Pain au levain

Did you really reduce or cut bread out of your diet? Think again. Here are ten reasons to love bread, especially sourdough.

What is Sourdough Bread?

Bread is bread, right? Wrong! Not all bread is the same.

Sourdough bread is the traditional levain bread that was common centuries ago before yeast was developed. Yeast was developed to make bread rise faster and produce an even predictable texture. So bread became industrialized and massed produced. Yeast also makes quick and easy bread at home, but it is not the same texture and taste as sourhough.

Sourdough bread uses fermentation with naturally occurring bacteria and fungi. The baker maintains a live culture and feeds it flour daily. It takes much longer to ferment and rise sourdough compared to yeast. So it is labour and time intensive. But the taste and texture are unbeatable. As the name says, sourdough bread has the sour taste of fermentation, like the sour taste of plain yogourt, and the sour taste of a good fermented beer. Secondly, the fermentation and the kneading give structure to the gluten in the flour, producing an elastic chewy texture.

Read more here... And here...

Watch for genuine sourdough! The word sourdough is gaining in popularity. So some bread makers are taking shortcuts. The big thing is yeast. A baker could start the dough with a sourdough culture, but also add yeast to finish the rising more quickly and more evenly. The result may resemble sourdough bread but it still falls short of the unique taste and texture of genuine sourdough. Read more here...

Why Sourdough Bread?

Sourdough bread has so many advantages.

The taste is great, compared to the plain sweet taste of commercial bread with yeast.
The texture is chewy elastic, and does not fall apart, making it great for sandwiches and dips.
Not only does live culture improve the flavor, but the bread stays fresh after baking, much longer than factory bread and doesn’t require any extra preservatives to ward off mold.
Sourdough is a fermented food, similar to sauerkraut, kefir, pickles, and kombucha, by using lactobacillus cultures (a probiotic, aka bacteria that benefits your gut).
The fermentation produces lactic acid, and that does the body a whole lot of good. Lactic acid helps decrease the levels of phytic acid in bread (phytic acid interferes with the absorption of certain nutrients, which is a bad thing). This in turn, helps other nutrients become more readily available, digestible and absorbable.
The carbohydrates and the starches in commercial breads are quickly digested. This produces a high glycemic response, meaning that your blood sugar spikes quickly after eating. But the fermentation process in sourdough lowers the glycemic index and makes it a great low GI bread.

Tom's Bread Products

Blanc

The classic white bread is a simple blend of sifted white wheat flour, water, salt and sourdough culture. Since white wheat flour has little taste of its own, the distinct sourdough flavour is most prominent. But white flour is high in carbohydrates, so consider some of the other flavours to add protein, fibers, and other nutrients to your bread diet. But take my statement with a grain of sea salt. Some sources claim that the white bread is not so different from whole wheat bread.

À la bière

I make the white bread by replacing the water with Beau's organic Full Time IPA beer. It adds a nice hoppy taste to the bread.

Blé entier

As a nutritionist would suggest, a whole wheat bread combines good taste with nutritional value thanks to the protein, fibers, bran, enzymes, and vitamins of the whole grain. I still use about 25% white wheat flour to give the bread extra volume, a lighter texture, and more air pockets.

Seigle

Try rye bread if you are getting bored with whole wheat. Rye bread offers a sharper taste and denser texture than wheat, along with very amazing health credentials including slower sugar uptake during digestion, more magnesium, and more phyto estrogen. I still mix 50% white wheat flour in my rye bread recipe to lighten the taste a little and give the bread more volume.

Kamut

Kamut (pronounced ka-moot) is a trademarked name given to khorasan wheat. The grain had been all but forgotten, but in recent history Kamut is making a comeback. This is most likely because of its great taste, texture, nutritional value and hypoallergenic properties. Even when milled as a whole grain, the bread colour is very light, the texture is soft, and the taste is slightly nutty.

Épeautre

The many health benefits of spelt flour are responsible for its current comeback. Spelt aids blood circulation, boosts the immune system, builds strong bones and aids digestion. Spelt is similar to wheat but has a slightly stronger grain taste and a darker colour. Read more about the health benefits.

Multi Grains

Let's put is all together to combine the flavours and the benefits of all these grains. I mix white flour with whole wheat, whole spelt, whole kamut and whole rye flour.

Dates & noix de grenoble

I make the multigrain bread and add organic chopped dates and organic chopped walnuts. It makes a great breakfast bread or an afternoon snack.

Pita

When I travelled (twice) to Egypt years ago, I fell in love with the antiquities, the people, and the artisanal pita bread, called AISH BALADI in Egypt. The pita in Canada is a flat bread like a tortilla from fast industrial production. So I learned to make sourdough pita at home, the Egyptian way with good texture, good weight, and a great taste. I told a local shawarma restaurant owner that I make sourdough pita at home, and she piped up immediately: "Yes, it is so good, like the real pita!"

Ciabatta

Ciabatta is an Italian white bread made from wheat flour, water, olive oil, and salt, created in 1982 in response to the popularity of French baguettes. My version is a small rectangular bun. You can cut the top half off to make a sandwich. It has a great taste and chewy texture.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel bread is a traditional recipe using whole sprouted grains and legume flours. Read more here. I make an Ezekiel style of bread by following the same recipe, except that my flours are not from sprouted grains and I use three legume flours (black beans, green lentils, chick peas.) The texture is wonderful and the taste is great. It is my favourite breakfast bread.

Keto

The ketogenic diet (or keto diet, for short) is a low-carb, high-fat diet that offers many health benefits. Read more here... And here is an in-depth beginner guide to the Keto diet. Being low-carb, people avoid bread made from cereals. So I found a Keto bread recipe that does not use cereals, so it is also gluten free. We use almond flour, flax meal and eggs for protein, and various fibers and ingredients for textures. This is not a sourdough bread as it needs yeast to rise. I wrote gluten free as defined by the recipe, but my kitchen still handles cereals, so beware of a low risk of unintentional contamination.

Non Gluten

I have a starter feeding on quinoa flour. The bread contains rice, sorghum, and buckwheat flours. And I add some caraway for flavour. The feedback is great: the typical sour taste of sourdough, nice texture, holds together to make toast, a bit dense as all non gluten breads are. But caution: I still have gluten in the kitchen.

Pumpernickel

I start with the regular whole grain rye bread, but I replace the water with milk. Then I add caraway seed and a bit of molasses. It is a smooth tasting rye bread, slightly sweet, with a pleasure of the taste of caraway seed.

Bagels

With some experimentation, my bagels are coming along nicely. Take the chance and order some.

Baguettes

This chewy French baguette is a classic white sourdough. The combination of the sourdough method with milk instead of water gives the bread an extra sour taste and lovely texture. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside is what the chef ordered.

Fougasse

This fancy French bread is a social delight. It is somewhat flat with ribs and gaps. It tears apart easily for great sharing. The sourdough delight starts with half white wheat flour and half whole wheat flour. Then I add fresh organic garlic, fresh cooked green onions, and herbes de Provence.

Saveurs

With any of the flours mentioned above, we can add lots of flavours:

organic old cheddar cheese.
organic oregano herbs and organic sundried tomatoes.
organic raisins, white almonds, and a touch or organic cinnamon.
organic sunflower seeds.
organic sesame seeds.
organic flax seeds.
organic Kalamon black olives with garlic and basil.
organic bitter sweet chocolate and cranberry in Kamut flour.
organic bitter sweet chocolate with orange zest and ginger in Kamut flour.
organic bitter sweet chocolate with hot pepers in Kamut flour.
organic lavender in the rye bread.
and many more options....

Format

Order your bread in any shape:

the round artisanal loaf with or without the circle pattern of flour on the top.
the traditional loaf pan shape.
a whole loaf or a half loaf.

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