The Secret Behind Our Bread

At Leaven & Co, we craft our breads using time-honored techniques that enhance flavor, texture, and freshness. A key part of our process? Pre-ferments... where around one-third of every recipe is made with a poolish, a biga, or a levain, each fermented overnight to unlock deep, complex flavors before the final dough is mixed.

POOLISH.

Our poolish is mixed with 100% water, 100% flour and a small amount of fresh yeast, which helps create  a dough with mild acidity, better extensibility and a slighter sweeter flavor, which is ideal for our baguette doughs.

BIGA.

Our Biga is our ‘stiff’ pre-ferment created with 100% water, 60% flour and a small amount of fresh yeast. This helps create a much stronger dough, perfect for our pan and hearth breads. It also helps strengthen our higher hydration doughs like our Ciabatta and Focaccia. 

LEVAIN.

Our levain is our very own ‘sourdough’ culture which we feed twice daily to maintain a perfect balance of lactic and acetic acidity needed to create that tangy, sour taste in all our sourdough breads.
By using pre-ferments in all our products, we ensure that every loaf, bun, and roll we bake is truly artisan: rich flavor, perfect texture, and natural freshness.

But it’s not just about the process... it’s about delivering the best experience for our customers. Thanks to our overnight fermentation, you can place orders as late as 3 PM and receive your bread early the next morning. And when same-day challenges arise? We’ll usually be able to go the extra mile to get fresh bread to your kitchen in time for service.

Want to experience the difference? Reply to this email or request a sample here: https://www.leavenco.nyc/get-samples