Sourdough Spelt

Ah, the things you do for your children. First he has me make my own starter. No yeast, no borrowed starter, no nothing, just some flour, a little pomegranate juice (he claimed it was better than pineapple juice and more reliable than just water) placed in a jar with a muslin cover and time. Well it started, lol (it's a shame when you crack yourself up). Next I'm feeding this stuff on a regular basis because it is well - alive, and you have to feed live stuff on a regular basis. And now I'm making this:

I have no plans on going on a bread-eating spree, for one I haven’t finished losing weight yet (48 pounds down, about 35 to go) and secondly, while this stuff is a lot better for you than regular bread (more digestible, lower glycemic index) I am still wary of grains and think you really should limit the place that they have in your diet.

But for an occasional sandwich this is the way to go, it tastes fabulous. 

Now I have posted about grains previously and you can go here to find out why I used a sourdough starter and why that improves the digestibility. You can go here to learn all about bread making (this guy is really good). Beware! there are just too many neat things to purchase at his site.

RECIPE – Sourdough Spelt Bread

¼ cup sourdough starter

1 ½  – 2 cups of water

1 TBSP unsulfured molasses

1 ½ tsp sea salt

5 cups of spelt flour (I plan on trying Kamut next)

Bring sourdough starter to room temp if you have been storing your starter in the refrigerator. Add 1 ½ cups of water and molasses and stir well. Mix flour and salt together and add to the starter mixture, if its too dry add the rest of the water, mix until completely blended, you do not have to knead. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 min. Take dough out of the bowl and stretch it once over itself gently (you will need to flour your hands, the dough is sticky) and place back in bowl and recover. Repeat this step 2 more times at 15 min intervals. Leave the covered bowl overnight to let rise. 

Line a cast iron enameled pot that has a lid with a sheet of parchment paper that you have oiled thoroughly. I know that the parchment paper box says that it is non-stick,

but if you ever want to get the paper off of your loaf of bread you had better oil it, I used olive oil. Place the dough into the pot and cover, allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes. Remove the dough in the parchment liner and place it in a bowl about the same size and depth.  Raise your oven rack to the upper 3^rd position and place the pot and lid into the oven and heat the oven to 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Using oven gloves, place the liner and dough (as one unit) back into the pot and carefully put the lid on, bake for 1 hour then remove the lid with the oven gloves (be careful!) and leave the bread for 10 more minutes so the top can brown. Test temp of the bread (it should be between 190 and 205 degrees.  Remove liner and bread from the pot and let cool for 1 hour before slicing.