APOLLONIA POILANE: When you're baking bread,
you have four ingredients--
water, flour, salt, and a rising agent.
That rising agent is either yeast or a starter.
People think of sourdough as a type of bread.
But here, sourdough is actually the rising agent.
When you use a sourdough, you get the richness
and the heritage of the different generations of loaf's
it has fed.
What we're going to create right now
is a little bit akin to the journey
my grandfather embarked on in 1932.
Today is a starting point for your journey creating
sourdough.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today we're going to make the sourdough starter.
This process takes five days to complete.
And we are going to start it off by mixing yogurt, water,
and flours to create a start point.
In this recipe, I use and ingredients
that we don't use at Poilane.
I use yogurt think about the yogurt as an ingredient that's
there just to kickstart your process.
It helps boost the fermentation.
In this recipe, I use both wholegrain flour
and all-purpose flour.
The reason why I mix both is to recreate the style of stone
ground flour we use at Poilane.
If you're starting this recipe at home for the first time
you can use glass, stone, or a plastic cup
for these first fermentations.
What is important at this point is
that you use a scale as you start getting
your sourdough starter going.
Weighing ingredients allows for more precision
than measuring by volume and will make for a better starter.
So I'm going to use yogurt.
You want to have this rich culture
yogurt you will add water to.
The water is at room temperature.
And that should be about 20 to 25 degrees Celsius.
I use a whisk to put these two ingredients together,
especially if you're using a Greek yogurt.
It'll just make your life easier.
And then I'm going to add the two types of flours.
This is the all-purpose flour, and then the whole-grain flour.
I'm going to bring this together using a spatula.
You should be mixing for a couple of minutes.
And we're looking for the ingredients to come together.
As you twist and turn, scoop it, like I
would scoop some ice cream.
And bring it together for all of the ingredients to bind.
If you are working in a really hot environment,
you may need to add a little bit of water, say a spoonful.
As this comes together, it will have
a texture in the spectrum of a thick yogurt
and a doughy texture.
And you're just going to let it rise there
for 24 hours at 20-25 degrees Celsius,
covering it with a cloth.
And this sourdough, what looks right now like a ball
will flatten out and rise.
The cloth allows a little bit of air to go through.
We're always trying to balance between air, which slows down
the fermentation, and the lack of air, which fosters it.
20 to 25 degrees Celsius may be not your normal room
temperature.
And if that's the case, try and look
for spaces that are warmer.
I've been told stories about Italian mammas that
keep the sourdough under their bed
because that's the warmest place in their home.
In my kitchen, I have a little nook which is draft-free.
And that one tends to be the place
I keep my sourdough because I know that it
will stay a tad bit warmer.
This sourdough is really fresh.
And you want to have it mature a little bit so
that it develops more flavors.
And so tomorrow, by adding flours and water,
we will get that much more richness to it.
So I've covered my sourdough starter.
And I'm going to take it to a warm place
and let it rest for about 24 hours until day 2.
So this is a starter that has risen for 24 hours.
Now, it does have some stickiness and some bite
as I'm moving it.
It has a little bit of resistance.
And this is what we're looking for.
I can feel some elasticity in the dough.
Something you might encounter if you're
in a very warm environment is that it will rise really fast.
If it's gone overboard, then you have to start over again.
If the room is too cool and the starter didn't rise at all,
then in that case give it a little more time
and keep it an extra up to 24 hours.
If it still doesn't rise, discard it.
Don't be discouraged.
Sourdough really is a journey.
And if your loaves don't come out perfect the first time,
then it may be the second, the third, or the fourth time.
Another way that you can tell if the sourdough is right
is by smelling it.
First you smell flour, pastiness,
and then you smell a little bit of the lingering
sense of the yogurt.
But really here, I think the visual cue at this stage
is more important.
That's a texture and a volume.
This sourdough starter, once you started it,
you need to keep it alive.
If you don't feed it, then eventually
it will die out because the little microorganisms
inside of this sourdough don't have enough food.
So now we're going to feed it.
I like to start with room temperature water.
And I'm going to add it slowly.
I add again a mix of all-purpose flour and some whole-grain.
Adding these ingredients is effectively
feeding the starter.
I am giving more food, more sugars to the microorganisms
that are going to feed off of it and create CO2 so that we
can start having fermentation.
On day 2, as I'm adding the water and flour,
I stick to the spatula.
And you start off slowly and delicately just
tucking in a little bit.
What I do is I go on the side and I bring a little
to the center.
I turn the bowl so that it can be thorough.
And at this point, you have a mass here where
you can see the lumps of flour.
But it's more or less together.
And at that point, you can delve in and give it some energy.
So I can start holding the bowl on the side
and really scooping and mixing thoroughly
to make sure that we have not only a nice mix,
but give it energy.
And I don't want to sound esoteric here.
But really, when you're baking, you
are giving an energy and an impulse to your dough.
And the sourdough is no different.
So to create the starter, at some point
you need to give it a little bit of love.
Show it that you want it to create this beautiful batch.
And also make sure you don't have any more flour pockets.
So the mixing here is a little harder.
And you can see that I'm holding both of my hands.
And I'm trying to do it firmly.
It's not perfect.
Here we have much more of a chewing gum
that you've chewed for a little too long.
It may look a little lumpy.
That doesn't mean that there is flour pockets.
It's just that it's dough that has
had a little bit of time to ferment
with some fresh ingredients.
There we go.
So I'm not going to mix this further.
Scrape down the sides.
That's just to save yourselves little parts
that my dry out before they get into the dough.
There we go.
See, it's a little sticky.
And that's a good sign.
So I'm finished mixing it.
It looks dense and ready to rest for another 24 hours
at room temperature.
I'm going to cover it up once again because I
don't want it to crust.
If your dough crusts because the environment is too dry,
just mix it in.
Usually it's not hard enough that it doesn't re-hydrate.
So I cover it up.
And I'm going to bring it to a warm place for another 24
hours.
On the third and fourth days, scoop out
about a cup of your starter into a separate bowl
and feed it in the same way as you did on day 2.
Discard the rest of your starter at this point,
as it is not ready to bake with.
Discarding will help keep your starter
from getting too big with each feeding.
So here's our starter once it's rested for another 24 hours.
We're on day 5.
And you can see the surface is speckled with little holes--
the carbon dioxide that's airing out.
Texture-wise, it's very fragile.
So if I touch it, I can feel that there is a lot of air.
I'm not really touching the surface
here because I don't want to kill the structure.
This is really what we want.
We want these little air pockets.
At this point, the sourdough is done.
So we're going to do two things here.
We're going to use half and set it aside for our bread recipe.
The other half, we're going to keep and feed
so that you can carry on keeping your sourdough in perpetuity;
carry on baking loaves; carry on sharing your sourdough,
if you want to share it with friends;
or do another recipe calling for some sourdough.
So once you've started the sourdough,
the dirty little secret here is that you must keep it
like a pet, like a plant.
And every day or two, you must discard a portion and feed it.
If you're going to go away for more than 48 hours,
maybe you can have a friend feed it and give them
your exact measurements.
Or maybe you can travel with your sourdough.
Or you might find a sourdough hotel.
There used to be one in Sweden where
people would feed your sourdough while you were away.
But the bottom line is, this is a live organism.
And you can't just let it go.
If you keep on doing this process,
you'll be able to keep it forever.
You can share that sourdough with friends.
You can make other uses of it--
say, in pancakes, a rye bread, a wheat bread.
But keep a piece so that you can have a sourdough starter
for the following batch.
The sourdough starter you have should be kept in a warm place.
It doesn't have to be incredibly warm.
The warmer it is, the faster it'll grow
and the more regularly you have to feed it.
You might even want to take a sheet of paper
and write down the feedings.
If it's super-hot, you can refrigerate it.
If that's the case, then just make
sure that you seal the top so it doesn't absorb all the smells
of your refrigerator.
But also, and mainly, so it doesn't crust.
So this sourdough, the best way you can show it
love, the best way you can keep it is by baking.
Because when you bake with the sourdough,
you will be able to tell what it has given to the loaf.
As we feed the sourdough, as it grows--
it will develop, much like at Poilane, a distinctive flavor.
It will show the different flours to different batches.
Maybe some years you'll wind up on a flower blend
that will have different flavors than from another.
And that can only enrich this environment.
And this is why each sourdough is unique.