Almost all of our breads are made with a sour dough: the rye, wheat, French, pumpernickel, multi-grain, pizza, semolina sesame, oatmeal, apple, and golden raisin/toasted almond breads all contain sour dough.
We start with a combination of organic whole wheat and rye flours mixed with water and allow it to sour. Then we feed the dough with the same combination of flours plus water to keep it going, every day. It becomes bubbly and rises and falls predictably every day. It is alive!`
Then, the night before we bake, we take some of the sour dough and add ingredients to make a starter dough.
We can also create a pre-ferment by making a new batch of starter using yeast, and letting it ripen over night. The raisin walnut, apple raisin walnut, apple cranberry walnut, and the cranberry walnut are made this way.
All of the doughs are aged 12-16 hours, which allows them to develop flavor.
These starter doughs are then mixed with more ingredients, making bigger batches of dough on baking day.
Grains or seeds that have been soaked in water overnight are added to the oatmeal and multi-grain breads. These grains become broken down and more digestible, providing an additional source of flavor.
These are not new ideas- many traditional bread bakers continue to employ these methods, as we do.
Below you can see a shortened version of our overnight process: from flour, to pre-ferment, to final dough--
the rising, the shaping, the baking and the packaging......
We start with a combination of organic whole wheat and rye flours mixed with water and allow it to sour. Then we feed the dough with the same combination of flours plus water to keep it going, every day. It becomes bubbly and rises and falls predictably every day. It is alive!`
Then, the night before we bake, we take some of the sour dough and add ingredients to make a starter dough.
We can also create a pre-ferment by making a new batch of starter using yeast, and letting it ripen over night. The raisin walnut, apple raisin walnut, apple cranberry walnut, and the cranberry walnut are made this way.
All of the doughs are aged 12-16 hours, which allows them to develop flavor.
These starter doughs are then mixed with more ingredients, making bigger batches of dough on baking day.
Grains or seeds that have been soaked in water overnight are added to the oatmeal and multi-grain breads. These grains become broken down and more digestible, providing an additional source of flavor.
These are not new ideas- many traditional bread bakers continue to employ these methods, as we do.
Below you can see a shortened version of our overnight process: from flour, to pre-ferment, to final dough--
the rising, the shaping, the baking and the packaging......
