Sourdough baking craze on the “rise”

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — Baking sourdough bread has become popular in recent years. It is a unique hobby that takes some learning.

Elissa Tesney got into baking bread long ago for her family. Mama Danze, Elissa’s great-grandmother, was her inspiration.

“She had this saying that we still talk about today. ‘If I got bread, you got bread.’ Her meaning behind it was whatever I have is yours too”, Elissa explains.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a bump in the road for Elissa’s bread-making. Ingredients such as flour and yeast were in short supply.

This caused Elissa to shift gears and start making sourdough bread.

Sourdough is different from making regular bread. Instead of using commercial yeast, the dough is made using a starter. A starter is just flour and water that you mix together. Fermentation of that “starter” over time creates wild yeast which causes the bread to rise and gives the bread its signature “sour” flavor.

Now, Elissa has a full-blown business making and selling more than twenty loaves of sourdough bread each week. She offers bagels, jams, granola, and farm-fresh eggs, too.

WKRG News 5’s Meteorologist Caroline Carithers and WKRG News 5’s Marketing Director, Jay Chalmers, also got into baking sourdough — but on a smaller scale.

“I also love the taste of sourdough. So, when my sister went online and bought a 233-year-old sourdough starter that had been passed down for generations and was well established…I knew I had to try it ,” Caroline says.

Jay says there’s just something special about providing made-from-scratch food for your family.

“You look at a loaf of bread from the bread aisle and there are thirty-something ingredients. And then you bake bread at home and there are four ingredients ,” Jay explains.

Baking sourdough takes time, but it is a satisfying hobby to master.

• First, you feed your starter with flour and water. Let it rise until it doubles.
• Then, add more flour, water, and salt to your starter to make enough dough for what you’re making.
• Now, let the dough sit for 30 minutes.
• Every 30 minutes for two hours, stretch and fold the dough to layer it and help it build its gluten structure.
• Now we wait for the dough to rise. This is called bulk fermentation and can take anywhere from six hours in the summer to twelve hours in the winter.
• Time to shape and bake!

That whole process takes around 24 hours. Once you get an established starter, you can make so much more than just bread such as burger buns, pretzel bites, bagels, and pizza crusts.

Tasty, and worth the time!

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