Sourdough Desem-Old World Bread

Desem crackers

2010-04-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd try and explain how we make the desem crackers. Usually we make these when we have enough time to do all the rolling out, and when we don't want to eat the real desem bread. After feeding the starter we are still left with a hunk of dough that needs to be used. So we make this dough into crackers.

I usually end up popping the dough in the 'fridge to sit for a few days. This allows the flavor to ripen. Then I take it out, knead it well. Roll it out as thin as you can! Really, really thin. Spread it with some oil, sprinkle it with salt and spices, or garlic powder and cut it into shapes or rectangles. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 400* until it begins to get golden brown and crispy. The flavor is so yummy!

It goes well with cream cheese, or hummus, or other bean dips. Or as a plain snack, too.

New Desem recipe

2009-12-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

I made desem using fruits and sugars today AND IT WORKED!

This is what I did: Last evening I fed my starter and cooled the dough over the night in my cooler. In the morning I took the dough out and added 1 1/3 cup of water to the bread machine, broke the dough up into pieces and added it. I let it mix this until it was a liquid and then added salt, agave nectar and molasses, cinnamon and nutmeg and raisins. I also added some coconut oil. I added flour until it was the right texture.

After it was kneaded 22 minutes, I greased a bowl and put it in there, and covered it with a pan. I sat a block of ice on the pan to keep it cold. I let it sit for 4 hours, then punched it down and rounded it up. I shaped half of it into a baguette, and the other into rolls. I was using my baguette pan, so I had to improvise a way of doing the hot rise desem calls for.
So I used my broiling pan and poured hot, hot water into it and sat the baguette pan on top of it. Covered it with plastic wrap, and then with several towels. I can't find my heating pad so the hot water was all I used. It worked. I did have to change the hot water every 20 minutes or so. Let's see, I changed the water 4 times so that was little more than an hour of hot rising. Baked it at 430 in the oven. That worked pretty well, too. I did forget to lower the heat.
I was working from memory. I didn't look at my instructions at all, and paid little attention to all the steps needed. I think I managed to do everything that was really necessary, though.
I've been feeding my desem regularly every week at least. However, I haven't made the real desem bread in a while, so it's nice to get back into that. I hope to do it weekly this winter. I make other things with the fermented dough. Sometimes I make half desem bread (yeast and desem combined) and sometimes I make waffles or pancakes, or muffins, or desem crisp bread (yummy crackers.) I also love to make english muffins with the desem bread! Funny, how I've had the desem for so long (3 years!) and only now am starting to do other things with it.

Information

2009-11-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

An email I wrote today:

The sour dough starter that we use here is called desem. This is a flemish word meaning sourdough. All it contains is flour, water and freshly ground whole wheat flour. It's a bit different than traditional sourdough starters in that it is not a liquid. It's a round ball of dough and we feed it weekly or twice a week depending on how much bread and other goodies you want to make. It has a very slow fermentation and my mother in law developed a way getting consistent loaves that rise nicely for bread. I use her method just about every week. I also use it for crisp bread, pancakes, english muffins and waffles. It has a very rich flavor. My starter has been going for almost 5 years, my mother in laws for nearly 20 now.

Because it doesn't have traditional yeast we developed a method of baking with it to give us consistent results and I'm now testing many recipes for my blog with this sourdough. I am selling the starter and a kit with directions and some faq on my blog, for those who want a ready made starter. I am also trying to gather information about how to make desem sour starters and how to use desem in many different types of recipes. I have information about how to make it yourself but it's not complete information yet. The yeast and lacto bacteria are different than in other kinds of sourdoughs. It's really a symbiotic colony of several different yeasts and as many as 11 different kinds of bacteria, all working together to make the bread.

The yeast we buy at the store for bread making is really a gm organism. As wonderful as freshly made bread is it would be far better if we could get away from using the gm yeast and use something that is more healthy for us.

Random desem stuff

2009-08-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

My favorite old bread pans! And half desem bread or "quicker desem bread." These loaves have sun dried tomato and parmison cheese in them.

News flash!

2009-08-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

My desem starters survived my recent pregnancy and post partum and I'm back to making desem bread! Hurray!

Comments

2009-08-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much for the desem starter and the instruction book. It makes it much easier to bake real desem bread!~ Mary B.

Desem "quicker" bread

2009-03-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

A mix of yeast and desem starter. With sun dried tomatoe and olive oil, garlic, and Parmesan cheese to flavor the bread.

The Desem Starter Kit

2009-03-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

Booklet of Instructions and the Basic Baking Method
The Starter
Container for the Starter
Cloths (2 sets)
Fresh whole wheat flour

You can get the plain starter for 15.00 plus a ice pack to keep it cool and the shipping. I offer this, because occasionally we kill our poor little starters and need to (ahem) start over.

The shipping is included in the Desem Starter Kit.

Something to keep in mind is that in the summer it may be too hot to ship unless we put it on a faster delivery. So if you are anticipating hot temperatures, please be sure to include this in the email you send me, or on the paypal note.

Thanks, Jo

Your Fermented starter

2009-03-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

This is what your fermented starter looks like the next day. You will add flour, water and salt to this dough in order to make your desem bread.

Wrapping the starter

2009-02-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Wrap the ball of starter dough in one of the cloths, then in the other. The starter dough goes right in your container and the larger piece of dough goes in your fermenting bowl. This dough is what you use to make your bread with.

Measuring the starter and wrapping it

2009-02-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

We measure about a third of the starter off of the dough. This is going to be wrapped in the desem cloths and the rest is the dough that will make your bread.

See the cloths? This keeps the desem starter dry, clean and contained. If we were to put it in a jar it would die.

Feeding the starter, continued

2009-02-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

In the first picture, we have mixed 2 cups of fresh flour with our desem and water. This is kinda stiff and a little moist at the same time. We knead this until it looks like the second picture. It needs about 8-10 minutes. This can be done in a bread machine or it can be done by hand.

Say hello to your starter

2009-01-31T16:54:00.000-08:00

Once mixed with water the starter looks like this. This is before we add the 2 cups of fresh flour.

This is the starter after it is broken up, and right before we mix it with cool water. To this we add 2 cups of fresh whole wheat flour.

This is a picture of what your starter looks like when it needs to be fed. It is unwrapped, a little on the dry side and smells slightly alcoholic. A desem starter needs feeding once a week, but if you want it to be very active, you can feed it twice a week. Some families bake desem twice a week, because it is so good.

fresh whole grain flour

2009-01-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

Why does Desem need fresh whole grain flour?

The desem starter is a combination of natural yeasts, lactobaccilli and enzymes. It is very active and needs fresh food. There is much more nutrition in fresh whole grain four than in old flour or store bought flour. Also if your going to go to the trouble of making your own bread it's much more satisfying to use the most nutritious and tastiest flour you can use. So we recommend you grind your own fresh whole wheat flour.

How big are your loaves?

2009-01-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

How much water, flour, salt and your baking times will all depend on how you pans are sized and how much dough you will need to make.

8”x5” loaves
Water:21/3 cup cold water
Flour: 4 cups ground wheat ~6 cups flour
Salt: 11/2 to2 teaspoons

5 x 9” Loaves
Water: 23/4 cups cold water
Flour: 6-8 cups ground wheat 8-10 cups flour
Salt: 2-3 1/2 teaspoons

A word about pans and dough

2009-01-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

*A word about pans and dough.
The size of your desem loaves are going to depend on your pan sizes. If you have large sized loaf pans you will need to use the larger proportion of ingredients I have given. You also need to use the longer times. If you pans are small use the smaller proportions given and the shorter times. I prefer to use baker steel pans I bought at Walmart although you can also use nonstick.*

Step 8 and 9

2009-01-28T14:36:00.001-08:00

Step 8. Dump the water out of your 9 x13” pan and dry it and put away the heating pad and towels and take out some racks for the bread to cool on. After the bread has baked for 15-20 minutes, reduce the heat to 350* ( If necessary check your oven thermometer.) Bake your bread for another 25-35 minutes.

Step 9. Remove your desem bread from the oven, and carefully remove the top pans. Be careful because the steam is hot. Run a knife around the loaves and carefully remove them from the pans. Cool for a while before sampling.

Step 6 and 7

2009-01-28T14:35:00.000-08:00

Step 6. After the rest is done you need to flatten the dough again and round him up. Place two balls of dough in each pan. Set a towel on the counter. Run very hot water into your 9x13 inch pan. Don't make them so full as to over flow when you set the bread pans in them. Set the hot water pan on the towel and place the bread pans in them. Brush the tops of the bread with a little hot water. Or you can use clean water from a clean spray bottle. Cover each bottom pan with a bread pan on top so it has a lid.
Put the heating pad over the top of the bread pans and turn on to medium. Be sure not to let the heating pad get wet. Cover all with several towels for added insulation.

Step 7. Allow to rise 40 minutes to an hour and then replace the water with fresh hot water. (Keep an eye on the bread from time to time in case it rises extra fast.) Usually, after another half hour or so you can turn the oven on to so that it gets to about 450* It helps to have a thermometer inside the oven. After another 15-30 * minutes the bread should be ready to go into the oven. Sprinkle it well with water and gently cut 3 slashes into each of the bread loaves. Replace the top covers and set into the oven. Note your time and set a clock for 15-20 minute.

Step 4 and 5

2009-01-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Step 4. After the 3-4 hours are up go ahead and check your dough. You will need to deflate it and round it up again. Put him back in the bowl and check the temp. Remember it needs to be 62-68*

Step 5. After one hour or so, bring him up and divide him into 3 or 4 balls. With the palm of your hand flatten them and round them up. Cover with a large bowl or damp towels and allow the dough to rest for 15 minutes while you get the bread pans ready. Butter the pans you are going to use.

Step 3

2009-01-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Step 3.
In the morning of the next day, you will need to mix up your bread using the fermented dough. Grind your fresh flour. Place your water in the bowl and using a fork mix the bread dough to form a thin paste. Add 2 cups flour and your salt. Mix this and add another cup of flour. It should be getting stiff. Turn it out on a floured surface and sprinkle with flour and begin to rotate the mass of dough. Continue to sprinkle with flour until you can kneed it normally. There is a trick to kneading your desem bread. You sort of knead it as you move the mass in a circle. Continue adding flour if the dough is sticky. You will kneed it for 15-20 minutes depending on how much you are making. When the timer is up and it's about kneaded through it will feel very elastic and soft. It shouldn't be too moist nor too dry. With practice you'll get to know what it should feel like. Be sure to place your starter in the refrigerator.

Place your dough in a 4-6 quart bowl and go back to your cool spot and let it rise for 3-4 hours. Make sure the temp is cool 60-65*.

Step 1 and 2

2009-01-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

Step 1. In the morning of the day before you want to bake you must decide how much flour you will need and grind it.
Step 2. In the evening of the day before you want to bake bread you must feed your Desem starter. Take him out and unwrap him. He will smell sour and slightly alcoholic. Break him up and add 1 cup of cold water. Stir to dissolve it with your fork. Then add 2 cups fresh flour. Mix this together and knead for 8-10 minutes. You want the ball of dough to be elastic and smooth. Cut off 10-12 oz of starter and wrap it in your cloths. Tie them up and store in it's container. This is your starter, your little pet. Take the dough that's left and put it in the fermenting bowl. This is the sourdough that you will use for your bread making tomorrow. Round up the dough and cover with saran wrap or a quick cover. Now you have to find a cool place to let it ferment. (I give you permission to carry a thermometer around and check temperatures.
If anyone asks what you are doing just say “A Science Experiment” ;-) Basements and concrete floors are ideal and but insulated garages can do in a pinch. In hot weather you may need to put it in a insulated cooler with some ice.

On our method

2009-01-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

The desem starter I use came from my mother in law who captured the desem over 10 years ago. It is a consistent starter with a good strong flavor and it rises well. The method I am detailing here is put together so we can make a consistent loaf of bread. This is why I emphasize certain things like being aware of the temperatures, feeding schedule, the right size of pans ect. We want a consistent loaf of bread, one that will be predictable every week. When I first began with desem it was, sad to say, extremely discouraging. The bread I tried making was never edible, never very good, never rose well and I hated feeling like such a failure. Sometime later, Mom wrote the first set of instructions and I got a copy. That is when I began to have consistent results with the desem.

Don't be discouraged with the sour dough. It always takes some time to learn how to do new things. Hopefully, I can prevent some of the frustrations that beginners can feel with the instructions and pictures on this blog.

Making a starter

2009-01-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

How To Make Your Starter.

Making the starter is always the tricky part of baking with sourdoughs. If you are unlucky, you'll start growing something besides what you want to grow and you'll have nasty smells, and even nastier bread. If this happens throw it out and try again. If you want to do it the easy way, try and buy some starter from someone else.

Start with 5 lbs of organic whole wheat bread flour. It's O.K. to buy this initial flour. You'll also need a big stock pot or a 5 gallon bucket, and a cool place to keep him. Any container or even a bag will do, so long as your ball of dough has 4-5 inches of flour around it. You will need to feed your desem with fresh flour and water every day for the first two weeks. It's best to do this in the winter so you can have cool temperatures to work with. Pay attention to the temperatures where the flour is. At this point it needs 50-65* but not more than 70*

(The rest of these directions are paraphrased from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, which is really what you need to read before you start the starter.)

Day 1: Mix 2 cups of flour and ½ cup of water together to make a smooth elastic ball.
You'll knead it just a little and then bury it in the flour. Let it incubate for 48 hours.
Day 3 : Take it out and look at it. If it has a crust you should cut it away it (this reduces the ball of dough by half) but if it doesn't have a dry crust just cut the ball of dough in half. Put it in a bowl and work in ¼ cup of pure water to it. Then knead in one cup of flour and add more water or flour to the dough as nessasary to restore it to its original size. Knead it, round it up and bury it again in the flour. Let it incubate for 24 hours.
Repeat Day 3 instructions the next day and keep doing this for 7-10 days.
Sometime after the 7'th day you should be able to use it by following the Basic Baking procedure. You can continue to feed it every day until the second week. The flavor will get better and the leavening will improve as the desem matures.
At first you may need to use the desem starter to make only one loaf of bread and ferment it twice as long as you would with your mature desem. As your desem matures the bread will become lighter and it will have a stronger flavor. Remember it's still developing, and it will need to continue to grow for a few more weeks.

The Equipment you will need

2009-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

A list of equipment you need:

4 steel bread pans, (2 for the top and 2 for the bottom)
2-4 quart bowl
fork
pure water
9X13” pan (this can be an older pan steel pan that's rusty.)
heating pad
4-6 towels
hot water
salt
fresh whole grain flour (best if you grind it your self)
4 cloths 14”x14”
and pint sized container with lid.
thermometer
Desem starter

A bread machine is optional.

2009-01-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

Getting started

2009-01-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

Here at Laudo Deum Farm I practice the old fashioned art of making natural sour dough bread for my family to eat. The sour dough that I make is called desem bread. Desem (pronounced: day-sum) starters are unlike regular sourdough starters in that they are a ball of kneaded dough and can be wrapped in cloths and stored in the refrigerator. Regular sour doughs are a soupy mass of fermented flour and water that depend on wild yeasts captured from the air to provide sourness and leavening. The desem starter is unique in that the leavening comes from the grain itself. In other words, the leavening agents of desem exist inside the grains of wheat. These include a natural yeast, some lactobaccilli and enzymes. The desem bread I have learned to make has been around for many years. My starter came from my mother in-law, Theresa. Her starter has been “living” for about ten years. She read about desem in Desem likes cool temps, preferring 62-68* for fermenting and raising.Desem is a little trickier than most breads to work with because of the cool temperatures needed and because it needs fresh ground flour however, the taste and texture of desem is worth the extra effort. My mother-in-law devised a method of making desem so just about every loaf will come out predictably well. I have simply tried to put it all together so it's easier to get started with it. The first and oldest written work is probably Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. She has a whole section on making desem bread including important information about how to make the starter. Also in The Bread Builder's, the author also has a section on baking desem bread.

On desem...

2009-01-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

Desem is a hard bread to master. You have to get the water, the flour, the temperatures and the method exactly right- or you won't have good desem bread. There isn't that much room for experimenting with it either. I have been doing some experimenting here and there and eventually I'll get this recorded on the blog.

Every once and a while, I scour the internet to see if anybody has come up with some more sources on making desem bread. I found this one last year:

http://www.justhungry.com/desem

It seems to me I had seen this a few years ago, probably before I was blogging. Anyway, this is a good desem read, lots of info and some nice pictures, too. I think it's great tht there are some other desem enthusiast around.

I love desem bread, and I believe it's some of the healthiest bread you can eat. Of course, it is a sourdough, so the flour has been soaked or fermented which makes it better for us. It is also full of wild yeasts strains and lactobacteria. These are good for us, too. Lacto-bacteria are good for the digestion, and beneficial yeasts boost the immune system. I want eventually to be able to share the starter and my set of instructions and pictures that I have been working on for a long time with other sourdough enthusiasts.

I plan to have a basic kit for sale as I want to make sure that people have a good idea about how to use it. I have been writing a booklet and method of instruction for a while. I'm trying to make it very clear and helpful. I will offer the kit with a starter, cloths, container, and a bag of fresh flour and the booklet. As I can, I will put the information on the blog, too.

Welcome to Sourdough Desem

2009-01-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

Hi and Welcome to Sourdough Desem.

I am Jo and I am so happy that you could come and learn more about our traditional old world bread. Desem bread is a sourdough bread. Unlike most other sourdoughs it has a solid dough like starter instead of a soupy one. It prefers cold temperatures to warmer ones and thrives in our Northern climate. Desem is peculiar in that it must have organic fresh ground flour in order to do well. This is because it is dependent on the wild yeasts and bacteria that are on the wheat grains.

Desem is a strong flavoured bread. It reminds me of aged chedder cheese; earthy, sour, and envigorating at the same time. The traditional cold rise bread has a very long fermentation. This make the bread more digestable for many people.

If you grind your own whole grains for making bread you will be able to make desem bread.

Blessings, Jo

From other sources...

2009-01-26T15:05:00.001-08:00

"Desem" is the Flemish word for sourdough starter. A starter is a bit of fermented dough that has the ability to raise or leaven breads. All starters contain yeast, as well as lactobacilli (as in yogurt) and a wide variety of enzymes. Sourdough yeasts come in many varieties depending on the location of the bakery and the climatic conditions and are different from standard commercial baker's yeast, saccharomyces oryzae, which is a monoculture of one variety of yeast grown in a laboratory to make bread dough rise as quickly as possible.

Desem sourdough is created by allowing organic whole grain dough to ferment, like wine, in a temperature controlled environment under very special conditions. When the desem is ready to use, it has the aroma of wine and contains a tiny amount of alcohol. It has the ability to raise about thirty times it's weight in bread dough, and it has a low pH, meaning it is quite acidic; not really sour but tart and tangy. When mixed into a batch of dough, the yeast creates carbon dioxide gas which inflates the ball of stretchy dough, while the lactobacilli and enzymes cause fermentation and partial digestion of the starch and probably the protein portions of the grain. The rising process takes approximately six hours and it is this slow fermentation which releases the flavor of the wheat, rye or other grain and creates the exquisite flavor and digestibilty of these loaves.”

“Lactobacilli : Lactic acid producing bacteria, often refered to as frindly bacteria. These are rod shaped bacteria that assist the process of fermentation and produce lactic acid and acetic acids along with CO2 as by-products of metabolism (fermentation).” (The Bread Bakers forum)

"The Desem bread is also a story of rebirth. Desem is a bread researched and developed in Belgium after World War Two to meet the demand for a healthier diet, a "brown" bread, the European equivalent of the fashionable but imported "brown" rice. Besides utilizing the whole grain or "brown" flour, this bread was made out of a thoroughly fermented dough using the ambient microorganisms of the flour itself as the leavening agents. The starter dough was called "Desem." The return to the age-old practice of natural fermentation put this bread on the map. At last, here was the real thing, truly a staff of life dating back millennia._(Alan Scott, author of The Bread Builders_)