 Photo by Chieko Horn Photography Happy Thanksgiving! Wishing you a beautiful day with friends and family sharing delicious food.
I have been getting a lot of questions on how to thaw or ”refresh” a loaf of bread. Here is what I do: Frozen Loaf Heat oven to 375F. Unwrap the loaf you had in the freezer and spray it down with some water to get it wet but not soaking wet. Place it directly on the rack in the hot oven for 25-30 minutes. I usually put the loaf in with what ever else I am baking and if you are preparing Thanksgiving dinner the oven is on anyway and you can put the loaf in with any of your last minute dishes. Day Old/ Week Old Loaf If I have a whole loaf that is not frozen or I remembered to thaw it on the counter for a few hours, I wet it down just like the frozen one and put it in a 350F oven for 10-15 minutes and every time I pull these loaves out I am amazed that they get their fresh out of the oven taste and texture back! Your guest will think you just baked it. Stuffing Tips If you are planning on using a fresh loaf from today in your stuffing, make sure to cut it as soon as you get home. It’s a little more difficult to slice and cube a fresh loaf, but the pieces don’t have to be pretty. But it is important to dry them out at least overnight otherwise they get too soggy. P.S. Last week the printed version of the Bread Pudding was missing the number of eggs, sorry! It takes 2 for the recipe. The online version is all updated. I you are ever looking for any recipes they are on my blog www.stellabread.com/blog This week’s Share Country Sourdough Ingredients: Montana grown organic wheat flour, water, organic sourdough culture, sea salt. KAMUT Wheat Sandwich Loaf Ingredients: Montana grown organic wheat flour, water, freshly milled org. KAMUT flour, whole org. KAMUT berries, organic sourdough culture, sea salt. Polenta Sandwich Loaf Ingredients: Montana grown organic wheat flour, water, organic yellow corn, organic sourdough culture, sea salt.
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 Thank you so much for signing up for the October Bread Share!! I hope you enjoy every loaf!
As I am diving deeper into the world of grains and learning about so many varieties and their nutritional value and taste I am amazed on how easily we gave them up to be replace with white, gummy, tasteless modern wheat! Most of us don’t even know this happened, since it was done by the food giants without us knowing. It is great to see a big movement across the country now with bakers (that is the lens I see everything through, I am sure there are others!) using many ancient and heirloom grains and old methods of long fermentation often even milling their own flour. I find this incredibly encouraging and inspiring. An exciting time to be a baker here in the US. Unfortunately Germany the bread country of the world with more than 3000 varieties of bread is heading the other way, importing more raw frozen pre-shaped buns etc than are being baked by real bakers from scratch. I hope this trend stops soon before all the old traditions are lost and the last small bakery has to shut its doors because it can’t compete in a market saturated with automated bread look-alikes. I often wonder why cultures go through these cycles of everything old is bad and the desire to modernize it only later realizing what we have lost by abandoning that craft or skill. I think it is important to always question why something is cheap and convenient and what we are missing by leaving out time in the equation. I know for one that my bread would not be what it is without the factor of time. This week’s Share German Rye Bread Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, org. fresh milled rye flour, water, sourdough culture, org. fennel seeds, org. coriander, sea salt. Sesame Seed Sandwich Loaf Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, water, org. sesame seeds, org. sourdough culture, sea salt. Bakers Choice: Emmer Sandwich Loaf Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, C5 Organics emmer berries and fresh milled emmer flour, water, sourdough culture, sea salt.  Thank you for signing up for the September Bread-Share! Welcome if this is your first one!
I have gotten a lot of great questions about the benefits of sourdough bread lately, so I thought I would share them with you. First it is important to clarify the term “sourdough bread” since it is now widely misused as a marketing tool. My definition of a true sourdough bread is that it has the simplest ingredients: flour, water, naturally occurring wild yeasts and salt. No additives of any kind! Sourdough bread is based on 6000 years of tradition and has nourished humans throughout history. It has a higher nutritional value, as is true for any fermented food, the bacteria present in the sourdough starter eat the starches and sugars in the grain. The result is a lower carbohydrate content of the bread, which is helpful for keeping blood sugar levels regulated. Longer fermentation times of naturally fermented breads also break down the gluten into amino acids, making them easier to digest. This is why some people with gluten sensitivities are able to eat naturally fermented wheat breads. During the long fermentation process the lactic acid bacteria also produce an enzyme called phytase, which breaks down phytic acid. Phytic acid inhibits enzymes that are needed to break down the proteins and starches in our stomach that have been linked to bloating and flatulence. True sourdough bread allows our body to easily absorb nutrients that it otherwise can not. Enjoy your REAL Bread, made with real ingredients that had time to rise slowly! Check out my FB page for a link to a more in depth article on the benefits of sourdough. This week’s Share Country Sourdough Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, water, sourdough culture, sea salt. Polenta Sandwich Loaf Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, org. yellow corn, water, sourdough culture, sea salt. Bakers Choice: Beluga-Prairie Loaf This is an experiment, baking bread with lentils, the Montana powerhouse food! Ingredients: MT grown org. wheat flour, Timeless Seed Beluga Lentils, Prairie Heritage Farm white Sonoran wheat and bronze buckwheat, sourdough culture, sea salt. This Weeks Share Kalamata Olive Bread Sunflower Seed Bread Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies
Happy mothers day to all you incredible moms!! This holiday seems like the perfect time to talk about the “Mother Culture” that lives in my house. When baking sourdough bread the “starter” is often referred to as the “Mother Culture”. She is what brings life to each loaf of bread! Without my mother culture my bread would be flavorless, flat and hard to digest and just straight up terrible. The mother culture requires a lot of nurturing to thrive, it is best to feed her at least every twelve hours unless I let her rest in a cold place, which she can hibernate in for many days without a problem. If I neglect to feed her, like I will this summer, I have to dry her up into a floury, clumpy state, instead of her sour smelling batter like structure she likes to be in, and leave her deep inside my fridge and hope she will survive this negligence and come back to life this fall when I feed her the desired flour and water meals again.
But where did this mother culture come from? I got mine from a friend, who got it from a friend who got it from a friend etc. You can grow your own mother culture from flour and water but she won’t be as experienced (stable) as these old strong mothers. The important thing is to always save a little bit of the mother culture for the next batch of bread, once you add salt or bake her she has exhausted all her growing powers. To all the mothers out there, I hope you are getting pampered this weekend and thank you for being such nurturing human beings! |
