What is Salt Rising Bread?!

The starter before fermentation.

As many of you know I am always up for a new baking/cooking challenge, and lately I have gotten many requests to make Salt Rising bread. I had never heard of this before, but since people kept asking for it I decided to do some research and give it a try. Apparently, it can be found in the southern tier, and most restaurants and bakeries do not carry the bread. These people were foaming at the mouth got it! It's one of those more time consuming breads--it isn't difficult by any means, the process just spans over two days. As for most bread, most of the time involved is allowing the dough to rise the proper amount, however, this dough takes even more time to rise than most. And it doesn't seem to rise much until it is put in the oven.

After fermentation-nice and bubbly.

Anyway, Salt Rising bread came about during the Pioneer days when women did not have access to electric or gas ovens, or yeast (sort of essential for baking bread). These innovative women came up with a way to make bread rise without the use of yeast by heating rock salt, and putting that in a sort of crock. The starter is made with cornmeal, flour, and water (or milk). This is put in a container and then put in the rock salt (in the crock), and left covered overnight. It is essential for the starter to stay warm in order to activate the fermentation process.

This dough is so smooth!

I do not have rock salt or a crock, so the modern day alternative is putting the starter in a jar, covering it with a towel, and letting it sit overnight in the oven with the light turned on. You might not expect the oven to get hot with just the light on, but ours clocks in at about 100 degrees F with the light on. That's pretty hot! This has turned out to be the perfect method to get the desired results. My mom made the starter and wrapped it in a heating pad set on low, and absolutely nothing happened. It might be a trial and error sort of thing also.

Ready for the oven, still sort of flattened, but it puffs up.

The desired result: The starter should have risen, should be bubbly throughout, and it should smell like something died two weeks ago and has been sitting in the sun decaying. Yes, it really does smell that bad. The recipe I found said that the bacteria made during the fermentation process is the same as the bacteria made to make cheese. So, the dead sea smell is normal and absolutely essential for delicious Salt Rising bread. Just keep it at an arm's length when you're putting the rest of the ingredients together and kneading it so you don't vom everywhere. I made the mistake of taking a good whiff the first time I made it--I wanted to know what the "cheese smell" actually smelled like. Well, I found out.

Rising in the oven makes this bread look really cool!

Once the starter has risen and is properly stanky, mix it with the rest of the flour, knead it, and let it rise for two hours. Once it has risen you give it a knead, shape it into the bread pans, and let it rise again for two more hours. Like I said, it doesn't appear to rise much, but once in the oven it poofs right up. The end result is really spectacular--all puffed up with an interesting shape, and it feels like a brick. But that's how it is supposed to be, and all those people requesting the bread have come back and said how amazing it is. Whew! I had no idea what to expect, and I'm so glad these people like it so much!