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"Then Jesus said unto them, 'Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees'."
Matthew 16:6
leaven: noun, archaic a substance added to dough to make it ferment and rise, esp. yeast, or fermenting dough reserved for the purpose (Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd Edition)
I've been messing around with sourdough for some time now, with mixed results. It does make it more challenging that I choose to use 100% whole grain flour, as a general rule, and the majority of the recipes I try are meant for 100% white flour (or unbleached). And I seldom add the extra moisture that I should, (since whole wheat absorbs more moisture than white flour) because I'm leery of a dough that's too sticky. And many of the recipes are what I call "cheater" sourdough - adding a little commercial yeast to boost the effects of the starter. I have since discovered that sourdough purists refer to this as "sourfaux", a term that can encompass anything more in the ingredients than just flour, water, salt and sourdough starter.
Recently, in a Sourdough group on Facebook, someone commented that it was impossible to make a 100% whole wheat sourdough bread, that it would turn out like a brick. Challenge accepted. I used this No-Knead Sourdough Bread recipe, which again was made for white flour. But I used 100% whole wheat. The purists would be happy that I didn't add the optional diastatic malt (though I might have if I had some), so this loaf was definitely not sourfaux. Water, flour, salt and sourdough starter were the only ingredients, and look how it turned out.
And guess what? I didn't break any teeth on it, so it did not turn out like a brick. Yes, it had more "body" than a white loaf would have had, but that's to be expected with a 100% whole grain loaf without additives to make it soft like store-bought bread. Look at that beautiful open crumb! And maybe it's a little flatter than if I'd used white flour, but I'm still pretty much a newbie when it comes to sourdough, so I continue to learn. And I'm proud of how this bread turned out.
Meanwhile, I ordered a baguette pan, and decided to give it a try.
I'm not that fond of baguettes, but I'm actually looking for a recipe that will work for submarine sandwiches. I wasn't that thrilled with the results. I found a recipe for sourdough baguettes as well as a recipe for whole wheat baguettes. Overachiever that I tend to be, I decided to try both recipes. The sourdough recipe makes 6 baguettes, or 3 Italian loaves (don't ask me how the same dough can be both French, as in baguettes, and Italian), and the whole wheat recipe makes 3. I'm not really sure what I was planning on doing with 9 baguettes, when I don't even like them all that well. But I did it anyway, deciding to make 3 baguettes and one large "Italian" loaf from the sourdough recipe. 
I didn't have a clue what I was doing when it came to shaping them, so to me they look more like misshapen, oversized bread sticks. But again, they had a nice open crumb like sourdough is supposed to have. 
When I slashed the whole wheat loaves, they started to deflate. So when it came to the sourdough loaves, I didn't bother slashing them. Or was it the other way around. Anyway, I ate the large loaf (not all at once) and cut the baguettes into thick slices and put them in the freezer for use in French Onion Soup. I watched a video on how to actually form baguettes and was slightly more successful with the second batch.
Once baked, I was planning on turning this batch into croutons, but didn't get around to it, and I've just eaten them with my meals, particularly with soup. I may try serving baguettes with fondue sometime. And I do need to try a vegan French Onion Soup for use with the other baguettes currently in my freezer.
I'm still searching for a good submarine sandwich roll/bread/bun.
But I do want to comment on the text I shared at the top of this post. First, however, a little history. This is taken from "Jesus and His Times", published by Reader's Digest, 1987: "As for her duties as provider of meals, a wife had to grind grain, bake bread, milk the goats, and make cheese and curds. These daily tasks began around daybreak. To grind the grain she used either a mortar and pestle or a hand mill, which consisted of two stones. The lower stone held the grain, and the upper stone was rubbed or rolled across the bed of grain to make flour. Next, she mixed the coarse meal with water, salt and a little fermented dough saved from the previous day's bread making as a leavening agent." So, in Israel in Bible times, they made sourdough bread.
If you've ever started your own sourdough starter, then you're likely aware that you can have a bad batch. For me, this time around I had to dump the first batch I tried because it developed a mold smell. Not what sourdough starter should smell like, so into the compost it went. But in the Bible text, Jesus is not warning that the Pharisees and Sadducees had a bad batch of starter. Down in verse 12, the disciples realized He was talking about their doctrine or teachings. Well, we may not have literal Pharisees and Sadducees around, but it's still a good principle to apply to our daily lives. We need to be careful about what we read, see or hear, because, like leaven, it can permeate our whole lives and change us into something we may not have been able to predict. Another piece of advice that Jesus gives is "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Matthew 7:16, or as the New Century Version puts it, "You will know these people by what they do." Sometimes, we need to take a step back and give ourselves time to evaluate the "fruit" of what we're hearing, as is evidenced in the lives of those who are teaching it, and others who are listening as well. Has it made them better, more productive members of society, more loving and giving? Sometimes, it can take awhile for the fruit to develop, so it's always best to be cautious when hearing new "truth". For me, I choose to follow the Bible's advice found in Isaiah 8:20, "To the law and to the testimony (the Bible)! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." NKJV. I need to be familiar with the Bible and open it and study it to know whether what someone is teaching is consistent with the truth of God's word, "that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting". Ephesians 4:14 NKJV.
Recently, in a Sourdough group on Facebook, someone commented that it was impossible to make a 100% whole wheat sourdough bread, that it would turn out like a brick. Challenge accepted. I used this No-Knead Sourdough Bread recipe, which again was made for white flour. But I used 100% whole wheat. The purists would be happy that I didn't add the optional diastatic malt (though I might have if I had some), so this loaf was definitely not sourfaux. Water, flour, salt and sourdough starter were the only ingredients, and look how it turned out.
Meanwhile, I ordered a baguette pan, and decided to give it a try.
 |
| Almost ready for the oven |
I'm still searching for a good submarine sandwich roll/bread/bun.
But I do want to comment on the text I shared at the top of this post. First, however, a little history. This is taken from "Jesus and His Times", published by Reader's Digest, 1987: "As for her duties as provider of meals, a wife had to grind grain, bake bread, milk the goats, and make cheese and curds. These daily tasks began around daybreak. To grind the grain she used either a mortar and pestle or a hand mill, which consisted of two stones. The lower stone held the grain, and the upper stone was rubbed or rolled across the bed of grain to make flour. Next, she mixed the coarse meal with water, salt and a little fermented dough saved from the previous day's bread making as a leavening agent." So, in Israel in Bible times, they made sourdough bread.
If you've ever started your own sourdough starter, then you're likely aware that you can have a bad batch. For me, this time around I had to dump the first batch I tried because it developed a mold smell. Not what sourdough starter should smell like, so into the compost it went. But in the Bible text, Jesus is not warning that the Pharisees and Sadducees had a bad batch of starter. Down in verse 12, the disciples realized He was talking about their doctrine or teachings. Well, we may not have literal Pharisees and Sadducees around, but it's still a good principle to apply to our daily lives. We need to be careful about what we read, see or hear, because, like leaven, it can permeate our whole lives and change us into something we may not have been able to predict. Another piece of advice that Jesus gives is "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Matthew 7:16, or as the New Century Version puts it, "You will know these people by what they do." Sometimes, we need to take a step back and give ourselves time to evaluate the "fruit" of what we're hearing, as is evidenced in the lives of those who are teaching it, and others who are listening as well. Has it made them better, more productive members of society, more loving and giving? Sometimes, it can take awhile for the fruit to develop, so it's always best to be cautious when hearing new "truth". For me, I choose to follow the Bible's advice found in Isaiah 8:20, "To the law and to the testimony (the Bible)! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." NKJV. I need to be familiar with the Bible and open it and study it to know whether what someone is teaching is consistent with the truth of God's word, "that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting". Ephesians 4:14 NKJV.
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