Photo: Emma Friedman/WBZ NewsRadio
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Elmendorf Baking Supplies in Cambridge has lost the mother starter for their in-house sourdough recipe.
“It was such a bummer ours went missing,” she said. “We always keep our mother starter going in the back and I don't know if someone accidentally took it or sold it or just thought it was like some random gunk in the fridge and threw it out.”
A starter is used as a base for sourdough growth, as it is able to do the fermenting and rising necessary for ideal bread.
This starter was created using the store’s self-milled flour, giving the final product its own unique flavor and look.
“When you feed a starter, you're feeding it with flour and water. If you think of it like a living creature, it's just feeding on it and that's what keeps it going,” store co-founder Alyssa Applebaum said. “We feed ours with the flour that we mill here, which is why it's a tan red color, because it's a whole wheat starter.”
Applebaum talked about how this sourdough mother starter was created in 2018 and has been used since to create other starters for customers to buy and bake their own bread with.
“People can either keep it going at home or they can just come back and get a new one when they accidentally bake theirs or whatever happens,” Applebaum said. “We've heard it all.”
She said how she was surprised that it was gone.
Elmendorf was given some starter from Hungry Ghost Bakery in Northampton to use temporarily, but this doesn’t quite replace their original, due to them not using that same whole wheat flour.
Luckily, Elmendorf was able to find some of their own dried mother starter they kept as a backup, so they hope to get their own starter growing again.
“We had dried some starter a few years ago and we did just find it, so we're going to try bringing it back from the dead and see if it works,” Applebaum said.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman (@EmmaFriedmanWBZ) reports.
