How Is Sourdough Bread Made?
Everyone loves the distinctive, tangy flavor of San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread. But like most good things in life, making great Sourdough Bread takes time. In fact, the flavoring process for making great Sourdough Bread begins long before you are even ready to mix the dough. There are a few unique aspects to making and preparing sourdough bread that are integral to creating that beloved distinction of flavor and consistency. So, just how is that achieved?
It Begins With the Starter
Traditional sourdough bread is leavened with wild yeast, meaning that you make the “Starter Culture” yourself instead of buying commercial, store-bought yeast. This wild yeast develops in the mixture of flour and water (some popular recipes use pineapple juice in place of water at the beginning stages) and continues to help the sourdough starter develop unique characteristics over the course of its lifetime.
Sourdough Starter is continually “fed” by adding more flour and water whenever any of the starter is used to make new dough. In this way, the same starter culture is maintained even as the ingredients are kept fresh. Generally, the more developed and mature the starter culture, the better the bread tastes. This is one of the many reasons why Frisco Baking Company is able to make the best sourdough bread Los Angeles has to offer, using the same starter culture the original Frisco team used in San Francisco over 50 years ago!
Next Step: The Sponge and the Dough
After developing a matured starter, you are ready to make the “sponge.” Sourdough sponge is simply a little bit of the starter mixed with more flour and water. The sponge is then covered and allowed time to ferment, which is important in developing the proper consistency and, eventually, taste. Now we have the dough for sourdough bread, but it’s still too early to break out the butter.
The dough is next shaped and moulded. When kneading sourdough bread, it is important not to manipulate the dough too much. This can lead to “punching down,” aka degassing, which keeps the bread from having the right consistency. Good sourdough bread has an “open crumb,” which refers to the large, irregular holes that you can see on the inside of a finished loaf. This is why it’s important not to punch down the dough, which can lead to “tunneling” and a weak structure for the bread.
Last Step: Proofing
The next important part of the process is to allow the moulded dough to sit and ferment. This is the last part of the fermentation stages and also allows the dough to grow in size from the yeast. A good sourdough bread maker will not rush the proofing stage, allowing the dough to fully develop its size and consistency before baking it. And now the sourdough bread is finally ready to put in the oven.
Frisco: Best Sourdough Bread in Los Angeles
As you can see, the process of making good sourdough bread is a long and detailed one that allows for no mistakes along the way! That is why Frisco is proud to be known for having the best Sourdough Bread Los Angeles can provide. Frisco uses their natural starter culture, 12-hour proofing times, and all-around adherence to excellence in baking to create the most delicious, mouth-watering sourdough bread you’ve ever tasted. But don’t just take it from us, take a look at what these yelpers had to say about Frisco’s sourdough bread. When it comes to bread, sourdough bread is one of the best. But when it comes to the best sourdough bread in Los Angeles, Frisco Baking Company is the best.