LE FOURNIL DE SÉBASTIEN: TOP QUALITY SOURDOUGH BREAD

NATURAL SOURDOUGH

Natural sourdough is an ancestral way of making dough rise. Very few bakers use natural homemade sourdough. Most of them use baker’s yeast.

Natural sourdough comes from mixing flour with water. The bacteria and yeast which are naturally contained in the flour, water and the air, feed off the carbohydrates in the flour. They produce gases, aromatic residues, lactic acid and acetic acid which help the bread to rise and give sourdough bread its wonderfully characteristic flavours.

A UNIQUE LIVING ORGANISM

Sourdough is a unique living organism,as its evolution is dependent on many different parameters: the temperature, the composition of the flour, the water, the air, the amount of fermentation time between two feeds, the level of humidity in the air… This is why each baker, and each region, will produce sourdough with its very own distinctive character.

A MORE EFFECTIVE ABSORPTION OF MINERALS AND OTHER BENEFITS

Cereals naturally contain phytic acid in their husk. This acid comes together with certain minerals in the intestine to form insoluble phytates. It prevents our body from absorbing minerals. The phytase (an enzyme that becomes active in the sourdough) destroys the phytic acid.The longer the dough ferments, the more time the phytase in the sourdough has to release the minerals born from this association with the phytic acid. It is one of the huge benefits of sourdough bread.

Sourdough boasts a wealth of other advantages too: it is easier to digest than bread made with baker’s yeast as it contains fewer fermentable sugars and it predigests the gluten. It keeps well. And it lowers the glycemic index of the bread, which limits the variation of the level of sugar in the blood stream. All this depends on a slow and lengthy rise time. Without this, the sourdough cannot do its job effectively.

SÉBASTIEN’S SOURDOUGH

At the Fournil de Sébastien, we make our own sourdough and we take great care in conserving it. Every day we take a small sample of the sourdough (from the freshly-made sourdough of the day) and we add water and flour to feed it. This step is called ‘feeding’….

To prepare the dough, we calculate how much sourdough we need for each batch to be kneaded and we adjust the temperature of the water. We do this every day to ensure the very best quality bread.

FERMENTATION TIME

At the Fournil de Sébastien, all our dough undergoes a long fermentation time lasting from 18 to 24 hours and , for the most part, at room temperature. This means that the sourdough can perform well  to ensure: fullness of  flavours, efficient action of the phytase and a low glycemic index.

Olympiaplein 119
1077 CW Amsterdam
Tel.: 020-6724211
Open from Monday to Saturday:
7 am to 7 pm.

Gijsbr. van Amstelstraat 131
1214 AW Hilversum
Tel.: 035-6210602
Open from Monday to Saturday:
7 am to 7 pm.

Amsterdamseweg 189
1182 GV Amstelveen
Tel.: 020-8232412
Open from Monday to Saturday:
7.30 am to 7pm.