Natural Birth and Baby Care.com

Baking Homemade Sourdough Bread

by Kim
(Mountain Home, ID)

Do you know the best way to make a 100% WW sourdough bread? I want to start making my family's bread. I would like to use a WW starter but don't know if it's really necessary or if it produces the best tasting loaf. How do I ferment all of the WW flour and not just that in the starter?

Answer:

Hi Kim,

I am no bread expert by any means, but I can recommend a great book to help you make delicious sourdoughs.

To answer your question about fermenting - the best sourdough has been allowed to ferment for many hours or even overnight. You'll feed your starter ("mother") to keep it happy, and on the day you're planning to make bread you'll take part of your starter and mix it with the flour for your bread, then let that mixture sit. The starter will ferment the rest of the flour during the hours it's sitting to proof and rise.

Now - for the book. My town has an excellent brick oven bakery that makes delicious, real sourdoughs. This is the book they recommended and the recipes are wonderful: The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. The best sourdough in it, in my opinion, is the desem bread.

Good luck as you bake bread for your family - there's nothing like a hot, homemade loaf of bread :)