Whole Grain Sourdough Bread

Adapted from Nourished Kitchen

A dense but delicious whole-grain loaf of sourdough bread with a really nice texture and crumb and no added yeast. Made with sourdough starter, rye and whole wheat flours and flaxmeal with a bit of molasses (or honey) and salt, this hearty bread will feed your craving for bread without ruining your healthy diet.

Sourdough Memories

What image sparks in your head when you hear the word “sourdough”? For me it’s a memory of a vacation we took with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. It was at a resort somewhere in Minnesota I think … or perhaps it was Canada. I was quite young, so I don’t really recall all the details, but I remember there was a lovely little cabin by a crystal clear lake with a nice sandy beach that extended out into the lake. All of the kids slept in tents (and perhaps our parents did too … I don’t recall). One of my fondest memories of that trip (besides camping in a tent and playing in the water at the beach with my sisters and cousins) was my grandma’s sourdough bread. She made fresh sourdough bread for us every single day on that trip and it was SO good! I remember we couldn’t WAIT until it came out of the oven.

Although I have fond memories of sourdough, I think I’ve always been a little intimidated by it. It seems so complicated … and how the heck does it work, without any yeast? It seems so mysterious. My friends Kathy and Aaron have been making sourdough bread for ages now. They told us all about the process. It sounded complicated. I was sure I would mess it up if I tried it, even though I’ve got years of bread-baking experience. I just didn’t get how the wild yeast thing worked and I was somehow convinced that although it works for Kathy and Aaron, there certainly weren’t any wild yeast in MY house!

It turns out there are. Lots and lots of wild yeast that is eager to hop into any mixture that contains flour and water (or perhaps they are already present in the flour?) and wild yeast loves to bubble and grow. Whether or not the yeast come from the air or the flour, making sourdough was so freaking easy. You can purchase sourdough starter, but really, it’s quite easy to make it.

How do you make sourdough?

After watching my sister make bread using a sponge at Christmas time, I decided to try her method. I initially set out to make bread with a sponge. I mixed together 1 cup flour and 3/4 cup water with 1/2 teaspoon of active dry yeast. After watching it grow and bubble, I did a bunch of reading about sourdough and how the starter is made. Typically it happens over the course of 5 days (or so) and there’s a lot of throwing out most of the starter while you feed the little bit you’ve saved. You repeat this 4 times until you have sourdough starter. This seemed like a really wasteful process to me. Yes, there are uses for “excess” starter, but who can eat that much BREAD (or muffins or pizza crusts) in a week?

The thought occurred to me: “Why couldn’t I just save some of this sponge and feed it and bake bread from it when we want bread … and eventually, after several loaves of bread, we would have sourdough, right?” So I saved 4 oz. of my sponge, (using the rest to make white bread for my kids), and I fed it a cup of flour (half whole wheat, half white) and 3/4 cup of water, stirred it up and put it in a jar, loosely covered, in the fridge. (This is a 75% hydration. King Arthur recommends 50% (1 cup flour, 1/2 cup water). I’ve seen lots of others use 100% which is 1 cup water, 1 cup flour. I don’t think it really matters which hydration you use as long as you adjust for the hydration when you make the dough.)

I seriously couldn’t stop thinking about my little wild yeast experiment. I woke up every morning wanting to make MORE bread! I decided I wanted to make myself some whole grain sourdough bread. I took my starter out and divided it in two and fed both halves. I let them sit on the counter for 12 hours and they both grew really nicely. Again, I saved 4 oz. and fed it with a cup of flour and 3/4 cup of water and put it back in the jar in the fridge. The rest I made into bread … 2 loaves of white sourdough bread for the kids, and this time I made a whole grain bread for myself (the one you see before you).

Is sourdough good for your health?

I totally knew that whole grain bread is just fine to eat on a low cholesterol diet, but sourdough bread is even better for your health. In fact, studies have shown that white sourdough bread is better for your body than regular whole wheat bread! Something about that wild yeast fermentation of sourdough makes your body metabolize the bread differently. No spikes in blood sugar, no crash afterwards. Just a nice even source of energy. Because sourdough contains probiotics, it’s also really good for your digestive tract, which means people that have trouble digesting gluten can often eat sourdough (even though it’s made with gluten). Personally, I love that sourdough is healthier for my kids than the crappy store bought bread they’ve been eating, and their sensitive tummies are just fine with my sourdough bread. (One of these days I’ll get photos of the white bread so I can blog it!)

I’ve fallen in love with my sourdough starter. In my wanderings, I found that naming your sourdough starter is a thing, so I asked my daughter what we should name our starter and immediately she responded: Janice. We giggled. So our sourdough starter’s name is Janice. We talk about Janice a lot. I swear I STILL wake up every day and I want to bake something new with Janice! It’s so freaking fun. (Luckily my kids LOVE bread.) The dough that results from sourdough is so easy to handle. It’s more resilient and stretchy. It takes longer to rise than regular yeasted bread, so don’t be in a hurry when you’re making sourdough. Allow yourself time. Let it sit until it’s ready. The rewards are well worth it.

How long does this loaf take?

This recipe uses a long ferment, so you will want to get the starter going the morning before you want the bread. I let my starter grow and gather wild yeast all day long, then, in the evening, I made the dough and let it “rise” overnight. In the morning I baked my loaf of whole grain bread. It made me so freaking happy to welcome bread back into my life.

This is just the start of my sourdough journey … I know I have lots more to learn, but I’m really loving it so far. I hope you’ll stop back to see more of my sourdough meanderings.

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