Einkorn

Sourdough Baking with Einkorn Part 2

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I wanted to follow up on sourdough baking because it can sound daunting and time-consuming when first looking into the process. It took me many months of mulling it over before finally deciding it was worth trying if my gluten-sensitive son and I could eat really delicious bread and digest it without problems. It has turned out to be more than worth it and I have been baking about three or so loaves a week without it taking too much time, so I thought I’d share what exactly that looks. As a reminder, if you are gluten sensitive like my son and I, einkorn might work for you too, but if you are celiac it is not an option because it does contain a form of gluten.

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After an overnight rise.

Mostly I do an overnight rise, which saves a bunch of time. When I don’t do an overnight rise and start in the morning instead, the timing is still hard for me to get quite right because I’m new to it, but that’s OK because even then it’s a forgiving process. For example, one day when I wanted to make a sourdough focaccia for dinner and I started the process in the morning instead of overnight, by the time I was ready to actually start baking it was too late for me to manage getting the loaf shaped, herb-y, and into the oven in time for dinner. It was not a big deal though, I just put the dough into the fridge and made the focaccia the next day, which turned out great by the way without any eggs, sugar, or dairy. That is another great thing about baking our own bread~ the ingredients are simple and pure with most loaves being just flour, water, and salt, (plus the starter which is also just flour and water.) With the focaccia there was also some oil, the herbs, and a tablespoon of white wine, but in the hard crusted sourdough loaves I mostly have been baking, the ingredients are really just flour, salt, and water.

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Floured counter top

With an overnight rise, the timing looks like this: You put the starter and water together and mix until creamy, then add the einkorn flour and salt and mix until the water is absorbed. You will need to let it sit for 10-15 hours on a counter top and rise to about twice its size. I put plastic wrap over the top and also a towel, just to keep it dark. This probably takes all of 10 minutes at most, and I do it any time in the evening that happens to work. In the morning the dough is nice and big and looks alive, so whenever I have the time to be home for about an hour and a half or so, I start to work with it. I flour my counter top and scrape the dough out of the bowl with a spatula. I flour the top of the ball of dough and pat it down, bring the sides in, turn it over and rotate it a few times to seal the bottom. Then I put the dough into a colander with a linen couche that has been floured and I can cover the dough on top as well. This takes about 10 minutes or less. I then preheat the over to 500 and put my Dutch oven in there to preheat as well for 30 minutes. After the loaf sits for at least thirty minutes and the oven has preheated as long, the dough goes into the Dutch oven which goes into the oven, and then the heat gets turned down to 450. The bread bakes for 40 minutes, cools for an hour or two after that, then it’s all ready to be enjoyed.

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Baked and ready to take out of the Dutch oven.

As you can see, the actual time spent working with the loaf is pretty minimal. It has to sit once for a long time (10-15 hours) and then sit again for a short 30 minutes, then bake for 40 minutes. Not bad for fresh, delicious, hard-crusted bread that we can digest without any problems. I should add that about once a week I also refresh the starter which takes about 5 minutes.

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The above is just to give you an idea of what the timing looks like to bake your own sourdough bread a few times a week at home. For actual instructions, you should check out Carla Bartolucci’s YouTube tutorial on it. That’s how I learned, along with her book, Einkorn. Both her videos and book are very easy to follow and they are all you need to get started with einkorn sourdough baking.

If you are on the fence about trying it yourself, I encourage you to go for it. Contact me with any questions and I’ll try to help or at least point you in the right direction. Or if you already bake with sourdough starter, let me know your tips and tricks and how old your starter is.

Next week I’ll be posting about some samples I received and there will be quite a few CBD products, so stay tuned! Wishing you health and happiness to you and yours.

 

Sourdough Starter

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It is rather early in the process to share this out, but I’m so excited about it that I just can’t wait. I’ve started to make sourdough starter from einkorn flour and although it isn’t ready for baking yet, it’s actually started to bubble and show signs of life. It takes quite a few days to get it started, and then regular maintenance to keep it going, so why do it at all you might ask. Basically I’m doing it for taste, for health, and for optimum digestibility.

I first got interested in sourdough a few years ago when I read an article about a baker in California somewhere (San Jose?) that made sourdough bread that people with gluten sensitivities could actually digest. His starter was especially potent and his stand at the farmer’s market was so famous that he got into a national magazine about it. (I can’t remember which one~ it was years ago but I do remember I was reading the article in a doctor’s office waiting room so I couldn’t take it home.) Considering my sons and I have had issues with gluten for many years, I wanted to hear more about what makes sourdough more easily digested. After looking into it, I found out it has to do with the fermentation process which balances prebiotics and probiotics in any kind of fermented food such as yogurt of kimchee, which we all know are foods recommended for digestive health. It also seems that sourdough degrades gluten a bit in the baking process, unlike baker’s yeast, although it doesn’t degrade it completely so celiacs need to stick with gluten-free sourdough breads. Sourdough’s digestibility also has to do with the wild yeasts present, instead of baker’s yeast, which is over used and many people have mild to severe intolerances to it, whether they are aware of it or not. Sourdough bread also causes less of a sugar spike according to several studies, and is generally considered to have a lower glycemic index number than other breads.

Not all commercially prepared sourdough breads are necessarily good options. Look for artisan loaves at your local grocery store or farmer’s market, or join me in making your own! I’ve been following the YouTube tutorials by Jovial Food’s founder, Carla Bartolucci, as well as the tutorial in her book, Einkorn. She uses einkorn flour to make sourdough starter, and to bake all of her breads with, because einkorn is an ancient form of wheat that is also known to be more digestible than our current wheat today, even by some who have gluten intolerances. Einkorn still contains gluten, but due to the make-up and action of the gluten in this grain compared to modern wheat, it reacts differently in baking and also our bodies react differently to it. Baking with it is a little trickier than with modern wheat, which is why it has been largely ignored in the mass marketplace, but as Barolucci explains in her book, that ‘flaw’ is probably the same mechanism that makes it a blessing to those of us with sensitive digestive systems. I’ve made cinnamon scones and bread with einkorn before, and seem to be able to digest it, but I’ve also put a lot of effort into healing my intolerances. I’m excited to bake with sourdough and see if I can really make some breads that the whole family can eat, enjoy, and digest without any problems.

Here’s what I have so far: 581583FA-CC61-4980-BD9B-664CA0C9580B

It took about six days for the starter to show any signs of life, and it’s still not quite ready to bake with because according to Bartolucci, the starter needs to bubble up within six to ten hours of refreshing to be truly ready for the job of baking bread. Mine is close. I’ll post pics on Instagram as soon as I get a loaf baked. I’m not in any hurry though, knowing that this starter will last forever, as long as it gets routinely refreshed. I feel like I have a lifetime to work with it and am happy I’ll be able to pass some of it on to friends and family who bake.

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Here’s what refreshing looks like by the way:

Push away the top layer of the starter and scoop out the better looking stuff underneath into a fresh bowl.

Add warm water and stir it up into a creamy state.

Add more flour, mix it all together and form a ball, then place it in a clean container with a lid and let it rest for 12-24 hours.

Have you baked with sourdough before? Do you have a starter of your own that has a story? I’d love to hear how long you have had your starter and how you first obtained it~ whether it was given to you or you started from scratch like I’m doing. Any tips and tricks would be appreciated too! Thank you for reading, sharing, and subscribing.

 

CBD Oil and Einkorn

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If you are wondering what CBD oil and Einkorn have in common, the answer is nothing at all other than they are both related to things I recently received in the New Hope Blogger Box, and also they are both part of the latest and greatest in the natural foods and supplements trends. I mentioned the CBD oil in a previous post but even then I was still a tad confused on why exactly it seemed to be such a hot supplement lately. Today I read an article from Delicious Living that explained the supplement in far more detail than I had previously found in my earlier research. The whole article is worth the read, but I thought I’d pull out the key parts that answered my questions best, and hope they answer any you may have as well.

CBD is short for cannabidiol and is an extract of the hemp portion of a Cannabis sativa plant. This is the same plant where THC, the active ingredient of marijuana, is found and indeed the CBD and THC do similar functions in the body. THC has a psychoactive component though that CBD does not have, therefore you cannot get high from CBD oil. Both CBD and THC work on the body’s innate endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system governs specific areas of your physiology, such as hunger, pain, stress and pleasure. On a molecular level, the endocannabinoid system works like a lock and key with receptors. The receptors are the lock, the cannabinoids are the keys. The benefits of pain and stress relief make CBD a potentially powerful medicine indeed, even without the pleasurable high.

Benefits: A type of CBD seems to benefit people suffering from childhood-onset epilepsy disorder. A panel of FDA experts in April unanimously declared a pharmaceutical-grade CBD should be approved to treat certain rare types of epilepsy. The FDA is expected to grant its approval later this year. A 2015 review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 79 studies published since 1975. Researchers found various cannabinoids—THC, CBD and others—were useful medicine. They were most effective treating chronic pain and muscle spasticity; nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy; and weight gain associated with HIV, sleep disorders and Tourette syndrome. THC and CBD were also found to improve sleep and reduce anxiety.

So that is what I learned from the Delicious Living article by Todd Runestad and some of it was directly taken from it, and other bits were quite modified. The bold is all me. Please read the whole article if you are interested in learning more because there is actually a lot he covers that I left out.

Einkorn flour is an ancient wheat, meaning it hasn’t been genetically modified to produce higher amounts of gluten like other wheat flours that are used today. For those who are sensitive to gluten, this might be a digestible alternative, although it still contains gluten and is not to be eaten by celiacs, nor during a period of time when you want to completely abstain from wheat and gluten in order to stop the body’s negative reactions. Once you begin healing your digestive system from the intolerances, you might find that Einkorn is safe to eat, even if you had been found to be gluten intolerant before the healing process. It is kind of like spelt flour, which is a low gluten flour and easier on the digestive system, though it still contains gluten and is still a wheat. Jovial Foods has an informative page on Einkorn that you should check out if you are considering whether or not to start adding wheat back into your diet. Also, if you are a current wheat eater, switching to Einkorn could provide some overall nutritional benefits as well, such as easier digestibility, more protein and less starch . Another reason to visit Jovial Foods’ website is because they have great recipes with Einkorn flour or gluten free flour, and most of their recipes have directions for either one. I made these Einkorn cinnamon scones and not only were they incredibly delicious, they were also quite easy to make. I did not have the cream that it called for, but I was able to substitute with Elmhurst’s cashew milk that had come in the blogger box, and it worked perfectly.

I also made these peasant breads with the recipe I use to make gluten free peasant breads, and they turned out well also. The left one shows the top, while the right one shows the bottom.

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Now that gluten awareness seems to have moved a bit into digestive health awareness with probiotics leading the way in healing and overall wellness, I believe we’ll see more and more products using Einkorn flour and berries as a way to ease back into eating gluten, and just as a healthier alternative to the highly processed and hybridized wheat flours that we use today. I hope that is the case anyway, because I for one am ready to start seeing fresh Einkorn bread in grocery stores and restaurants, and farmers switching to ancient grain Einkorn instead of the hybridized wheat that has taken over.

Best health to you and yours through the changing seasons, and be sure to listen closely to your body when trying new supplements or reintroducing foods to your diet after a time of abstaining from them. When reintroducing a food that was previously a sensitivity, be careful and go slowly, staying aware that symptoms may be different than before. Good luck and please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share with anyone who might benefit from this article.