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Tag: sourdough

  • Sourdough bread course

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    A small bakery called «Ille bakeri» recently arranged a course on how to make a sourdough bread in 4 hours. Upon arrival at Mølleren Sylvia , the baker Martin Hveem Fjeld had put 11 bowls, one for each participant, on a table. Before starting the course, each of us should make a short presentation. Some of us had already made sourdough breads, but with very variable success. I had tried it once at another course, but I didn’t go on afterwards. Anyway, when we started baking, we were all on more or less the same level.

    Martin had already made a sourdough starter, and having poured a fixed amount of water and sourdough starter in each bowl, we should first stir the mixture well. Next, he poured a fixed amount of wheat flour from Holli mill into each bowl, which we should stir until both water, starter and flour was mixed well together. Martin‘s only using wholemeal flour meaning that it contains both endosperm, germ and bran, keeping both taste and nutrients.

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal_germ#/media/File:Wheat-kernel_nutrition.png

    Gluten (from Latin gluten, “glue”) is a composite of storage proteins termed prolamins and glutelins and stored together with starch in the endosperm (which nourishes the embryonic plant during germination) of various grass-related grains.

    Gluten is appreciated for its viscoelastic properties. It gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture.

    Gluten enables dough with yeast to leaven because it forms a network of small walls which confines carbon dioxide and water vapour inside the dough. It also works as a binder in the dough, making it easier to work with.

    Holli mill grinds grain by means of millstones where the germ is ground into the flour such that it contains more fat than grinding by means of a roller mill, which is used for industrial production of flour.

    Sourdough starters contain yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. While the yeasts expand bread by leaving air pockets after baking, the lactic acid bacteria improve taste, sight, smell and touch of bread as well as their shelf life, nutritional value and wholesomeness. A sourdough starter contains thousands of different microorganisms, which will leaven the bread much slower than when using baker’s yeast.

    After about half an hour, we were told to pull the dough away from the wall of the bowl, then let it fall back again. After we had completed this task, we should let the dough rest for about one hour before repeating the same procedure. Since the dough was very wet, we needed to scrape off the dough from our hands and inside the bowls by means of a spatula. During the stay inside the bowl, we could observe formation of bubbles appearing in the dough, which was a sure sign that the yeasts were turning sugars into carbon dioxide. After a break, we restricted the fermentation by adding unrefined salt.

    Besides, by adding salt, the gluten network in the dough is broken up such that it will be arranged anew and form stronger and more bonds. Since we added unrefined salt, which contains some essential trace elements in very small concentrations. The main ones are calcium, magnesium and sulphate, which, while they are there in tiny concentrations (parts per million), they are important to human health and to bread production.

    Next, we should turn the bowl such that the opening faced downwards and scrape the dough out of the bowl, letting it fall down on a wooden table on which we had applied flour in advance. We tightened up the dough by means of a dough scraper. This consisted of holding the scraper obliquely and pushing it below the dough, forcing it upwards, then pulling the scraper out. It seemed very easy when Martin did it, but when I should do it, the dough was so sticky that it got attached to the scraper. Unsurprisingly, several of us needed help to finish this task.

    After a break, we watched Martin turn the dough into a sausage-shape, folding the dough onto itself, pulling the far end of the dough left and right, braiding the parts of the dough and folding them back on the dough. Having done the same at the middle and near end, he put the dough into a basket called a banneton in which he first poured a small amount of rice flour. They are called hevekurv in Norwegian, meaning leavening basket, because they are used to let the dough leaven.

    Next, we should do the same as he did, but almost all of us asked Martin to help us with this work, which seemed easy when he did it, but not so easy when we should do it. Finally, everyone had a banneton with sourdough and having got both sourdough starter, flour, spatulas, a razor blade with a wooden handle and a dough scraper, we left the premises. We were told to let the dough stay in a fridge for at least 12 hours before baking it and we should use the razor blade to make some cuts in the dough such it could expand through the cracks during baking.

    I baked the bread, but I had to lower the temperature from the recommended 250ºC to about 175ºC because the crust was getting burnt. After baking, I had a delicious sourdough bread for a few days.

    For those who are interested in knowing more Martin’s breads, he has made a book on the breads with a couple of friends. It can be found in Norwegian here and in English here. He arranges courses occasionally and they can be found at his web page.

    Making a sourdough bread or any other bakery product from sourdough entails using the same procedure for baking as was done from the dawn of civilisation to about 1900 when baker’s yeast  started replacing sourdough.

    As a follow-up, The Ultimate Guide to Sourdough Bread  might come in handy.

  • Skog bakery workshop

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    Besides going to a chocolate-making course, I also joined a bread-making course at Skog bakery workshop where the owner, Anne Lise Tharaldsen works as both baker and confectioner. Actually, it felt good going to a bakery course at this bakery since she’s using spelt, a type of rye called svedjerug and emmer flour from Økologisk spesialkorn, one of whose owners I had already met at a field trial of growing cereals. The farmers, who are cultivating the cereals from which Anne Lise is using flour to make her products, let their harvests grow slowly without using artificial fertilisers. According to Anne Lise, the resulting flour is easily workable, all nutrients are present and it gives tasty products.

    As participants at the course, we should make sourdough bread based on flour from spelt, besides mash from a local brewery  The fermentation starter or mother dough, which is used to leaven the breads,  was reused. In fact, Anne Lise keeps it alive by giving it flour occasionally. She weighed the required amount of flour and poured it into a kneader. After having added water and the mother dough, she started the kneader, freeing us from the long and arduous work of kneading the dough.

    While waiting for the dough to finish, Anne Lise showed us her bakery, which looked very tidy and modern. Instead, she told us that the building in which her bakery was situated, had been built recently, while she had bought the kneader, the bakery oven and various bits and pieces second-hand. She’s very concerned about preserving biological diversity and she has included a ladybird in her logo signifying that ladybirds eat aphids if the plants aren’t sprayed with insecticides. She’s also using organic butter from Rørosmeieriet, organic cocoa butter and cocoa powder.

    When the dough was finished, we took it out of the kneader and cut it into parts weighing what was required to make one bread or one bread roll. Finally, we shaped the dough manually and put it into moulds, looking like baskets consisting of concentric circles. After having left the pieces of dough in a chamber for leavening for some time, we took them out again and put them in an oven by means of a long-handed shovel. After some time, we took the breads and bread rolls out of the oven again, but not before measuring the temperature inside some of them. If the internal temperature was too low, they had to stay longer in the oven. Some of the more experienced students also knocked on the base of the bread, listening for a special sound, indicating that it was ready. Interestingly, the bakers at the Porta confectionery and bakery in the town of Gonnosfanadiga in Sardinia did the same.

    Finally, after having paid Anne Lise the course fee, we could go back home with a selection of delicious breads and bread rolls, all of which were tasty for the approximately two weeks it took to eat all of them.

     

  • Porta confectionery and bakery

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    After having arrived in Gonnosfanadiga, a so-called town of bread, where bread turns out to be one of the leading products of this village in Medio Campidano, we went to one of the best bakeries in this region, the Porta bakery in order to get to know some of  the history of bread connected with the most ancient traditions of the Sardinian culture. The Porta bakery was established in 1918 when Grandma Chiara was always preparing bread for her family and their neighbours. A lot has happened since, but due to lots of work, sacrifice and passion, the Porta confectionery and bakery has become a point of reference in Sardinia for appreciation of the art of bread-making. In 2007, this firm started an educational workshop on bread, giving children, but also adults, the possibility to get to know how to make bread and, at the same time, hold in high regard such a genuine product.

    The objective with the educational workshop is to engage all participants in every phase of the preparation of bread: milling Cappelli wheat, sifting, making dough with a sourdough starter and baking.

    We were also invited into the workshop of this firm where a wonderful gathering of traditional types of bread in Sardinia like moddizzosu, coccoi and civraxiu together with a small stone mill besides ingredients for making bread like white flour, semolina, Cappelli wheat and a sourdough starter were exhibited on a large table.

    Sourdough starters contain yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. While the yeasts expand bread by leaving air pockets after baking, the lactic acid bacteria improve taste, sight, smell and touch of bread as well as their shelf life, nutritional value and wholesomeness. A sourdough starter contains thousands of different microorganisms, which will leaven the bread much slower than when using baker’s yeast.

    The sourdough starter has to be renewed regularly and each time it is used for making bread, a part of it is kept for the next bread-making. The microorganisms in the sourdough starter are kept alive by giving them nutrients like semolina for food and water for drinking. It is also necessary to stir it such that the microorganisms can breathe. In fact, the sourdough starter used at Porta dates back at least 70 years, being refreshed from generation to generation.

    At the Porta workshop, the students are taught to use all five senses in order to help them recognise a well-made sourdough bread. For instance, it’s possible to recognise a sourdough bread from the sound which arises when it is hit by one’s hand, and the bakers at Porta call it “hear the quality of the bread” because the leavening leaves air pockets inside the bread. A freshly baked bread called moddizosu will emit a sound like a drum when it’s hit by a hand. Looking inside the bread, it can be seen that it is yellowish due to the semolina, a uniform density of holes and a humid, but not pasty texture and a slightly sour aroma. Thus, having “graduated” from the Porta workshop, bakers of all ages can find out if a sourdough bread is made well and in accordance with Sardinian traditions.

    This precious food encloses in a certain sense the history of Sardinia.

    Riccardo, a master baker at Porta told us: “Each bread in Sardinia was made in accordance with requirements to consumption. For instance, the soft bread which was made in lower Campidano was a bread for peasants because they required a bread which would last a couple of days. Instead, carasau is typical for the region of Nuoro because most of the men were shepherds working outside for long periods, requiring a bread which could last a month or even more. Then, there is the region of Ogliastra where breads were made with potatoes because farmers were cultivating them. There was also the bread of Carloforte, which are really crackers, and called the seaman’s bread because it was used by seamen during long voyages. The crackers were were dipped into water and flavoured with vegetable oil, vinegar, tomatoes and salted tuna. Moreover, there is a bread called spianatina, which is typical for the region of Ozieri”.

    This means that every region of Sardinia has its own type of bread connected with the traditions of every place.

    It was very interesting for use to rediscover, together with Riccardo, not just the secrets of bread-making, but in particular the symbolism of this food, a food which has become so important for Sardinian culture and traditions, being used in various religious ceremonies, like marriages, baptisms and communions, as a sign of good wishes.

    We got to know the history of a bakery, or more correctly, the history of the Porta family through the experience of their ancestors and capabilities obtained over time, commit themselves and getting better and, at the same time, maintaining ancient traditions.

    We thank the Porta family for having taught us to appreciate even more the deep roots of a wholesome and genuine food like the Sardinian bread.