Sourdough and Mother-dough…what is the difference? (2024)

FAQs

Is mother dough the same as sourdough? ›

If you're into baking or you've jumped on the sourdough band wagon you'll have heard people talking about their mother dough, a lot. Mother dough, also known as pre-ferment or sourdough starter, is the basis of a loaf of bread.

Bakers often make loaves with fermented dough from a previous batch (which they call "mother dough", "mother sponge", "chef", or "seed sour") rather than making a new starter every time they bake. The original starter culture may be many years old.

Mother - this is the overall dough culture that lives in a bowl in your fridge. We take portions from it to make our ferments (Starter) for our sourdough recipes. When the mother culture gets low, we add to it (feed it).

Sourdough relies on a mix of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, rather than baker's yeast, to leaven the dough. It's richer in nutrients, less likely to spike your blood sugar, contains lower amounts of gluten, and is generally easier to digest than bread made with baker's yeast.

Despite the fact that traditional sourdough ingredients are flour, water, and salt, many store-bought versions include added yeast, ascorbic acid, vinegar, and oil. So, although many grocery stores may carry bread labeled “sourdough”, more often than not they are in fact fake sourdough.

Your sourdough starter is the foundation of baking sourdough bread. Through proper maintenance and a little attention, it can last indefinitely and provide you with countless healthy and delicious loaves of bread.

Health benefits

Mother yeast pre-digests bread. The longer leavening times required to allow enzymes more time to break down proteins (such as gluten), lipid and starch macromolecules, into simple nutrients. A product obtained with sourdough is, thus, more digestible.

You might also see the term “levain bread” or “pain au levain,” which are other names for sourdough bread. Because the term levain is French for leaven, which is almost always taken to mean naturally fermented bread, the term levain is often used synonymously with sourdough.

“The whole-grain sourdoughs have more fiber, protein and micronutrients, making them more filling and healthier for you overall,” says Natalie Rizzo, registered dietitian and nutrition editor at TODAY.com.

It's difficult to know which sourdough starters are actually the oldest. Blackley's sourdough starter, created from 4,500 year-old yeast, is considered the oldest sourdough starter, per Oldest. Other starters like the Saint Honoratus Wheat also are quite old.

Do you have to discard sourdough starter every time you feed it? ›

Do I have to discard my sourdough starter? It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

Is it healthy to eat sourdough everyday? You could eat sourdough every day, but it isn't necessarily healthy to do so. A healthy diet is characterized by balance and moderation. Whether or not it is healthy for you to consume sourdough every day depends on the rest of your diet.

Is sourdough bread good for diabetics? Sourdough bread is made through a slow fermentation process, which may cause this type of bread to raise blood sugar more slowly than other breads. As a result, sourdough bread could be a great choice for those with diabetes.

The main differences between yeast and sourdough starter are the time in which they take to leaven bread. Because of the way commercial yeast has been honed, it rises bread very quickly. In comparison, the wild yeast contained in sourdough starter can take many hours, even days, to rise bread.

All sourdough bread is slow-fermented, but not all slow-fermented bread is sourdough. Sourdough bread is made from a sourdough starter, which is a fermented flour and water mixture that contains wild yeast.

Generally, you can substitute a packet of yeast for 100g of sourdough starter. If your recipe uses less than a packet of yeast, you can use less sourdough starter, however it won't make too much difference because of the way wild yeast works.

Baker's yeast turns the sugar into alcohol (a very low volume which evaporates away as the dough is baked) and into carbonated gas. Sourdough starters turn the sugar into carbonated gas and lactic (and acetic) acid, which give this bread its sour flavor.