Towerwater traditional Cape Sweet Sourdough Bread

Trying to find and use a traditional Cape bread recipe has been a real eye-opener. Particularly when it comes to the qualities of the food and ingredients that we use in our kitchens daily. It is safe to say that most of the basic ingredients that we use in preparing food, has been somewhat over manufactured or processed. Thanks to our journey with bread, we read the fine print on food packaging. We now prefer to avoid produce with questionable additives, preservatives, MSGs and Genetically Modified ingredients.

We try to eat as healthily as possible, growing our own organic vegetables and fruit. But we forget about the rest of the ingredients that we add to our meals in the form of water, rice, flour, salt, sugar, etc. All that has changed after we interrogated why a basic yeast recipe would not work using off the shelf ingredients. Discovering how basic ingredients like salt, water and flour are manipulated to go from essentially healthy in their best natural state to highly questionable in their manufactured state, helped us to be more cautious about what we buy and eat.

The risen pre-ferment starter (left) and the pre-ferment starter added to the flour (right)

Finding out the level to which our drinking water has been manipulated was sad. More especially when we do not have readily available alternatives to municipal tap water in our homes. Fetching water at a spring for baking is manageable, but not always possible for all food preparation needs.

The pre-ferment starter and flour now kneaded into dough (left) and the risen dough (right)

Our search for a traditional Cape bread recipe has also taught us the need to find better ingredients. It taught us to understand traditional cooking in the context of the available ingredients of the period. Hildagonda Duckitt would have had access to unadulterated ingredients for her food. Pure sea salt from the West Coast; stone-ground flour from a traditional wheat varietal, grown organically in fields within view of the house; and natural spring water from a source a short distance from the house.

We were fortunate enough to find a pure sea salt supplier from the West Coast and an organic stone-ground flour supplier from the Swartland, both sources close to Groote Post. Perhaps it was serendipitous that the ingredients and the recipe for the bread came from the same area. The best we could do when it came to spring water was the Albion Spring in Newlands, Cape Town, at least not far from Wynberg where Hilda wrote her books recording the recipe.

After several successful bread baking sessions with Hilda’s yeast and bread recipe, Keith has adapted the quantities for our needs at Towerwater. Thanks to Hilda, we now use our own traditional Cape sweet sourdough bread recipe.

Towerwater traditional Cape Sweet Sourdough Bread (as adapted from Hilda’s sweet sourdough recipe)

Ingredients: 
875ml (3½ cups) natural water only, 
10ml salt (2 teaspoons), 
150g (1 cup) unsifted whole wheat flour, and 
1kg white bread flour (organic and stone-ground as described).

Utensils required:  (Remember this is an archaic recipe and only very basic equipment, perhaps even antique - is required). A 5lt ceramic mixing bowl, 2lt ceramic mixing bowl onto which a suitably close-fitting lid can be placed, a tea-towel, a hand-towel, a wooden spoon, and a teaspoon. (The towels should not have been laundered with fabric-softeners.)

Note: All the water for the 75% hydration sourdough bread is added in the starter. This recipe provides for a little more flour (15g) to be added in the kneading stage. Should the kneading surface flour dusting exceed 15g, further additions of lukewarm natural water can be made while kneading so as to maintain the 75% hydration level.

Method for making the starter:

At about 17:00 on the day preceding the baking day, prepare the starter as follows:

1.      Add one level teaspoon (5ml) of natural sea salt to the mixing bowl.

2.      Pour over three cups (750ml) of boiling natural water.

3.      Carefully sprinkle over the water an even layer of one cup (150g) of unsifted whole wheat stone-ground flour.

4.      Place a folded tea towel over the bowl, close with a close-fitting lid and wrap the bowl in a hand-towel.

5.      Place in a warm place for a minimum of 12 – 14 hours. (A slightly warm oven not exceeding 28 C at any time works well.)

6.      At 06:00 – 07:00 the following morning, add a half cup (125ml) of boiling natural water to the mix which by now, has thickened. Stir in the water using a wooden spoon to achieve a smooth consistency.

7.      Cover, wrap-up and keep in a warm place. In two to three hours, the mix should have risen well with some bubbles and foam breaking the surface. If it hasn’t, give it some more time.

Method for making the bread:

1.      Measure off 1Kg stone-ground white bread wheat flour into a 5lt ceramic mixing bowl.

2.      Sprinkle over the second teaspoon of natural salt. Use a wooden spoon to mix the salt into the dry flour. Form an indentation in the flour without exposing the base or sides of the mixing bowl.

3.      Pour in the starter. It is now that you will observe the full extent of the fermentation, with lots of frothiness, bubbles and a disagreeable odour.

4.      Stir the starter with a wooden spoon to combine with the flour trying not to let the starter come into too much contact with the sides or bottom of the mixing bowl.

5.      As the flour and starter combine to form a dough, swop the wooden spoon for your hand or a pastry mixing scraper.

6.      Remove the dough from the bowl and on a flour dusted surface, knead for about 15 - 20 minutes until a good elasticity and smoothness has been attained. The dough should leave your hands clean when it has been kneaded sufficiently.

7.      Shape the dough into a sphere and place back in the 5 lt ceramic mixing bowl. Cover with the tea-towel and wrap with the hand-towel.

8.      Place in a warm location (but not warmer than 28 C) for approximately five hours or until the dough has risen to about double its original size.

9.      Remove the dough from the bowl to a suitable flour dusted surface on which the dough can be kneaded down for another 15 minutes.

10.   Grease the bread pans. (Butter would be the original greasing agent and is recommended.)

11.   Shape the dough into a loaf shape (or two loaves) to fit neatly in a single 37 x 14 x 10 cm bread pan or two bread pans of 24 x 14 x 7 cm.

12.   Cover with the tea-towel, wrap in the hand-towel and set aside in a warm place.

13.   Let rise until the dough has risen about 20mm in its centre above the sides of the pan.

14.   Pre-heat the oven to 200 C and bake for 45 minutes.

15.   Switch off the oven. Remove loaf from pan, turn upside down and place back in the oven for a further ten minutes.

16.   Know your oven. For fan-heated ovens, a lower temperature (180 C) and shorter baking period (say 30 minutes) may be in order.

17.   The bread is well-baked when the crust is a golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath.

I cannot wait for the wood-fired oven to be operational. When we take our first bread out of the ‘bakoond’ it will be true to the 1800’s and earlier. Made with a traditional Cape recipe in a wood-fired oven. The next steps are to master the skill of baking the bread in a wood-fired oven. It seems our bread journey continues.

The start of our bread journey - A traditional sourdough bread recipe for a wood-fired oven 

The second chapter of our bread journey - The secrets of salt, water and flour

Capturing moments and releasing centuries

This year, Summer is a fickle mistress. Seductive and temperate at moments, then tempestuous and oppressive on other days. Is this a feature of global warming or a natural shift in weather patterns? I don’t know. We certainly experienced more strong winds and unseasonal summer rain this year.

Unexpected rain over a weekend plays havoc with any plans of gardening. It brings a myriad of other problems, such as diseases for the roses and vines. But rain will always hold an enchantment for me. Whether it be just simply watching it as it washes over the plants, leaving them refreshed, or listening to the rhythmic sound of water running in the gutters. A sudden downpour lends the roses another dimension of beauty while they are covered in pearly raindrops.

The garden in the rain

The charm of summer rain is that the sky can clear as rapidly as it became overcast. The sudden re-appearance of sunshine reflects in the raindrops on the plants. Wrapping the garden in an instant in a sparkling freshness. On weekends, when summer rain is just a memory, we negotiate the load-shedding schedule with solar lamps and suppers on the lawn in the cooler evenings. Or lunches in the cool dining room, when the midday temperatures can reach an average of 36°C.  

The garden is still producing a selection of fruit and vegetables. Among them are green beans, a variety of tomatoes, sweet peppers, chillies, green and purple cabbages, beetroot, carrots, figs, plums, pears, apples, limes, grapes and a variety of herbs. We are literally eating our way through the summer garden. This year, I have black sweet peppers. A gift from my cousin after his working stint in America. With the dark eggplant, purple figs and black peppers, my harvest looks monochromatic on a white plate.

I am constantly amused by the colour palette that nature creates in our garden. This summer has a distinctive taste. It is primarily the taste of tomatoes from our yellow, pink and red selection of vine ripened tomatoes. What an inspiration our garden is and a joy to find new ways of preparing the selection on offer.

The repertoire of birds in the garden includes a family of mouse-birds that decided to nest in one of the oak trees. After the wind blew the baby chick from the nest once, I seemed to have to put him back into the nest constantly. He could not fly yet but seemed to prefer it out of the nest after his first involuntary venture into the garden. I am not a keen fan of them in the garden. I find them too destructive in the orchard. They can destroy several figs in the course of a morning. But I could not let this ‘ugly duckling’ of a bird die of exposure or at the beak or claw of the fiscal shrike or a curious cat.

Other resident birds in the garden are the Olive Shrikes, Wagtails, Robins, Waxbills, Bulbuls, Paradise Flycatchers, Cape Canaries, Sparrows, White Eyes, Fiscal Flycatchers, Fiscal Shrikes, Sunbirds, Laughing Doves, Turtle Doves, the Swallows under the bridge that crosses over the canal, some visiting Hoopoes, Hadedas and Rock Pigeons. Each bring their own character and contribution to the magic of the garden. They are the reason for keeping the garden organic as much as we can. They meticulously clean the dry-stone walls, architectural quoining, lawns and outdoor lamps. They clean these of all the insects that also call the garden ‘home’. Though it is a short sojourn, thanks to the regimen of the birds.

The orchard through a rain splattered bedroom window

The house is designed in such a way that one is always aware of the garden from within, even more so at dusk and dawn. The garden brings a sense of visual calm to the rooms. In the dawning of the day, different bird calls can be heard from the parts of the garden where they prefer to forage. They bring a light fresh sound into the house from the garden. At dusk the lighter sounds are replaced by the sometimes almost deafening night sounds. These include a chorus of raucous toads, the percussion of Guineafowl in the blue gums across the road and the shrill strings of the crickets in the garden.

The silhouette of the kitchen gable during loadshedding

The garden is a happy place. One can capture endless moments of pleasure as it releases the magic of centuries old rituals in a space that has captured the imagination of so many before us.

The secrets of salt, water and flour

Finding an early 1800s authentic Cape bread recipe that was used before commercial yeast was available, was made possible by the Africana cookbook collection in the Towerwater library. The first commercial yeast factory in South Africa was started in 1923 by Daniel Mills and Sons.

Salt, water and wheat

Deciding to make bread using Hildagonda Duckitt’s recipe for yeast, which was the family’s own recipe, set us on a path of discovery. A path that would ultimately change how we look at food. Hilda was born at Groote Post on 21 February 1839 and it is safe to say that the recipe must have been in use by her family for a long time before that.

Hilda explains in her book "Hilda's Diary of a Cape Housekeeper" (published 1902), how every day of the week on the farm was set out for different activities. Baking was done on Tuesdays and Fridays by their man cook Abraham. She describes their oven as follows, “There was a large oven (built into the kitchen), which took a cartload of wood to heat; by wood I mean “rhenoster bush”, which grows on the hills, and strange to say, wherever land has been under cultivation, in a few years it is covered with this bush, which makes excellent firewood, and was put round the kraals as fences as well. When this oven was heated twice a week for baking all the bread required on the farm, we generally made a supply of sponge- and tea-cakes at the same time, and turn-overs for picnics.”

Groote Post homestead with the thatched stables next to the round roof of the silo. Photo: Alice Mertens - "From the days that are gone" 1967

The Cape homestead and its surrounding outbuildings, on large farms such as Groote Post, would almost constitute a small village. Since wood was scarce in the Cape Colony, and it was far more economical to do so, bread would be baked centrally for the entire farm community. These remote largely self-sufficient communities would typically include the leaseholder/owner and household, the blacksmith and other artisans and their households, farm hands and their families and labourers and their families. 

   Plan of Groote Post, the bakoond is indicated by no 14 and the kitchen no 11. Image:"From the days that are gone" published 1967 by Howard Timmins

It is therefore unsurprising that Hilda’s wood-fired oven could take 70 loaves of bread at a single baking. The oven at Towerwater is estimated to take about twenty-six 1Kg (2lb) loaves at a time (two baker’s dozen), or most likely a baker’s dozen of the more likely 2kg (4lb) loaf. All these breads were baked in bread pans made on the farm from re-purposed metal.

This background to Hildagonda Duckitt is of interest as it is her authoritative published bread recipe that will serve to prepare a typical mid- 19th Century (1800’s) loaf. The recipe, with its’ only ingredients being flour, salt and water, is significant. In considering others of the period, it would seem to form the basis of the most generally accepted method for making bread in the rural Cape, with minor regional adaptations. This pre-ferment methodology prevailed prior to the invention of instant baker’s yeast in 1860 and its subsequent availability. The recipe would appear to pre-date all others consulted. 

This bold assumption is made on the basis that the recipe does not distinguish itself as being one for sourdough bread, though it clearly is. All ancient leavened bread-making, the same methods having been brought to the Cape in 1652 with European settlers, was from sourdough in some form or another. The recipe is therefore simply, “a bread recipe”. Notably, it uses only the ingredients of flour, salt and water. Later recipes, following the invention of baker’s yeast, add the descriptor, sourdough. The name sweet sourdough was then assigned to the recipe to differentiate it from other forms of sourdough, which use a continuous starter, potato or fruit additive to create a yeast. Of course, typical sourdough was not universally held in high esteem. Many found the sourness distasteful or reflecting a lack of accomplishment on the part of the baker (Source: Putnam’s Handy Book Series of Things Worth Knowing – Bread Making. By G P Putnam’s Sons, New York 1884).

The sweet sourdough process (which is unlike contemporary sweet sourdough recipes consulted), produced a bread that was much less sour, hence ‘sweet’ sourdough. This ‘sweetness’ might be ascribed to the yeast preparation which was a shorter one-off process. The pre-ferment starter was consumed entirely in each bake for which it was prepared.

Key features of this recipe in terms of the sourdough starter, is that it is a no fuss, no waste and time efficient method. To be expected in a very busy household, where bread-making was a basic routine driven by functional necessity. To bake your sourdough loaf from starting the starter to removing the loaves from the oven can be achieved in less than 24 hours, if all goes well!

A challenge is to interpret this recipe for contemporary use. First, in terms of the measurements. It should be remembered that all measurements in the recipe are in imperial quantities as would have been the standard of practice in the Cape Colony. For ease of use, these imperial measurements can be converted to metric measurements. In addition, few households today would require such quantities of bread as provided for in Hilda’s recipe (six large loaves of a baked weight of a kilogram each or twelve loaves of a ½ kilogram each). The recipe therefore can be scaled down (using 1Kg flour, excluding the starter) to make say two, 1Kg loaves or a single 2Kg ‘farmers’ loaf.

The yeast only required three ingredients, salt, water and flour. Easy enough because we had the ingredients readily available. Keith reduced the quantities for our domestic use and followed Hilda’s recipe to the letter. Although the mixture had a “disagreeable odour” as mentioned in Hilda’s recipe, there was no “frothy appearance” in the mixture. We were taken aback as to the lack of fermentation in the mixture. And serious research was undertaken to find out what could have gone wrong.

We discovered that our yeast was unresponsive because all three ingredients (on tap and off the shelf) that we used were “dead”; having none of the natural nutrients and minerals required by a traditional Cape yeast. 

Using the correct flour

Through our research, we established that if one wants to make authentic 19th Century bread, one would need to use simple rough wheat meal (course flour). Nothing added, or removed, the wheat cultivated organically, and stone ground. Stoneground flour, ensures that the temperatures reached during milling, do not achieve the high temperatures and damaging effects of roller milled flour. 

Conventional flour is unrecognisable from the flour Hilda would have used. The wheat is reconstituted with the germ and hull stripped away. Today, flour is treated with bleaching agents and sometimes maturing agents for artificial aging. To this end, additives commonly include Potassium bromate, Benzoyl peroxide, Ascorbic Acid, Chlorine dioxide, Calcium peroxide, Azodicarbonamide. Then there are the preservatives added which may include one or a selection of, Calcium propanoate, Sodium benzoate, Tricalcium phosphate, Butylated hydroxyanisole. 

Stone-ground unbleached natural flour

Some flours supplied to bakeries are also bromated. This is when potassium bromate is added to the flour to improve rise and the elasticity of dough! Contemporary methods of manufacturing flour strip away the natural nutrients and these are then sometimes replaced in ‘enriched flour’. These include the addition of iron and B vitamins (folic acid, riboflavin, niacin thiamine and sometimes calcium. In addition to enriching the flour, bread flour is also often ‘fortified’ with the further addition of a cocktail of micro-nutrients. 

Hilda’s recipe simply does not work with this kind of flour. Use only organically grown, non-gmo’d, 100% pure natural flour that has been stone-ground.

Finding the correct salt

Groote Post is closely located to the West Coast. Indeed, the Duckitts had a lovely home on the seaside. The West Coast is rich in sea salt deposit pans, and doubtless the family would have sourced their natural sea salt from one of these deposits. 

The first commercially iodised salt was manufactured and available in the USA in 1924. Manufactured commercial salt the world over is predominantly iodised. The process of ‘manufacturing’ salt, involves the washing, draining, cleaning and refining of salt until it is nearly 100 percent sodium chloride. It reportedly has no fewer than 84 naturally occurring minerals and trace elements removed in the process. Salt is iodised to mitigate the effects of iodine deficiencies in diets. A deficiency in iodine can lead to intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Pure salt crystals

From personal experience, it would seem that iodine has a negative effect on sourdough yeast. Apart from this, keeping true to the original recipe to achieve an authentic 19th Century loaf of bread demands non-iodised salt. Salt is now a manufactured product. It is bleached to present it as white as possible and has an anti-coagulant added to ensure that the salt runs better. We have discovered a source of natural sea salt from the same area as Hilda’s source. This calcium rich salt, we have found to be considerably (I would estimate 30%) stronger (saltier) than any conventional salt. 

Hilda’s conservative use of salt in the recipe is not necessarily a nod to contemporary health priorities. Her measure is dictated by the strength of the salt she was using. Salt inhibits the development and function of the yeast. 

Exceeding her measurement using a strong salt will disrupt the starter. Salt has a very important role to play in the making of the bread. It controls the yeast development, slowing it down and developing the best flavours of the bread. It contributes to the colouring of the crust allowing it to become golden brown in the oven. Salt of course is also a preservative, allowing the bread to mature gracefully without the development of mould.

The importance of the correct water

Municipal water has many additives, the list varies from municipality to municipality. Primary among them are chlorides and fluorides. The water which Hilda used, was from a local spring on the farm a short distance from the house. This water was rich in mineral content and entirely untreated. Municipal tap water has in the past century been sanitized to the point where all ‘life’ has been removed from it. Hilda’s recipe will not work with municipal tap water. The yeast will not develop.

  The "waterbalie" in Groote Post that would have been used to store the spring water. Photo: E.C. Lodge "From the days that are gone" 1967   

We have discovered in our numerous attempts to make this bread, that only the best organic, original non-gmo varietal wheat stoneground into flour; the purest untreated natural sea salt and fully natural untreated spring water, will work. Even the slightest ‘contamination’ of any one of these three ingredients will cause the bread to fail. This fact has been the most extraordinary discovery of this journey. It is therefore no wonder that this bread is in a very literal sense, the bread of life. A health bread par excellence.

(This post has been co-authored by Keith Loynes)

The start of our bread journey - A traditional sourdough bread recipe for a wood-fired oven 

Click here for the Towerwater traditional Cape Sweet Sourdough Bread recipe More about tradional Cape waterbalies - Listening to buildings