Urban Pioneers

Bread: what’s not to like? I don’t really know how my obsession began, but a few years back I somehow decided that, if I was excelling as a cook, I should improve my skills as a baker as well. All part of the overall knowledge base quest.

My first bread book was called “Global Baker“. It was given to me in December 2007. I read it and became immediately fascinated by the process of break making. The allure of the craft, the tactile nature of handling the dough, and the old school skill set that was required to handle and feel the readiness of the dough.

The first bread I baked was a walnut & parmesan loaf. It turned out well, giving me hope that I could actually do this. I decided almost right away that I had to master the art of sourdough bread making. I knew that it was difficult – didn’t know why. So I gave myself a two-year time period to perfect the making of sourdough.

Walnut Parmesan Loaf

To make sourdough, you must first either inherit, or create, a sourdough starter (also commonly referred to as the “mother” or “sponge”). Creating a starter basically involves the capturing and maturing of wild yeasts, and raising them much like a household pet. The starter must be fed regularly, and put to “bed” in the fridge on a regular schedule in order to ensure that it stays healthy and alive. Feeding it usually takes place once a week, with measured amounts of pure water and organic flour. This schedule works well, as it takes about two days to actually make sourdough; one day to feed the mother, getting the yeast active again, then a second day to make the bread itself, feed the mother again and put it to bed.

The Global Baker book was an excellent primer, as it went into all of the standard terms, techniques and tools of bread making. It also gives its reader some fascinating history on sourdough itself. The passage on sourdough reads:

“Although its exact origin is unknown, ancient murals have revealed that sourdough was being made in ancient Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean as early as 6,000 B.C. Fermentation, achieved as a consequence of mistakes and/or experimentation, allowed ancient peoples to turn grape juice into wine, milk into cheese and mixtures of flour into more tasty baked goods. It is very likely that, initially, as often happens, the dough turned sour by mistake and to correct the mistake it was kneaded with some fresh flour. After some time, the dough achieved a sponge structure, witch made a tastier and softer baked bread. The discovery was the starting point for improved bread production.”

My first attempt was to make sourdough based on the recipe in Global Baker. Some 8,000 years may have passed between the time that sourdough was discovered and now, but I can assure you that my learning curve involved a lot of mistakes and a lot of experimentation. I used what I had gathered from Global Baker, then looked to (Global Baker’s author) Dean Brettschneider’s good friend, Richard Bertinet. Richard is one of the more famous bakers in the world of bread. He was trained as a baker in Brittany and at the Grand Moulin de Paris. He currently runs the Dough Co., his bread baking business, and runs a baking school in Bath, England, called The Bertinet Kitchen. I have two of his books: One called “Crust“, and another called “Dough“. I bought and started using Crust first, as it has a good amount of info on sourdough bread making, and also has this magically inspirational DVD which details the French technique of making the bread. It involves sliding your fingers under the dough, then with your thumbs parallel to you index fingers, you life the dough slightly, swinging it upwards, then slapping it back down onto your counter, at which point you stretch it towards you, before finally flipping it back over itself like a wave. After a few weeks of practice doing this, it comes surprisingly easy, and you find that you can repeat this process very quickly. The tough part is the amount of energy involved in actually doing it! It can be quite a workout. Try it and you’ll quickly see what I mean.

Working dough the Bertinet way

I was in the middle of doing this one day when my upstairs neighbor, who already as lodged complaints about our BBQ smoke and is a general curmudgeon, came down and banged on our door. He was in a fit of delight, thinking that he had caught us undergoing renovations without strata permission. He was needless to say less than satisfied once he discovered that the noise was a result on my bread making process. Ultimately he did not file a complaint with our strata about my bread making technique.

So how did my first sourdough turn out? Disaster. Really thin, hard as a rock. The starter was homemade and I had little references to understand how it was to smell, behave, look, taste. So I was a bit adrift, having read the two books and scoured the internet. The problem is, sourdough and its starter will react differently to different parts of the world. This is fairly common knowledge. Sourdough from the east will taste different from sourdough from the west. Same with north and south. San Francisco is famous for its sourdough, but my current sourdough mother comes from Boston (which I will get into a little later). Depending on where you are, you have to learn what affects your bread. Humidity. Temperature. Drafts. It all matters. I thought that at this point my sourdough quest was over. But I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

A Sourdough Disaster