How to make my sourdough sweet?
When I was much younger, my father would bring home a really good bread about twice a year. He told me the mother of a coworker would make it and her son would sell it at work. I didn't know it was sourdough at the time, but when I thought about it recently and asked him, he said it was.
I remember that it was pretty much like a loaf of white bread in consistency, texture, and crust. It also had a shape like a loaf pan had been used and was a nice golden color on the outside. It may have been a touch dryer than white bread. I remember that my parents would get frustrated with me, because I kept going back and cutting off slices just to eat plain.
Does anyone know how to make a bread similar to this? Is it a certain style? Is there a particular way of making it that makes it turn out like this? I think I've seen recipes that use honey, but would the yeast not convert the honey's sugar? Or is it like alcohol yeasts where the yeast is only capable of processing so much sugar. I think that is regulated by the strength of the alcohol killing off the yeast at a certain point. I'd just like to know how to make this soft sweet sourdough bread. Thanks.
Best Answer
It depends on what one means by "sourdough." Some people tend to restrict that word to a particular bread style, usually associated with "San Francisco sourdough" or some variant. That bread tends to be a lean somewhat crusty bread, with sourness varying from noticeable to somewhat pungent.
But others use the word "sourdough" just to connote the use of "natural yeast" (as opposed to bakers yeast). If your source was using "sourdough" in that sense, it's perfectly possible to make all sorts of sweet breads using natural yeast. It was actually the standard way to make such breads before the widespread use of commercial yeast.
If you are going to do so, besides possibly adding sugar or some other enriching agents to match your memory (milk, butter/oil, eggs, etc.), I'd also recommend efforts to "tone down" the sourness in your starter. Traditional French methods for natural yeast sweet breads tended to work on a multi-stage building system, where you'd start with a remaining hunk of dough from a previous batch (the "chef") and then gradually build it up in anywhere from 2 to 4 stages to the final dough size. Each build would range from an intermediate to large dilution of the starter (to dilute any residual acidity in the starter), and you'd start the next build before the previous one had a chance to turn sour.
By doing this, you maximize yeast growth (which occurs earlier in the sourdough cycle) while minimizing acid production (which makes the bread sour). After a few such builds, you'll have knocked down the bacteria population -- which lead to sourness -- enough that the rising of the final bread will mostly be just yeast activity. The final bread is often more flavorful and complex than produced with bakers yeast, but won't have distinct sourness.
Also, this multi-stage method is less necessary if you are baking bread on a regular basis, like a bakery might do daily. As starters sit for longer periods without feeding (more than a few hours), they will accumulate more acidity.
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What makes sourdough bread sweet?
Enrichment is typically done by adding fats and sweeteners. Most often enriched dough or rich dough has whole eggs or egg yolks, butter, milk, and sugar added into the dough to make it soft and sweet. The addition of fats in rich dough also shortens gluten strands, making the crumb more tender.Can you add sugar to sourdough?
Yes you can add too much sugar to sourdough. What is this? While sugar can increase the rising time for your bread, adding too much can actually have the opposite effect. If you add too much sugar, it can actually damage the yeast cells, effectively lengthening the rise time.How do you make bread taste sweeter?
Sweeteners such as sugar and honey can be added to flavour bread. Honey adds both sweetness and moisture to the bread. Be sure to use a pasteurized variety of honey, as wild honey contains antibacterial properties that can harm the yeast.How do you make sourdough taste more flavorful?
Use Citric Acid In Your Sourdough If you really want a stronger flavor in your sourdough bread, adding a little citric acid to your dough will help. You can add \u215b to \xbc of a teaspoon of citric acid to your sourdough.Sourdough Sweet Bread ( Best I tried in my life!)
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