Total Food Services

Order Online Profit Calculator

Life is sweeter with sourdough

Back

Life's sweeter with sourdough!

For a whole month – 1st to 30th September 2017 – the Real Bread Campaign is on a mission to raise (pardon the pun) awareness of genuine sourdough bread with its 5th Sourdough September.

What exactly is sourdough?

Sourdough is the name of a mixture of water and flour that contains naturally occurring yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. It’s what bakers had to use before commercial yeasts became available – a starter dough. It occurs when natural wild yeasts in the mixture slowly multiply and give off carbon dioxide. Bubbles appear and the mix has a slightly sour, but pleasant aroma. Bakers use this fermented starter (or batter) to leaven the bread.

Is sourdough good for you?

The long fermentation involved in sourdough bread means that beneficial acids and bacteria have time to develop, making bread more easily digestible and the bread’s glycaemic index is lowered. This has been shown to have possible health benefits for diabetics and people with gluten intolerances.

Further research needs to be done, but one thing’s for certain – sourdough bread is full of flavour and stays fresher for longer.

Can I make sourdough bread?

If you want to make your own sourdough bread, making a sourdough starter is reasonably straightforward. Just take a clean jar and mix equal quantities of wholemeal flour and water (say 30g), adding the same quantity to the jar every day for 3 days. Keep it at room temperature to allow fermentation to occur. Then remove up to half of the mixture and replace with more half and half flour and water mix. This is called feeding and it makes the culture more vigorous. Keep doing this until the mixture bubbles and smells slightly sour. You’ll have a starter you can use within about 5 days. Once you’ve got this starter you can keep on feeding it once week, keeping it in a cool place when you’re not using it.

To make the bread take 150g of the mixture for every 500g flour.

Unlike bread made with commercial yeasts, loaves take around 24 hours to prove and rise, developing an open crumb and delicious crust – and there’s lots of advice available on the best way to achieve this.

If you fancy trying your hand at making sourdough bread, Total Foodservice has a great range of bread flours, from plain white and wholemeal to speciality flours such as Eight Grain Cotswold and Cotswold Crunch.

However, if you prefer an easier route to success we also have a great range of speciality breads, including sourdough.

Take part in Sourdough September

Join in the fun by promoting and sharing the delicious delights of your sourdough successes through social media using #SourdoughSeptember

Remember to tag us @Total_Food_Serv and https://www.facebook.com/totalfoodserviceuk and the Real Bread Campaign @RealBread

 

Thank you for contacting us.
We will reply to you in the next 2 working days.

Brochures and Catalogues

Follow Us