BREAD AND BETTER

Emma Henderson on the top supermarket sourdough loaves

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Remember a time before sourdough ruled the bakery roost? A simpler time, when tiger bread was a fancy weekend loaf, or a French stick would be a solid go-to. Now, sourdough is everywhere and has even become a status symbol. Some bakeries with cult followings sell out each morning (even on weekdays) and have queues snaking out the doors. So, of course, supermarkets had to get in on the action and create their own.

Thought to date back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, sourdough isn't new, but what defines it is hard to agree on. “Sourdough' isn't a legally protected term, so technically any bread can currently be called sourdough,” explains Swie Joo, head baker at The Palmerston restaurant in Edinburgh, which bakes all of its excellent sourdough onsite in its downstairs bakery.

Generally, to be considered a sourdough, the bread must be made with a live sourdough starter (a culture made from natural yeast, not shop-bought, and bacteria) and go through a slow fermentation process. Joo advises checking the ingredients list of a sourdough loaf before you buy because if it has 'yeast' listed, it's not a genuine sourdough, as yeast should not be added.

Sourdough is a leavened bread, meaning the dough naturally rises as a result of the natural yeast, creating the distinct air pockets. A well-made sourdough has a good spongy 'crumb' (the bread's internal structure) with evenly sized and distributed air pockets. If fermentation or the bake goes wrong, it can lead to 'tunnelling', where the holes are too large and frequent.

In a bid to see if supermarkets could really impress with their sourdough loaves, I taste-tasted my way through more than 20 loaves. Here are the ones that stood out for me.

How I tested