If you have never tried making sourdough bread you may suppose it a daunting process. It is in fact the simplest and most traditional way of making bread. I imagine the aroma that fills my house as my bread bakes is what it must have smelled like to walk down the paths that crisscrossed between the small clustered bakeries of Ancient Egypt. Many hundreds of small-scale bakeries were set-up one after another like a great city of bakeries. In this way, all the bread was baked similarly to how one bakes at home. The bread from these numerous bakeries fueled the giant workforce of Egyptian citizens, for it was not slaves, as we were all taught in grade school, who built the Great Pyramid.
To make a sourdough starter, all you need is some whole wheat flour, or leftover cooked grains and some water. Yeasts are present everywhere. Each kitchen has its own very unique balance of wild yeasts. So each loaf is as unique as its harnesser. The following recipe for whole grain starter I got from Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz. The bread recipe here I adapted from a recipe for Sourdough Rye Bread in The Tassajara Bread Book. You may want to experiment with various flours and grains in both recipes to create a variety of flavors and textures. However, these particular recipes make delicious bread!
Wild-Yeasted, Whole Grain Starter
2 Cups Whole Wheat Bread Flour
2 Cups Warm Water
With a wooden spoon, mix both ingredients together in a glass jar or ceramic crock, making sure the vessel has enough head room to allow the mixture to bubble and grow. Cover with a tea towel to keep out flies and dust. I secure my tea towel on with a rubber band around the mouth of the jar, which also catches any overflow if the mixture should outgrow its jar. Feed your starter each day with a handful of whole grain flour and stir vigorously to disperse your yeast colony. It should become thick by the time it is ready to use, but if it gets too thick to stir add a little warm water.
I have read varying lengths of time it takes for starter to sour, but mine did not match any of them. I suspect it depends on each particular environment's yeast and temperature, and on grains and flours used.
I would say possibly a minimum of 5 days and as many as 8-10 days before starter will fully develop its own characteristic soured aroma. All that I can say is YOU"LL KNOW! You'll know its ready to use when smelling it makes your legs quiver and it smells so strong and delicious you fear you might start gulping it from the jar. You'll know its ready when one whiff sends you into ecstatic paroxysm and you have to fight to suppress the urge to run and slather it all over your lover's body in Dionysian disregard for self control.
Sourdough Rye Bread
At night:
Before you go to bed, while making supper, after supper, whatever--this does not call for exactness--put 5 cups of whole wheat flour into a large ceramic, wooden or glass bowl or crock. Pour 1-1 1/2 cups of starter over that. Then stir in 4 cups of slightly warm water and stir and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth. This is your "sponge." Cover bowl with a tea towel and go to bed. Use remaining starter, for it can be easily replenished, to slather all over your lover's body in wild-yeasted abandon.
In the morning:
Most recipes say to remove a cup of the sponge to replenish the starter, but I found that by ignoring this step I could have larger loaves! And as long as I have a day or two before I need to bake again, I find that my starter can be replenished by adding a 1/2 Cup of whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup of warm water to the starter jar, then stir and cover.
Sprinkle 1 slightly rounded tablespoon of sea salt on top of your sponge. Pour on 1/2 cup, plus a drizzle for luck, of safflower oil, or oil of your choice--not canola. Yuck!--Then fold those in with your wooden spoon, never cutting through your dough with the spoon, which would cut your dough strands possibly preventing proper rising. Fold in, one cup at a time, 3 cups of rye flour and 2 cups unbleached white flour or whole wheat flour, depending on your preference, folding with your wooden spoon until it becomes too stiff to use the spoon. At that point turn the dough out onto a floured board and kneed, adding as much white or wheat flour to make a smooth, not very sticky dough(1-1 1/2 cups).
Cut the dough in half and form two round loaves. Sprinkle a baking sheet with corn flour and place loaves spaced a little apart on the baking sheet. Make three parallel slashes through the middle of each loaf about 1/2" deep. Cover with a tea towel and let rise for about two hours.
Place a small baking pan of water on the bottom rack of your oven. Preheat oven to 400 fahrenheit degrees. Spray loaves with water and place on middle rack to bake. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees, spray loaves with water again and bake another 40-45 minutes or until golden, not browned. If your bread comes out too doughy in the center adjust the cooking time for your oven. For best results, allow loaves to cool for a bit before cutting into them. You will get cleaner slices without crumbling your crust apart.
Now you have bread and sourdough starter actively replenishing. For sourdough pancakes, just follow any recipe you find for them--there is a good one in Wild Fermentation. Also in this heroic book of all- things-fermented you can find a recipe for Bouza, Ancient Egyptian beer, that uses starter, wheat berries, and bread! Can't wait to try it.
Happy Yeast Breeding!
