What is PAX?

Baking Products
1

Years ago, when I was living in a village in southwest Germany, Basler Landbrot was my favorite bread. It is a Roggenmisch - a rye wheat mix - with a distinct sour taste. I asked the baker as I was about to return stateside if I might get the recipe so I could bake it at home and, amazingly, the old baker wrote it down for me. One ingredient was 15gr of PAX (to 550gr of flour) - a sort of sour tasting powder that gave the bread its distinctive flavor. He gave me some to take with me. Fortunately, airport security on the way home didn’t ask me about the plastic bag of mysterious tan powder which I couldn’t properly identify. :slight_smile:

Now it is long gone, and so is the baker, and I have searched in vain online, getting only such Google responses as Pax Romana and vaping references.

Does anyone know what this stuff is and where to get some?
Does anyone know of a substitute souring powder I might try?

2

Might be some sort of dried starter.

So any yeast for sale would be missing the lactobacillae, or more precise, the lactic and acetic acid for the real sourdough flavour. But at least here in Germany, there is liquid or dry “sourdough” available, which is basically an additive that supplies the acidic compounds. It is deactivated (otherwise the bag would explode) and needs extra yeast for baking. In a pinch, I’ve read some use a bit of vinegar, but that’s very much a workaround, IMHO.