Blueberry Lemon Sourdough Bread Recipe - it's wonderful | Foodgeek (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to sourdough bread? ›

The secret to sourdough is simple: water. The more water you add to your dough will affect how open the crumb (bigger holes and softer texture) will be once it's baked.

Keeping the lid on for the first part of baking allows steam to expand between the gluten fibers to rise the bread and create a fluffy loaf. Step 4: Remove the lid and bake for an additional 12-14 minutes or until the crust is crispy and golden brown. Once you take the lid off, the bread likely won't rise anymore.

Hard Red Wheat berries are great for adding flavor to the bread. They grind into a darker, more dense flour. Using 100 percent hard red wheat will result in a dark, somewhat dense bread. Kamut is an ancient wheat that grinds into a buttery light flour with a nutty flavor.

Sourdough bread's signature taste comes from friendly bacteria and yeast, which produce flavorful lactic and acetic acids in rising bread dough.

The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.

But one of the most common and abundant yeasts found in sourdough starters is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka “brewers” yeast. And while the strain of S. cerevisiae in sourdoughs is different than the one used to make commercial yeast, they are both the same species.

I prefer to use fresh blueberries. If you use frozen blueberries, theres no need to thaw them first. Just remember frozen berries will make your batter purple. Sprinkle a little flour into the blueberries to help prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the loaf.

The sourdough starter is the real secret to getting a good fermentation going. Essentially your sourdough starter is old dough, which has already pre-fermented and contains Lactobacillus culture. Lactobacillus culture has a sour taste and is an active culture that lives off natural yeast spores from the air.

There are two main acids produced in a sourdough culture: lactic acid and acetic acid. Acetic acid, or vinegar, is the acid that gives sourdough much of its tang. Giving acetic acid-producing organisms optimal conditions to thrive and multiply will produce a more tangy finished product.

How to make sourdough more flavorful? ›

Generally a more mature and well established starter will produce a more flavorful, sour loaf. Hydration of the Dough - this affects how long your dough will take to ferment. A slightly lower hydration will take longer to ferment than a higher hydration loaf, leading to a bigger depth of flavor and sourness.

Using flours with more ash, or mineral, content, will yield more sour taste. If you can't get enough ash, adding a bit of whole wheat flour to your recipe, which is what is done with the 20% Bran Flour, will boost the sour of a bread. Conversely, using a lower ash flour will tend to produce a milder bread.

The sourdough starter is the real secret to getting a good fermentation going. Essentially your sourdough starter is old dough, which has already pre-fermented and contains Lactobacillus culture. Lactobacillus culture has a sour taste and is an active culture that lives off natural yeast spores from the air.

The mother-dough is made of a mixture of flour and water fermented with bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Acetobacter and Saccharomyces. To create it and keep it alive requires patience and constant care. The mother-dough is a great leavening agent and makes a highly digestible bread.

Sourdough is a leavened bread, which means the dough naturally rises as a result of the gas that is produced as the grain ferments. While most commercial breads use baker's yeast as the raising agent, sourdough is made using a sourdough starter.