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Let's talk about sourdough bread! Our sourdough at Sugar & Spice is a true authentic sourdough, meaning its ingredients are nothing more than flour, water, starter and salt. That's it, nothing more is required except for time and patience. Every afternoon, once the bakers have finished with all of the various bread mixes for the day, whatever sourdough starter (mother) is left is mixed with more water and flour. Then it is placed in the cooler overnight to slowly grow and become strong enough to use for the next day. In early 2010 I started my first sourdough starter here at Sugar & Spice. Having many years of bread baking experience already under my belt I already knew many of the secrets and techniques needed to maintain a healthy sourdough starter. Most importantly you cant forget about it, it is a live culture that has to be fed daily to keep it fresh and alive. Its ok to skip a day now and then as long as the cooler where you are keeping your starter is very cold. Working 6 days a week for the first decade it was easy to keep it alive and healthy. Then came COVID, and we had to close the bakery, for a time at least. So I took a small piece of starter home with me and continued to feed it daily. Once some of the restrictions were lifted and we were able to return to work. I took that little bottle of starter back to the bakery and slowly fed it enough to make it bigger and bigger. |
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When we mix our sourdough bread, a portion of the mother is used along with flour, water and salt. Then the dough is allowed to mature for several hours until it has started to rise and is ready to be portioned into individual loaves. The bakers cut the dough into different weights depending on what size loaf they are making, the dough is left to relax for about an hour. Then, it receives it final shaping and is placed in the baking pan or mold. These pans/molds are placed in the cooler to mature/rise overnight. This process takes roughly 18 to 20 hours to achieve. Sometime the next morning the bakers remove the pans of sourdough from the cooler, make cuts or scores on the top of the loaves (this helps to control how the dough rises in the oven) and place in a very hot oven. Here the magic happens... when dough is transformed into a golden loaf of bread. |
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Sourdough should have a slightly sour/acidic flavor to it. If it gets too sour it means that your starter is fermenting too much and adjustments need to be made to bring it back to where it should be.
Sourdough bread should NEVER contain commercial yeast in the recipe, this includes fresh yeast or dried rapid rise yeast. Some bakeries add this to speed along the process, but this yeast will kill the sourdough culture and hinder the overall flavor or the bread. If you taste a sourdough bread and it just tastes like any other white bread, then chances are it has had "yeast" added to the process somewhere along the line. Its not authentic sourdough! At Sugar & Spice we never add "yeast" to our sourdough. Other breads require yeast but not sourdough, ever! |
OUR BREADS
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OUR DAILY BREAD SPECIALS
