Make Sourdough Bread!

Want to make a loaf of bread from scratch? Nowadays, it’s pretty easy. Just go the store to pick up some flour, and get some yeast in those teeny, easy to use packets!

But if you lived in colonial times, life wouldn’t have been this convenient. To make flour, for example, you would have needed to grow your own grains, harvest and grind them. And yeast, which came in dried blocks, was often hard to find and not always of good quality. That’s why colonial women turned to an ancient way to make bread rise: they made a yeast mixture called “sourdough,” which they could use again and again.

This Thanksgiving, engage your American History student with this sourdough baking project, which straddles social studies with science. This bread is pretty delicious, too, especially when it’s warm and covered with honey and butter.

Sourdough Starter

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup room temperature water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast

First, remind your young mathematician that sourdough is one of those mixtures that offers great practice with proportion: for every one cup of flour, you can count on needing an equal amount of water, and one tablespoon of sugar. Mix the three ingredients together with the yeast in a wide mouth crock or big glass jar with plenty of space for the mixture to “grow.” Cover your bowl with a dish towel (not plastic wrap, which cuts the air supply), and set it aside in a warm place for about 3 days. Watch it change, and stir it down once a day with a wooden spoon. (Don’t use metal, which may react with the mixture!)