Is your Real Bread wild at heart?
Contributed by our farm’s baker, Gaye Whitwam of Sticky Mitts
On the 1st September the Real Bread Campaign launches Sourdough September, Britain’s national celebration of “real bread”!
We are not talking about the par-baked things that are rebaked in supermarket loaf tanning salons or other suspicious substitutes made using dried sourdough powder and commercial baker’s yeast and quite possibly a bunch of artificial additives and processing aids…we are talking Real Bread.
Genuine sourdough bread is leaved only using a live starter culture produced by a mixture of flour and water to nurture one or more species of yeast and lactic acid bacteria that occur naturally on the surface of cereal grains and therefore in the flour. As well as developing a greater depth and complexity of flavour, aroma and texture than bread made with commercial baker’s yeast, some studies have found that long fermentation using a sourdough starter has a range of dietary benefits.
To celebrate Sourdough September therefore our “Special” loaf this month is a Sourdough made with stoneground flour, wild yeast, sea salt, beetroot and fennel. Don’t be put off by the name. Sourdough does not have to be sour and this one isn’t. What it is however is highly digestible and full of flavour.