The subject of lively discussions over the past decade is the question of the harm to human health of products containing yeast. Scientists have not yet been able to come to a consensus, but the fact that homemade bread prepared with yeast-free sourdough is much tastier and more aromatic than store bread is obvious.
Pick your recipe
In order to bake bread at home, you will need a little patience, because preparing yeast-free yeast can take about three days. But this almost does not require your participation - it is enough to spend only a few minutes a day on mixing and “feeding” the fermented mass.
Sourdough cooking
Depending on which plan to bake bread - rye or wheat, you will need the appropriate flour. Although some home bakers claim that the “starter” sourdough can be mixed with any flour, regardless of the type of bread baked.
For starter culture, 100 g of rye or wheat flour is mixed with 100 ml of water or whey. The resulting mass should be similar in consistency to a thick, uniform sour cream.
The yeast is covered with a clean cloth and removed for fermentation in a warm place. 2-3 times a day, the mass is carefully mixed to improve the acidification process. The appearance of small bubbles indicates that the sourdough is beginning to “ripen”.
On the second day, "top dressing" is necessary - another 100 flour and 100 ml of water are added to the mass and mixed thoroughly. When a lot of bubbles appear in the leaven and a significant increase in size occurs, this means that it is completely "ripe" and ready for use.
Ready sourdough can be used for baking bread, but at the same time a small part of the mass must be put aside in a separate vessel and stored in the refrigerator to prepare the next portion of sourdough on its basis.
Storage in the refrigerator slightly slows down the fermentation process, so you need to "feed" the rest of the starter culture only once every 2-3 days. A new leaven this time will be ready much faster, because it acidifies based on the result of fermentation of the previous portion.
Baked rye yeast-free bread
Homemade rye bread with home-made sourdough is obtained even by the most inept housewives, never molds, has a unique aroma and taste.
To prepare the dough, you will need 1 part of the sourdough, 1 part of water and as much flour as the dough will take to obtain a uniform plastic consistency. Do not be afraid to spend leaven - you can take the entire resulting volume, because To prepare a new portion, it is enough that it remains on the walls of the vessel in which the leaven was stored.
The dough is left in a warm place for 2-3 hours until it rises, after which a loaf is formed from it and placed on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. So that the crust of the loaf does not stick, the paper can be slightly greased with vegetable oil.
If desired, you can add flax seed, a little nutmeg, sesame to the dough, and sprinkle the surface with coriander seeds. So that the bread does not stale for a long time, sometimes two tablespoons of vegetable oil are added to the dough: olive, sunflower, sesame, etc.
In order to avoid cracking of the upper crust, small incisions are made with a sharp knife over the entire surface of the loaf. Sprinkle bread on top with wheat flour and put in a cold oven.
Slow heating of the oven contributes to better baking of bread and the formation of a lush crumb. The baking time will depend on the features of the oven, the readiness of the bread is checked with a toothpick - if it can be stuck in a loaf and taken out dry, then the bread is ready.
After turning off the oven, it is recommended to hold the bread in it for a while, so that it, slowly cooling down, “reaches” to full readiness.
