I recently found a recipe from Dr. Frank Sugihara that is an
authentic San Francisco Sourdough Bread. Dr. Sugihara was on the
team which figured out how San Francisco sourdough works, and wrote
down how the bakeries made the stuff. For the curious, go to your
library and ask the librarian to find the April 1970 issue of "The
Baker's Digest" and look at "Nature of the San Francisco Sourdough
French Bread Process" parts I and II. Dr. Sugihara and his team were
able to get the cooperation of a number of the bakeries in San
Francisco. Samartha has the recipe on his web site at
<http://www.samartha.net/SD/recipes/SF-01.html>. Samartha did change the
recipe a bit, in that the sponge is made with high gluten flour, but
the bread is traditionally made with patent flour.
The bread's recipe calls for patent flour. As with any unusual
flour, the only patent flour I can find is by mail order.or from food
service companies that don't talk to people who aren't in the food
business. Does anyone know of less pricey sources? Or if there are
any reasonable substitutions for patent flour?
There are three interesting observations I made from the article.
1. The San Francisco bakeries do not generally add bakers yeast to
San Francisco sourdough French bread, except during colder months,
when a very small amount is added to insure a good rose.
2. No recipes I've seen on the Internet are anywhere close to right.
3. The article says, "The bread is made up simply with the fully
developed starter sponge, flour, water and salt. None of the other
usual ingredients of white pan bread, such as yeast, sugar,
shortening and non-fat dry milk, monoglycerides, dough conditioners,
oxidants, mold inhibitors, etc are needed or used." If you see a
"San Francisco Sourdough French Bread" in the store and it has that
junk in it, it isn't authentic.
Best wishes,
Mike