 So I absolutely love this fruit and nut rye sourdough. It's just so delicious and tastes so decadent and nourishing!
Due to the flour shortage I have been using rye flour a lot more and making these gorgeous loaves on a weekly basis. Sliced and frozen, this can be popped into the toaster for a sumptuous treat at anytime of day. A lovely weekend breakfast. There is no added sugar in this loaf, the sweetness comes from the dried fruit. Figs, dates, apricots, prunes, cranberries and raisins all work well or indeed a combination of dried fruits using what you have available. Nuts add a lovely crunch, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds and brazil nuts all work well. I add the zest of an orange and a teaspoon of mixed spice or cinammon to boost the flavour and a handful of cacao nibs for extra nutrients! Citrus zest is high in vitamins and polyphenols, a real treat for our gut microbes and most of us throw away our citrus peels, but not me!! Nothing goes to waste at Nourished by Nature, especially not gut microbe boosting stuff! So this loaf, apart from tasting delicious, is packed with fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals and all sorts of goodies, a real feast for our gut microbes and our taste buds. This loaf will keep for around 5 days in a covered container or just slice and freeze it for a delicious healthy snack anytime! I always leave this loaf to cool completely before slicing it, and often wrap it in a tea towel and leave it until the next day before I slice it. The crumb can be a bit gummy if you slice it too soon. You need a rye sourdough starter to make this loaf and there is a preferment step so you need to do this the night before you want to make this. Here is a link to make your own sourdough starter if you don't already have one! Happy Baking! RYE SOURDOUGH FRUIT & NUT LOAF Makes one large loaf Pre ferment for the night before
Ingredients
Tip the rye flour and salt into your wet mix and then add 150g hot water straight over the dry mixture. Mix together quickly. Add the chopped figs and nuts and fold in evenly. Put the mixture into a lightly greased loaf tin, smooth the top and sprinkle with a light dusting of rye flour. Cover with a shower cap or plastic bag and prove for a couple of hours. Bake at 200 C for 40 minutes. Cool, remove from the tin and leave until completely cold before slicing.
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 These wee crackers are simple to make and so good! And a great way of using up discarded or past its peak sourdough starter! The addition of ground flaxseeds adds extra nutrition with a wee boost of good fats from the olive oil! Rolling the dough thinly results in lovely crisp crackers, a perfect accompaniment to a vegan cheese board or with a dip or just as they are for a lovely wee healthy snack! You can easily customise this recipe by adding different herbs or spices. We have tried rosemary and lemon zest, wild garlic and also smoked paprika, all delicious! This recipe is from The Spruce Eats, and is the simplest and best sourdough cracker recipe I have tried to date! So without further rambling, here it is! Seeded Sourdough Crackers Ingredients 1/4 cup sourdough starter 3 tablespoons wholewheat flour 1/2 cup ground flaxseed/linseeds 4 teaspoons olive oil or rapeseed oil 1 tablespoon seeds, sesame, poppy, sunflower, chia, nigella all work well Method Preheat the oven to 350 F 175 C Lightly flour a baking tray or use a silicone baking sheet. Add all the ingredients to a medium sized bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until you have a cohesive dough. Turn the dough onto your baking tray and roll it thinly into a rectangle shape. Use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to score the dough into squares, rectangles or diamond shapes. Bake in the oven for 15 to 18 minutes until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes then break into crackers. Enjoy!   So this is my new favourite sourdough! I give you sourdough foccacia, a pillowy, salty, crispy delight, perfect to enjoy with an al fresco lunch with dips and salads or to accompany pasta, or just to eat it as it is because its so delicious! This recipe is from the sourdough wizard Elaine Boddy and is in fact an adaptation of her sourdough master recipe. This bread needs to be started the day before you want to eat it, there is a lot of waiting around for the sourdough starter to work its magic! But I can assure you it is well worth the wait. The other great thing about this bread is you don't need bread flour, which is like gold dust at the moment! Good old plain flour works fine! So here is the recipe 50g active starter 350mls water 1 tsp salt 500g plain flour Additions flaky salt, garlic, rosemary, olives, sundried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, oregano, cubed cheese, good quality olive oil. This makes a fairly large foccacia, you can make a smaller one by using 300g flour, 210g water, 30g active starter and 1/2 tsp salt. I made a big one since we are greedy and there are 5 of us to feed! Method Start this bread in the afternoon the day before you want to eat it. Add the starter and water to a medium glass bowl, mix well then add the flour and salt. Bring it together into a rough dough, cover it with a shower cap or tea towel and leave it at room temp for an hour. After an hour do a set of stretch and folds, around 20 to 25 times, until the dough starts to form a smooth ball. Cover it and leave it again at room temperature, giving it another few sets of stretch and folds during the evening. I did another 3 to 4 sets then covered and left the dough to prove overnight. The subsequent ones were only 4 to 6 times, not the original 20 to 25 times. The dough should have risen significantly overnight and be active and bubbly. If the dough is right at the top of the bowl, then do a few gentle stretch and folds to calm it down a bit. Recover it. When you are ready to bake it, drizzle an oven tray with some olive oil, using a dough scraper or your hands, gently ease the dough away and let it fall onto the tray. Gently turn the dough over to coat it in oil, using your fingertips push the dough out to a rectangular shape until its about 2 to 3 cm thick. Press your fingertips into the dough at regular intervals to make indentations. Sprinkle with your chosen toppings and a good drizzle of oil. Cover with a tea towel or large plastic bag and leave to prove for another 1 to 2 hours. Pre heat your oven to 200 C for a fan oven or 220 C Bake for 20 to 25 mins until nicely browned. Cool on a rack, then cut and enjoy! This really is a great recipe, although you do need to pay attention to timings! I may try adapting it by using more starter and leaving it to prove for less time. However at the moment we all have enough time on our hands so just use some forward planning! You also need to use active starter so make sure your starter has been fed recently before you use it!   Don't know about everyone else but I'm rather fed up of all the doom and gloom about Coronavirus, the panic buying and the shocking weather so I've been in my happy place in the kitchen trying out some new recipes! I reckon we could survive for months, I have 2 fridges full of assorted seasonal ferments, a cupboard stocked with grains, beans and lentils and a stash of organic flour, not to mention loads of wild garlic growing nearby! Fermented foods are super fertiliser for our gut bacteria, who are in constant communication with our immune system so for anyone worried about the latest coronavirus, my advice is to eat lots of fibre rich food, which will feed those gut microbes who will then get to work on our behalf. And obviously if you have sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, kombucha then make sure you are eating and drinking them! Fermented foods and drinks are teeming with probiotics to support our health on every level and will all strengthen and support our immune system. I eat fermented foods everyday so I know my immune system is firing on all cylinders! I love sourdough bread and I make lots of other sourdough treats and these wee savoury scones are just delicious and so simple. The recipe is from the Queen of Sourdough Elaine Boddy of FoodBod fame, she is just brilliant and literally makes sourdough everyday and is always experimenting and sharing her ideas! She has a book coming out this year and I was so touched to be asked to write the foreword for it, which I gladly did! I can't wait to read it! So back to these wee scones, I added nutritional yeast and some of my dehydrated wild garlic for flavour I also used my homemade organic soya kefir. No proving time or lengthy waiting required, just mix and bake! These are really light and delicious and I imagine are best eaten the day you make them, which is never a problem in our house! If you have extras then freeze them or toast them the next day! Feel free to add herbs, spices, nuts, seeds or anything else that takes your fancy! I was thinking that vegan pesto or sun dried tomato paste would also be lovely! These are delicious served with soup for lunch or with a dip or vegan cheese! Here is the simple recipe INGREDIENTS - makes around 12 to 16 scones
METHOD 1. Simply add the sourdough starter and kefir or buttermilk, mix together then add the remaining ingredients. 2. Don't over mix just loosely bring it into a soft dough. 3. Turn mix onto a floured surface and gently flatten the dough to around 2cm thick with your hands. Be gentle, the dough is fairly soft so don't overwork it! 4. Cut out 12 to 16 scones, depending on the size of your cutter. 5. Transfer to a floured baking tray and bake for around 18 minutes, in a preheated oven at 220C for a conventional oven or 200C for a fan oven. 6. Cool then serve with butter, vegan cheese, dips or anything else you fancy! I also made a lemon and poppy seed version, added 2 tablespoons sugar, zest of a lemon, and juice of half a lemon and obviously left out the nutritional yeast and herbs. The dough is rather soft so I added the lemon juice with the kefir and adjusted the amount to 275g total. These were delicious served with organic butter/vegan spread and would be fabulous with lemon curd! ....your health in your hands...  |
Janice
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