Sourdough Inspiration vs. Instruction
Why and How plus the Classic Mooon Bread recipe
As I prepare to teach my largest class yet I’m looking to strike the right balance between sourdough inspiration and instruction. The why and the how. If you’ve got a solid why, then the how often takes care of itself.
Around 250 of Mooon Bread’s students thus far have participated in the 3 hour hands-on workshop. This is my preferred format: experiential instruction. Last year I did an abbreviated “starter” class for 90 minutes, where I still covered all the main points and students got to clone Dez and go home with their own starter. However, there wasn’t time for them to get hands on dough and do all the steps. They didn’t make their own dough in class.
Over the next week, however, I was surprised at how quickly those students were baking not only sourdough bread, but a variety of creations. One of them, Sarah, even did an Instagram account takeover recently. And even as I’m typing this I see another student from that class, Priscilla of @actively_strong baking nonstop:
So I’ve been reflecting on this. Normally I wouldn’t rush to teach a group sourdough outside the kitchen and without all the steps prepped. The experience is core to Mooon Bread (and admittedly a lot more work). But yes, I can see more and more the power of inspiration with a little guidance. The encouragement and the stories. The path taken shows a path possible. With so many ways to build upon it.
So here we go. The demand for sourdough is high, so my room was just upgraded to one that can seat 80 people. Forty-five minutes of Yorudan. Here are some of the things I’ll emphasize:
Haha, and I just wrote up a list that was all technical instructions and now removed them. Zero inspiration. Which proves my point that I’m over-rotated to instruction. I should inspire at the outset, then instruct with inspiration, then give them all a nice kick in the pants as they head out the door challenging them to make it happen, hey!
They need some stories to lock in the learning. There are emotional whys (relationship-building, therapeutic) and more logical ones (nutritious, economical).
So here’s another try at a list, but this time it is the inspirational stuff:
Every home in the worlds deserves the ability to bake naturally-leavened bread AND they can quickly master it once they decide to make it happen.
Sourdough requires very few ingredients and equipment. There are a lot of ways you can experiment and enhance it with different flours and add-ins, but you really only need flour, water, and salt to make it happen. As far as equipment, you mainly need your hands and a commitment to make it happen.
YOU can unlock the nutritional power and flavour locked in grass seeds if you
subscribe to my newsletterdecide to. (:Sourdough is the healthiest bread for a variety of reasons, especially with more whole grains in the mix.
Your culinary creativity will be unlocked once you have experienced a few successful bakes.
You get the picture. But most of you reading this have already locked in on a why or two, you’ve made the commitment and followed through on it. You’re baking. So here’s a couple key points when I think at a high level about how.
Incorporate whole wheat into your bread. Get more nutrition, more flavour, and typically more spring. Mill it fresh if at all possible. (Reply to this email if you’d like a Blendtec discount code - that’s what I mainly use to grind my whole meal.) Pure endosperm is boring. Germ and bran bring more nutrients.
Learn the levers → temperature, starter ratio, and hydration.
Temperature - control it with:
Water Temp
Freshly ground flour can pack some heat
Room Temp (think fridge, cold storage, fireplace, etc.)
Starter Ratio - Add more or less fuel to speed up or slow down the doubling (or tripling) of your starter, leaven, and dough
Instead of a 1:1:1 starter feeding, try 1 part starter, 3 parts flour, and 3 parts water.
Cap Cresap always uses the analogy of teenagers in the gym with pizza. Give them less pizza and it will take less time for them to consume it. And vice versa. But they will in fact consume it all.
Hydration Percent - the amount of water (or other liquid) in relation to the total flour can impact texture and flavour.
Lowering hydration (use less water in the recipe) can increase sourness
Increasing hydration can help absorb more bran included with more whole wheat flour.
Etc. This topic deserves its own post (as do most of these).
Why the Levers Matter:
Slowing things down can help:
Flavour Development
Increase Digestibility
Improve Texture
Add Flexibility to your Schedule
Strengthen the dough
As you’re starting out, don’t let getting hung up on the how lead you to not act. Just start baking and myself and countless others are here to help. Oh, and as mentioned in the last episode, the Mooonbread Sourdough Assistant is available to help by way of Artificial Intelligence (it continues to amaze me)!
Classic Mooon Bread Sourdough Recipe
double dough (50/50 @ 75%💦)
☁️ 500g white flour
三 500g whole wheat flour
🫧 200g active leaven (should float in water)
💧 700g pure water (put this in your bowl first and see leaven float)
⏳ 30m fermentolyse💧 +50g water
🧂 20g salt
From there I do 3-4 hours of stretch and folds every half hour. Then to the bench, split, pre-shape, and rest for another 30 minutes.
Then envelope fold into dusted bannetons and I prefer a cold ferment in fridge if I have the time. Usually overnight.
Warm up lidded vessel to 500 degrees F for 20 min, score the dough, then bake 20 min lid on, dial down the heat to around 475 and remove the lid for another 20 min, then let cool for at least 20 min or so. Enjoy!
I’ll go in much more detail with some video in the next paid post. For now that should keep you moving forward.
Much love,
Jordan