Bread products....

[kazzy_cee]

Today I went to a local tea room for an extremely interesting workshop on making sourdough bread. Some may remember I went to a similar workshop back in September last year when we made different Italian breads.

Comments

[ani_mama]

The baking class looks like fun! I have never been much of a baker, boxed cake mixes are about my limit. It would be neat to learn how to do more.

Something that happened to you after 3 AM when you were with friends? Instant flashback to sitting huddled together in thin blankets on a windy beach in South Korea, eating birthday cake with our fingers, waiting for the sun to come up. :D

[kazzy_cee]

I really enjoy baking - it always tastes so much better than shop bought.

I like your memory. I think my friends and I were too boring for early morning adventures.

[ani_mama]

That beach adventure was quite a while ago, nowadays I prefer to go to bed at a reasonable time! Young Korean animators are a crazy bunch. We used to do frequent all nighters at work and it just spilled over into playtime as well. Sleep was generally had passed out at desks during lunch or on the couch in the basement camera room.

[thismaz]

I have heard quite a lot about sourdough bread lately, but never tasted it. Does it taste different from what we would call ordinary home baked bread?

[kazzy_cee]

The bread is made using a starter of just flour and water which ferments using the natural yeast in the atmosphere. You then use it to make bread and it's a much slower process than using fresh or dried yeast because the yeast grows much more slowly. The result is a very tasty bread with a good crust. The taste very much depends on the age of the starter - as it matures it becomes a more acidic mix and so the bread has a slightly sour after taste. A fresh starter will give a fresher tasting bread. No sugar is used in the dough so it's only sweetness comes from the type of flour used.

It's nothing like the sourdough you get in the supermarkets which can be labelled sourdough when basically it's just processed bread and very bland. You tend to find true sourdough in artisan bread shops. It's really interesting to make.