What was the leavening used in medieval breads?
Generally, sourdough – much like today, they would create a culture with flour and water to attract the local yeasts. This would either be maintained as a separate culture to mix into each batch, or more often, a bit of dough was kept from one day’s batch to start the next. “Barm”, or ale yeast, was also widely used. Since producing carbonation for beer does not exhaust ale yeast, the dregs can be strained out and used to leaven bread. Bakers and brewers were often working side by side, if not the same person. Anglo-Saxons would take beer sediment, whisk it into fresh water, and dry it on a wooden platter for later use. They also would dip birch twigs in the liquid and hang dry. I am comfortable with extrapolating that out to commercial powdered or cake yeast (although obviously it’s not the same breed…) What recipes did they use? Very few bread recipes were written down, or survive. Here are some that I’ve found. “Anyone, therefore, who does baking should use flour which is well-gro
