What else you can add

When you add cornmeal, wheat berries, oatmeal or rye flour, or vary the proportion of

several flours within the dough, you change the texture and flavor of the bread. You can further

enrich the dough by adding flavor-rich foods such as milk and egg. You can change the flavor by

adding potato or caraway seeds, fennel seeds or herbs, among other things. Only robust, strong-

flavored spices and herbs are effective—the essential oils of milder herbs evaporate during the

baking process. Some bread recipes use onion and cheese, others carrots, raisins, cranberries; there

is virtually no limit to what you can legally incorporate. But the best bread to all of us, bread purists,

is plain ordinary crusty, chewy bread with very little or no addition.

The cooking water for potatoes is full of nutrients and starch. It is a great substitute for water

in the dough, providing extra nutrition for both you and the yeast and it also adds a richer flavor. So

reserve this water in a jar after you drain the potatoes, and keep it in your refrigerator. Next time you

bake bread, instead of using warm water from the tap, measure the needed amount from this

reserve, heat it up to the required 105 to 110°F (41 to 44°C), add the yeast and proceed as usual.

However, reduce the salt slightly in your bread dough to compensate for the salt in the cooking

water. Don’t use cooking water in which you cooked unpeeled potatoes—it includes unwanted

flavors and possibly toxins.

What makes sourdough bread sour

Sourdough is also a yeast bread, but in a true sourdough the yeast is natural, wild yeast from

the air, not from a package. It is not the same strain of baking yeast we find on the supermarket

shelves. Commercially produced yeast detest sour environment and doesn’t develop happily in it.

Yeast cells exist everywhere in the air and soil, and many natural yeasts are suitable for

producing carbon dioxide bubbles in the bread dough. These wild yeast strains enjoy and thrive in

acid conditions of the sourdough. As soon as you prepare a dough with flour and water, yeast cells

flock to it, congregate in it to feed on their favorite food, sugars.

The sour taste of sourdough bread, however, is not the result of yeast activities but to

bacteria, also natural in the air, that also invade your bread dough. Yeast cells multiply fast and they

start fermentation within hours if the temperature is favorable, but bacteria need several days to

build up enough lactic and acetic acid to give the characteristic sour flavor. That’s why real, natural

sourdough must rest for several days.

The first step of making sourdough bread is to develop a sourdough starter, what

professional bakers call levain, that you can use over and over again. The starter consists of flour

and water mixed to make a very soft, almost liquid dough. The ratio is about a ½ cup flour to 1 cup

water. Don't add salt to this starter because it interferes with yeast development. Yeast doesn't like

salty environment. Let this dough stand in your kitchen to invite the appropriate yeast and bacteria

from the air. They multiply in the dough and develop both leavening power and a sour taste within a

few days.

When you are ready to bake a sourdough bread, divide the starter into two half portions. Use

one half to make your dough, replenish the other half with flour and water, then put it in your

refrigerator for the next bread’s starter dough. If you bake often and sourdough is on your menu

frequently, you want to have your starter at the ready. If you rarely bake sourdough, the starter may

get too old to be usable by the time you need it again. You can refresh it, but you have to plan a few

days ahead.

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