourdough: Slow bread for busy lives. by Andrew Whitley. Copyright © 2014 by Andrew Whitley. Published by The Do Book Co.
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If you’re inspired to get baking, give yourself a head start with the Do Sourdough + Starter set, available via the Do Books website.
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