I Made Sourdough Bread like they did 200 years ago - No measuring, and no scale

[00:01] [Music]

[00:18] [Music]

[00:24] Sourdough as we know it today is a lot

[00:26] different than what it used to be 200

[00:29] years ago and even earlier than that.

[00:34] I have learned to make sourdough bread

[00:36] by counting every gram of flour and

[00:38] every drop of water and wondering where

[00:42] I went wrong when my bread doesn't quite

[00:44] turn out even though I followed a recipe

[00:46] precisely. Well, I think that maybe

[00:49] we've over complicated the sourdough

[00:51] thing. Uh maybe we are

[00:54] overthinking all of this. And so today

[00:57] I'm throwing caution to the wind. I am

[00:59] throwing out the measure, the measuring

[01:01] cups, the recipes, the scale, and I've

[01:04] done some research, and I'm going to be

[01:06] using some 200-year-old sourdough bread

[01:09] baking methods. First of all, what we

[01:12] now call sourdough used to be called

[01:14] levan, which simply refers to an old

[01:18] piece of dough that has been sitting and

[01:21] souring and has gone through a

[01:22] fermentation process.

[01:25] So, I've milled some fresh flour and

[01:27] I've prepared some sourdough bread the

[01:29] way I normally would, but I have taken a

[01:32] piece of my sourdough bread and I'm

[01:34] going to be storing it in the ancient

[01:37] way. And that is by taking a piece of my

[01:40] sour dough, my leavenven, and storing it

[01:42] in a container and covering it with some

[01:45] whole wheat flour. Today, I actually am

[01:48] going to be mostly using freshly ground

[01:50] whole wheat flour. This is how they

[01:53] would store their sourdough bread for a

[01:55] short period of time. They would

[01:58] probably be using this on a daily basis

[02:00] or maybe every other day is how long it

[02:03] would be able to keep in a canister or

[02:06] even a pouch that they would carry on

[02:08] them if they were walking across the

[02:10] prairies.

[02:12] Although they didn't have the science

[02:14] that we do today, these women were smart

[02:16] and they understood the power of

[02:18] fermentation and they knew that heat was

[02:21] important for their bread to rise. And

[02:24] so even though they didn't have

[02:26] refrigerators, they knew that their

[02:29] leaven needed to stay warm if they

[02:30] wanted to make some bread and it needed

[02:32] to stay cool if they wanted to store it.

[02:35] If they wanted to store it for a long

[02:37] period of time without refrigeration or

[02:39] an ice box, they would keep it in a

[02:41] canister covered in salt. And what would

[02:44] happen is this salt would create a crust

[02:48] around their sourdough ball of dough and

[02:51] it would dry it out inside and almost

[02:54] kind of a petrified way of storing the

[02:57] sourdough.

[02:58] I also read that these pioneer women

[03:01] would dehydrate their sourdough starters

[03:03] and grind it into powder and take it

[03:05] with them on their long journeys.

[03:07] Especially if these women were coming

[03:09] across the Atlantic Ocean making their

[03:11] ways west, they had to figure out a way

[03:13] to store their leaven for long periods

[03:17] of time. And this is what my leavenven

[03:19] looked like after 5 days of sitting in

[03:20] my salt canister on the counter. It had

[03:23] formed a hard crust around the dough and

[03:27] inside was a

[03:28] petrified piece of leavenin. And so I

[03:33] scraped all the crusty edges off and

[03:36] pulled out the inner parts. And to

[03:39] restore it to make bread, you just put

[03:41] it in a bowl of water and let that sit

[03:44] for maybe 2 to four hours until it's

[03:47] nice and soft. And then you can go ahead

[03:49] and throw in the flour and continue to

[03:50] make bread as normal.

[03:52] And that's how you could store your

[03:54] leavenven for a long period of time. But

[03:56] for today, we're going to go with the

[03:58] short period of storing our leaven by

[04:01] just using my lump of dough that I had

[04:04] put in our flower

[04:07] canister. Speaking of these brave

[04:09] pioneer women who came west, they often

[04:12] would keep their sourdough in a pouch

[04:15] around their waist to keep it warm in a

[04:17] little pouch of flour.

[04:23] from an old pioneer woman who wrote in

[04:25] her journal probably around the time of

[04:27] 1848 as she was traveling west across

[04:30] the American frontier. She wrote, "When

[04:32] we camped, I made rising and set on a

[04:35] warm ground. It would be up about

[04:37] midnight. I'd get up and put it to a

[04:39] sponge in the morning first thing. I

[04:42] would mix the dough and put in the

[04:43] reflector oven. With good hot coals, the

[04:46] breads or cakes for a hearty breakfast

[04:48] were ready. By the time the men rounded

[04:51] up the

[04:52] teams, these women traveling west would

[04:55] indeed make bread along the way. They

[04:57] would keep their lump of sourdough in a

[05:00] pouch covered with flour wrapped around

[05:03] their side and they would carry it with

[05:05] them. Or they would even keep it in a

[05:07] canister and set it in the sun on the

[05:09] wagon to let it

[05:11] rise. While everyone was setting up

[05:14] camp, they would mix their sourdough

[05:17] leaven with some flour and water and

[05:20] they would set it to rise on the warm

[05:22] ground. And at midnight, this woman

[05:24] recalls, she would mix the dough and

[05:27] then it would ferment throughout the

[05:28] night and she would bake it in the

[05:29] morning for breakfast. So, I'm going to

[05:33] mix together my bread in a similar way.

[05:37] I'm just going off of what feels right.

[05:40] I've put together about 3 to four cups

[05:42] of flour just using a bowl and a big

[05:45] wooden spoon. I put about a half a cup

[05:48] of lemon and poured some warm filtered

[05:52] water in there. I've also added a bit of

[05:56] salt and I'm just eyeballing everything.

[05:58] I think I've made enough bread that I

[06:00] can understand what it's supposed to

[06:02] feel like. I'm mixing my dough together

[06:05] until there's no more dry clumps in it.

[06:09] I took a lot of notes from an old book

[06:12] from 1823 called The American Domestic

[06:14] Cookery by a lady. That's literally what

[06:16] it's called. It was written by Maria

[06:19] Rundle and she really stressed the

[06:23] importance of kneading the

[06:26] dough. In these early pioneer American

[06:31] cookbooks and journals, no stretch and

[06:32] fold methods were ever mentioned.

[06:34] Although the importance of actually

[06:36] kneading your dough thoroughly was

[06:38] mentioned quite a

[06:40] bit. Next, I'm going to mix together a

[06:43] sandwich loaf that is actually from

[06:45] 1869.

[06:49] This recipe is one coffee cup of flour,

[06:52] two coffee cups graham flour, one coffee

[06:55] cup warm water, half coffee cup yeast, a

[06:59] little molasses, a teaspoon of salt,

[07:01] half teaspoon soda dissolved in the

[07:03] water. Make as stiff as it can be

[07:06] stirred with a spoon. Let it rise

[07:08] overnight and bake about an hour in

[07:10] moderate oven. This quantity makes one

[07:13] loaf.

[07:15] You'll also notice that I'm mixing my

[07:18] bread dough and baking it in the exact

[07:20] same pan, which is a nod to Ma Engles,

[07:23] who also did this. And she also baked

[07:26] sourdough, by the way, in the 1800s.

[07:33] [Music]

[07:39] [Music]

[09:00] On the prairie, no food would have ever

[09:02] gone to waste. So, with the rest of our

[09:04] leaven, we're going to mix together some

[09:06] pancakes or some flapjacks, as they

[09:09] might have called them. And I mixed

[09:11] together some corn flour and some whole

[09:13] wheat flour and some milk. And we are

[09:14] going to let this ferment with the rest

[09:16] of our doughs overnight.

[09:20] I'm also going to incorporate a little

[09:22] bit of kneading on the rest of my doughs

[09:26] to get that gluten

[09:28] going. And I would love to hear if you

[09:31] have any recipes passed down by your

[09:34] families or any history on bread making,

[09:38] anything you want to share down in the

[09:40] comments below. I would love to hear

[09:42] what you guys have to say on the subject

[09:45] of ancient bread making.

[09:53] [Music]

[10:48] So, our bread has been fermenting here

[10:50] for about 8 hours, and it's probably

[10:53] about 65 to 70° in my kitchen. You can

[10:57] see that this has risen a little bit,

[10:58] and I didn't shape it. I just gave it a

[11:01] little cut on top, and I'm baking it at

[11:03] 350 for about 45 minutes. And then we'll

[11:06] check on

[11:07] it. In the meantime, I'm going to pull

[11:09] out our other loaf. I think I'm going to

[11:11] call this our pioneer loaf. This is

[11:13] based off of a rough schedule from one

[11:16] of our pioneer women and just roughly

[11:21] made by eye. We're going to give it a

[11:24] quick stretch and a shape and get this

[11:27] ready to go in the oven. I'm going to

[11:30] let it sit here on the counter for about

[11:32] an hour while we're waiting for the

[11:34] other loaf to finish baking because I'm

[11:35] going to bake them at a considerably

[11:37] different temperature.

[11:39] We know that people have been making

[11:41] bread for centuries. And that also makes

[11:44] sense that there would be so many

[11:46] different recipes for making a sourdough

[11:49] starter. And so it kind of blew my mind

[11:52] all the different methods and ways to

[11:54] make a sourdough starter other than the

[11:56] typical way that you would find on the

[11:58] internet today. Today we start a starter

[12:02] by putting flour and water together,

[12:04] discarding that amount, and feeding it a

[12:06] new amount of flour and water every day

[12:08] for about a week. I was surprised to

[12:11] find that back in the day, you could

[12:13] just mix your flour and water into a

[12:15] lump of dough and leave it on the

[12:17] counter for about 12 days and that would

[12:20] be your sour lemon. So, there are some

[12:22] things that I would keep and there's

[12:24] some things that I would not keep that

[12:27] I've learned this week. One thing I

[12:29] thought was also very interesting was

[12:31] that they would use the same dishes for

[12:35] mixing their doughs. They really did

[12:37] understand fermentation and the

[12:39] importance of keeping those bacterias

[12:42] around and not washing them away.

[12:46] So, I don't think I could really stand

[12:48] to have a bunch of dirty dishes in the

[12:50] kitchen, but I think I can stick with

[12:52] one sourdough mixing bowl that I don't

[12:55] wash and keep that for mixing my

[12:58] sourdough in. And that just makes sense

[13:01] to keep all those live cultures in your

[13:04] bowl alive and not sanitizing things all

[13:07] the time.

[13:09] And just like Maria said from her 1823

[13:12] book, I am pinching a piece of my

[13:14] sourdough off of the bread that I'm

[13:16] about to bake and I'm going to store it

[13:19] for later. And this is how they would

[13:21] keep their sourdough lemon going for the

[13:24] next bake.

[13:33] [Music]

[13:44] [Music]

[14:28] [Music]

[14:55] [Music]

[15:31] [Applause]

[15:38] [Music]

[16:31] So, what is the

[16:32] takeaway? What did I really learn

[16:35] through these past few days

[16:38] of researching old sourdough methods?

[16:48] Well, like I always say on this channel,

[16:51] I think we need to keep things simple. I

[16:54] think we're overthinking this whole

[16:56] bread thing. It's not just for looks.

[17:00] It's not about making the perfect

[17:02] sourdough loaf and having the perfect

[17:04] crumb. I don't really think that

[17:07] mattered at all back then. What really

[17:09] mattered was feeding your family and

[17:12] feeding them good

[17:13] food. So, what I'm really trying to do

[17:16] is restore home and family and spirit

[17:18] through triedand-true homemaking skills.

[17:20] And I feel that is exactly what we did

[17:22] this week. We simplified things. We

[17:25] brought it back to the way that they

[17:28] were intended to be

[17:30] made. It's just bread.

[17:37] Maybe it's time for you to put those

[17:38] recipe books aside and just make some

[17:42] bread. Enjoy the process of making bread

[17:44] with your own hands and seeing how it

[17:46] turns

[17:48] out. Thank you so much for joining me

[17:50] here today. I can't wait to hear from

[17:52] you all in the comments down below.

[17:54] Share your recipes and your thoughts.

[17:57] I do have lots more videos on baking,

[18:01] bread making, and so much more in my

[18:03] playlist that will be down in the

[18:04] description box below. Make sure to

[18:06] watch that. And I will see you guys all

[18:09] next week for more restoring home,

[18:12] family, and spirit through tried and

[18:13] trueue homemaking skills. Love you lots.