Lessons in Baking

Sourdough is a mysterious thing. 

It nourishes.  And it teaches.

I don't need to share with you my common tale of woe.  Who really cares but me and my God?  But there has been real heartbreak in my life this week - hard lessons, dearly learned. 

I've cried till my head aches. 

And I have spent hours in the kitchen, kneeding bread - cooking, baking - thanking God for something to keep my mind occupied, my hands busy.

Part of my life is feeding my sourdough starter twice a day.

It's a ritual, like having a pet in a jar.  I love it, and I care for it.  But today...today was the first time I wept over it.

Nothing I can do myself will ever change a bowl of flour and water into something so complexly nourishing that my entire body benefits from it.


I can add flavor, provide optimium conditions, kneed it with tender care and strong hands, but without life, it will always just be a bowl of flour and water.


Life I can't see is swimming in the air around me. I add warm water to a handful of ground up grain and it becomes a sponge that can literally suck up life and feed it.


What goodness! What providence is this?

I can't make a sourdough starter.  All I can do is feed what someone else brought to life.  And as I contemplated the sorry state of my dashed hopes, I saw myself in that jar of bubbly, living goo.

I realized I am as lifeless and hard as a handful of flour. 

photo credit

Everything I need is hovering around me, but I can't get at it on my own.  Not without hot rain, drenching every dry, locked up, stingy corner of me.  Then I have the power to pull in that which will break down my hard places and make me soft and lovely.

What kind of lesson did your breakfast teach you this morning? 

Whole Grains: How to Love Them, Big Finish

It's Tuesday - the day I try to write about things I'm grateful for.  And today, I'm going to combine my gratitude with my final installment of my series on Whole Grains: How to Love Them.

The more I learn about real food and whole grains, the more grateful I am to the Maker for supplying us with such rich and nourishing food.  The more I learn about how to unlock it and really USE it in my own diet, that gratitude just grows.  I am so thankful for bread - especially for sourdough - but I am a lover of breads of all kinds. 

So here's to whole grains and creating the most nourishing bread we can...

This is my short, sweet, totally non-exhaustive list of reasons why the soaking method of preparing whole grains is so, so good for us.

1.  It makes whole grains taste better.  That's right, soaking whole grains in an acid medium - be it lemon juice, vinegar, whey or buttermilk - breaks down not only phytates that can be harmful, it also makes whole wheat flour a lot more tender and delicious.  Sometimes we shy away from whole grains because they taste too...healthy.  But I've found the soaking process can create baked goods that make you forget you're eating so well.  I'm fooling a toddler regularly - and that should speak VOLUMES to the great results of this process.

2.  Nutrition - yes, yes...maybe this is a repeat of something I said in past posts, but it bears repeating.  Soaking whole grains, whether for cookies or cake or waffles, breaks down those harmful phytates and allows our bodies to access all the good things in whole grains.  If you want to know more about phytates and how they can block vitamins and minerals in our bodies, just go catch up on the first few posts in this series...here, here, here and...here.

3. Digestion - the soaking process makes it so much easier on your gut!  I'm not saying this method will suddenly end your fight with chronic bowel problems, but I'm here to tell you, when I'm eating only soaked or sprouted grains, I FEEL better.  And I have a sensitive system - nuff said.  The phytic content of whole grains makes your gut work really, really hard, producing enzymes it shouldn't have to to break down something it can't.  It's a lot of work - and no, it's not a good thing.  It's not about burning more calories in digestion.  It's about keeping your gut in balance and not feeding your body things it can't process. 

4.  Disease prevention - I've said before, a little phytic acid is a good thing!  But it goes a long way.  It blocks mineral absorbtion, and so the nutrition you think you're getting - to prevent cancer or nine million other ugly modern diseases - is just not getting through.  Soaking (and sprouting) ups your absorbtion of iron, niacin, zinc...a TON.  And those are the tools your body uses to keep you healthy and prevent disease.

Those are the big four reasons in my book.  I'm sure there are more...I know there are more...but for me, this little list keeps me coming back to my kitchen to soak, rise and bake. 

I hope maybe you'll try some Bake Lore bread sometime!  There are so many reasons to love it!



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Sourdough Success

I started with this:

It grew into this:

I mixed some of it up with flour to make this:

Then I baked it, and it became this:

And when it cooled, I sliced it, so it looked like this:

And now I'm gonna eat it, and I'm pretty sure you don't need to see a picture of that!

Sourdough Away!

I mixed up my sourdough...um...dough...today.

It's in the fridge, where it will be resting and rising for the next 14 hours or so. 

In the meantime, if you're interested in why sourdough is so dang good for you, here are a few things to chew on (and be grateful for, since it is Graituesday!):

1.  It lasts longer!  That's right - the combo of bacteria and yeast make the grain in your bread more resistant to mold and stale-ification (I made that word up.)

2.  It's easy to digest!  Be honest...do whole grains make you...um...*gassy?*  Yeah.  You're not alone.  That's cuz it's HARD to digest when it hasn't been broken down a little.  Again...bacteria and yeast double up to break down the hard to process stuff in wheat and even make white flour better for your bod.

3.  It's cheap.  That's right...the bacteria and yeast in sourdough starters are pulled directly from the air around it.  So you won't have to spend any yen on yeast.  It's like pulling money right out of the air!

4.  It's easy.  All you have to do to catch those yummy yeasts and bubbly bacteria is mix up some water and flour and leave it on your counter.  It requires a little planning, sure.  But that ain't hard.

Got any more reasons why you LOVE sourdough???  Post 'em!


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Bubbly, Lovely Sourdough Goodness

I have been learning some COOL stuff about bread this week.

Sourdough bread - for example - is incredibly cool stuff.  The starter - which is just flour and water in a mason jar - literally pulls the yeast and good bacteria out of the air around it and creates a  bubbling ball of nourishing life after just 12 hours on the kitchen counter.

See da bubbles?

All that life makes your insides SO happy when you eat it.

Bubbles = Life!

I've got a starter going, one which I hope will be the mother of countless loaves of yummy, chewy bread - and yes, even CAKE.  And I'm just fascinated by how this works.

I've downloaded the introduction to sourdough from an great site I frequent, Gnowflgins - weird name, awesome site - and it has just made me giddy with new information.

I'll be keeping you posted on how I progress with my sourdough.  I hope to master it and perfect it in the coming weeks.