What is "Pasta Madre"?
The phrase means sourdough in Italian. Pasta Madre is the traditional, low-hydration sourdough starter, most commonly used in panettones (Italian Christmas Cake). It has low acidity level, does not provide the distinctive sour flavour we are used to in regular sourdough breads, therefore it works its wonder in naturally leavened cakes or sweet breads.
A very active Pasta Madre starter. The spongy texture shows the signs of very low hydration. Unlike the regular, liquid sourdough starter which is usually kept at 100% hydration (feeding it with the same amount of water and flour), the Italian version's water content is between 40-50%, providing a neutral or more sweet like flavour without the sourness. It smells more like yogurt than beer.
Dehydrated Sourdough starter and starter kits are available in our Etsy Store:
Liquid sourdough starter vs Pasta Madre
In my sourdough journey, I always used my very active, liquid sourdough starter baking traditional loaves in different sizes and shapes. The chewy texture and distinctive sour flavour represent the ultimate artisan bread baking for me.
But I am also a huge enthusiast for creating as light pizza crust or bread as possible. Anything leavened with sourdough starter will never be as light as their yeasted counterparts. I mean baker's yeast here. Only baker's yeast has the power to create a really explosive dough. The liquid sourdough starter has somewhat limited rising power, therefore it always creates a bit heavier and more chewy result.
The naturally leavened lightness I was looking for
The more I read about the Pasta Madre, the more curious I became whether I can get close enough to the baker's yeast provided lightness with using solely natural leavening. So I finally decided it was the time to experiment.
Instead of making the Pasta Madre from scratch, I converted my very active liquid starter to this sponge-like alternative. I will make a separate blogpost about this conversion process as well as the important differences in maintaining the 2 different starters.
There is a traditional Hungarian braided bread called Kalacs. It is very close to the French brioche in lightness and flavour, as both include eggs, butter, sugar and milk. A wonderful coffee companion with butter and jam, or just by itself. As a huge fan of natural leavening, I made sourdough Kalacs many times. I always loved the result, but the traditional sourdough flavour was not a perfect fit to a sweet bread.
Then came Pasta Madre into the picture. The thought just did not leave me alone, whether it was going to turn my sourdough Kalacs into something resembling the lightness and sweet flavour of the panettone. I finally had a very active Pasta Madre, nothing could stop me from the test bake. Here it is:
The result was an extremely light and creamy texture with wonderful flavour without any sourness. If I did not know better, I would have said it was made with yeast and not with starter.
I have to admit I instantly fell in love with Pasta Madre. Having 2 sourdough starters with very different characteristics opens the door to bake a huge variety of sweet as well as savory goodness with natural fermentation. Simply a baker's dream....
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