The Brioche Cinnamon Roll is light and buttery and it handles cinnamon and sugar rather impressively. The roll, which has a distinct flavour and chewiness to it, is a great way to get introduced to sourdough. Samruddhi Nayak, who has baked it, says: “If you haven’t tasted sourdough before and are wary of it, try it. I bet you’ll ask for more.” She couldn’t have been more right. The roll was polished off in no time and Samruddhi beams. “I told you so”.
Samruddhi is at Incredible Art, where she is taking an enthusiastic group of bakers through the technique of making sourdough breads.
The sourdough baker from Bangalore says it is an acquired taste. It isn’t sweet like your standard store-bought loaf and the flavour is a little more complex. This European art of making bread, however, has caught on in India, especially among home bakers who are giving the factory-made, yeasted bread a break. “I would call sourdough superfood. It has just flour, water and salt and no commercial yeast at all, which makes it healthy.” Sourdough bread has no gluten, no enhancers, taste improvers or artificial leavening agents. The lactobacilli, which gives it the unique flavour, also makes it rich in probiotics.
Sourdough, however, isn’t for the impatient baker. It is a labour of love. The dough needs to be fermented anywhere between 10 to 72 hours. The longer it is fermented, the better it tastes, says Samruddhi, who has been teaching baking since 2007. She stumbled upon the wonder bread called sourdough while on a trip to Germany. Fascinated by the bread and the process by which it is made, she started learning about it and trying it out at home.
A chocolate maker, who had her own unit called Whisk and Whip, Samruddhi was training people in chocolate making. She was also baking designer cakes, a hobby she has nurtured since the age of eight. Sourdough, however, was a game changer. There was no looking back. “It held a special charm. I wanted to learn it the right way and master it. I started researching it and even went back to Germany to do a one-month diploma in European baking.” She also apprenticed in a bakery in Germany, where she learnt it hands-on. “I got the knack of it, but the challenge back home was to make breads with local ingredients. The European breads came out so well partially because of the quality of the ingredients.” She experimented with maida and atta and arrived at her own, most workable versions with the available local ingredients.
Today, Samruddhi bakes artisan breads, which include baguettes, brownies, pies, soup sticks, waffles, pancakes and croissants, which she sells on order through Krumb Kraft, her label. She supplies to quite a few cafes in Bangalore and has a growing individual customer base. Since 2016, Samruddhi has been teaching sourdough baking and conducting workshops throughout India.
“The process still fascinates me. There is no kneading, just stretching and folding the dough in regular intervals. Rest it, ferment it, shape it, proof it, ferment it again, and then bake it. The baking takes only about 40 minutes. It may not be instant and may take much more time. But there is nothing more satisfying than sourdough,” she says.
She has a Facebook community, Indian Artisan Bread Bakers’ where members discuss their baking concerns. After her sourdough workshops, she gives her students a month’s support and gets them to do two simple breads that were done in class, after which, they graduate to doing more complex breads.
Patience, practice and passion are all it takes for mastering the art of sourdough, says Samruddhi. She advises her students to get their basics right and to not be in a hurry. The bread can even be baked in a convection microwave, if the technique is right, she says.
