Ingredients: makes 1 bread loaf
- 4 cups of organic flour of your choice – a mix of spelt wholemeal and white flour, rye flour, buckwheat, sorghum and oat flour
- ½ cup of sourdough starter
- 2 tsp kelp salt
- 2 tbsp coconut sugar
- 2 tbsp melted coconut oil or olive
- approximately 1.5 cups of water
- 4 to 6 tbsp of seeds of your choice – pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds
- ½ cup crushed and nuts of your choice – walnuts, almonds
- Optional: 1-2 tbsp of crushed cumin, coriander seeds, 1 tsp garlic powder, fresh or dried oregano
Serving Suggestions:
- Mashed avocado and micro greens
- butter or coconut oil and miso paste
- butter/coconut oil and honey or jam
- pesto and cucumber
Sourdough Starter Recipe:
- 3 tbsp rye or wheat flour
- 3 tbsp lukewarm water
- 1 tbsp coconut sugar or honey
Place all ingredients in a 1 litre glass jar. Mix well with a wooden spoon, it should be a thick batter, cover lightly with the lid or cheese cloth and leave in a warm place away from sun for 24 hrs. Next day add same amount of water and flour and leave for another day to ferment. Repeat this for 4-5 days and you will see that it will form bubbles and smell pleasant sweet and sour. It is now ready to use in your bread as per the recipe above.
Gluten Free Option: Check out my recipe for Gluten Free Sourdough Bread and Sourdough Pancake.
Method:
Mix half of the flour, salt, sugar in a steel bowl. Add the starter and 1/2 cup of lukewarm water. Slowly mix and add water as required. This is a wet dough. When mixed cover and let it ferment for 8 hours or overnight in a warm place. The dough will double in size.
Now add the remaining 2 cups of flour, seeds, nuts and herbs and mix with water to get that wet dough consistency. Transfer from bowl to a bread tin. Cover and let it ferment for 2 to 4 hours in a warm place until it has risen to a nice shape. With a toothpick or knife punch some holes to let the air out while baking.
Place a bowl with water in the oven and heat the oven to 190 C. Bake at 190 C for 10 min, then reduce to 180 C and bake for another 35 min. Test in between with a toothpick to see if the bread is ready, it should come out dry. Once baked take it out and let cool for 15 min. Now remove it from the tin and let cool on the rack. Once fully cooled down, it is ready to be sliced and enjoyed fresh. I find it easier to cut when it is placed in a plastic box for few hours as it softens a bit. It can be sliced and frozen and use as needed.
Nutritional Properties:
- Sourdough bread is often easier to digest than bread that is fermented with brewer’s yeast. Researchers believe this could partly be due to sourdough bread’s prebiotic content and probiotic like properties. Prebiotics are non-digestible fibers that feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut, while probiotics are beneficial bacteria found in certain foods and supplements.
- Sourdough bread has a deep flavor and texture due to long fermentation and use of whole grain flours. Even plain white flour sourdough bread has a deeper flavour than its normal counterpart.
- Sourdough bread is believed to contain higher levels of b vitamins, folate and antioxidants than other breads. To begin with whole grain flours contain a good amount of minerals, including potassium, phosphate, magnesium and zinc. However, the absorption of these minerals is limited by the presence of phytic acid or phytate. Phytates are considered as anti-nutrients because they reduce the body’s ability to absorb the minerals present in the grains. The lactic acid bacteria found in sourdough bread lowers the PH of the bread, which in turn helps to lower and degrade the phytates. The end result is a bread with much lower phytate content and therefore higher absorption of minerals and nutrients. Sourdough fermentation also increases folate levels in the bread.
