Whole grain sourdough treats taste great, feel good to eat, and they don't have to be overly sour. In this email I'll be sharing strategies for minimising sourness and working with unrefined sweeteners.

How to minimise sourness

To use sourdough for leavening only, rather than trying to emphasise its flavour, there are a few strategies that you can use:

Building a quick levain

This is an optional way to create a very mild starter. For best results, start with some starter that is not overfermented.

Weigh your starter, and add in the same weight of flour, and the same weight of water. Leave in a warm place until bubbly – it will ferment in one to four hours (depending on room temperature) because of the high seed percentage of the starter, and you now have a quick levain that is ready for baking with.

Using not-quite-ready starter

Another way to discourage sourness is to use starter that is not quite ready, and to use more of it. Use your starter when it has fermented enough to be bubbly, as this shows that there is a good amount of yeast activity. The timing of this will depend on temperature, starter seed percentage, and the unique characteristics of your own starter. The recipes below are designed for a fully fermented starter, so if you wish to use not-quite-ready starter, reduce the water (or milk) by 10g and the flour in the recipe by 10g for every 20g extra starter you are using.

Avoid rye starter

If your standard everyday starter is fed with rye flour (or if you have just made a rye pre-ferment and the only starter you have on hand is rye), to minimise sour flavours, then you’ll want to give your starter a feed or two with wheat or spelt flour before using it in these recipes.

Avoid red wheat

Red wheat can be great for bread, but has a bit too much flavour for sourdough treats. White wheats have a more gentle flavour and are perfect for buns and other treats. If all you have is a strongly-flavoured red wheat, you can sift out some of the bran, which will make for a milder flavour.

More starter = less fermentation time

Sweet sourdough recipes can have a variety of timings and starter percentages. My doughnuts and aebleskiver are fermented in cool temperatures overnight, using around the same amount of starter that I’d use for an overnight cool fermented bread. In contrast, my rustic apple tart uses 28% starter and is ready quite quickly. My hot cross buns and chelsea buns use 20% starter and are somewhere in the middle of these two as far as fermentation time goes.

Working with honey and other unrefined sweeteners

Real, natural honey will vary in its consistency from year to year. Shortly after pouring, it can be liquid and easy to measure for baking, but after a while, depending on what the bees have been harvesting, it can crystallise and become unpourable.

If your honey has crystallised, you will need to melt it before using it in recipes. If you have a jar of honey, you can place it in a pot of warm water (up to 40ºC/104ºF) and this will slowly soften the whole jar. If you have a bucket of honey (or if you’re in a hurry), simply scoop honey with a spoon or fork onto your weighing scale until you have the right amount for the recipe, put it in a small pot, and then melt it over low heat on the stovetop until it’s liquid.

For best results in baking, choose a mild-flavoured honey such as clover, orange, blackberry, or prickly box.

Honey can be replaced 1:1 with maple syrup.

About coconut sugar and whole cane sugar

Coconut sugar is produced in a similar way to maple syrup, where the sap from the coconut tree is tapped and then evaporated. Whole cane sugar is sometimes called rapadura, sucanat, or muscovado and is the whole evaporated juice of sugarcane, with all its minerals and natural flavour intact.

Both of these sweeteners are dark brown in colour and have a delicious flavour of their own (and they go beautifully with chocolate), but they can overwhelm some of the delicate flavours in some treats, so there are some times when you might want to avoid using these and use honey instead.

May your kitchen be filled with the smell of sourdough treats. Floury regards,

Kate

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