Sprouted Sourdough Bread for Fermentation Week

When I received an email from Elenore of Eearthsprout and Sarah of My New Roots asking to participate in the Fabulous Fermentation Week that they are hosting right now, I was on a true kick and there was a little fermentation factory in our kitchen. Looking around, I saw jars of kombucha and fruit kvass, kefir, oat yogurt, sauerkraut, and a couple of different bread starters, and admittedly felt a little crazy. To be fair, many of those experiments were for the book, which will have a few delicious recipes involving fermentation. Wild yeasts were floating happily in the air, so it was perfect timing to say the least.
I'd love to celebrate Elenore and Sarah's wonderful effort to spread the word about the great benefits of fermentation with a loaf of sprouted sourdough bread. Head over here to read all about the health in fermentation and see the list of bloggers' links, which will be updated throughout the week.

After our summer trip to San Francisco and multiple visits to Tartine bakery, I became curious about sourdough bread, particularly about Chad Robertson's sourdough method. Those of you who have ever tried Tartine bread know exactly what I'm talking about - there is nothing quite like it.

My ultimate goal was to find a way to make a gluten-free sourdough that tastes good. I've heard it's possible, but have yet to bake one of my own. After experimenting with gluten free options for some time, I realized that I first need to learn to make glutenous sourdough the correct way and only then can I start experimenting. I began to study the Tartine Bread book, which cleared up a whole lot of issues.
It was challenging for me to follow the Tartine technique, as I only worked with sprouted whole grain flours, spelt in particular. I ordered beautiful sprouted spelt and wheat flours from To Your Health Sprouted Flour Co. They make it to order, so it is incredibly fresh flour.
Sprouted grains are believed to be digested by our bodies in the same way that vegetables are, because the process of sprouting breaks down the starches into simple sugars. 

In order to completely understand how to make bread the Tartine way, you would need many pages of detailed instructions, and better yet, the book. But even the most clear directions might not be enough in the beginning - one needs to develop a baker's intuition, which comes with the experience.
Right now I am working on a gluten-free sourdough bread and hope to share the results soon.

Bellow are some things that I learned from trial and error with different flours, applying Chad Robertson's technique:
1. You need to be patient. It may take time to get your starter going, but if you feed it every day, it will always respond to your efforts, even if it seems that it never will in the beginning.
2. You have to discard about 80% of the starter every day and replace it with an equal amount of flour/water mixture. You need a reliable kitchen scale to weigh the flour and water. Bakers always use metric conversions as they're more exact and convenient.
3. Go on with your bread only if the starter is undoubtedly strong and reliable - meaning that it's falling and rising predictably for several days in a row. If in doubt, wait and feed your starter one more time. When you see a strong starter, you'll know it.
4. Only a very small amount, about 1 tablespoon of starter, should be used for bread.
5. The starter does not go directly into the bread, you have to make a levain first.
6. The levain must pass a floating test.
7. The time of fermentation needed for ripening of the levain, bulk fermentation, bench rest, and final rise differs hugely from kitchen to kitchen. It depends on room and water temperature, the type of flour used, the amount of wild yeast in the air, how long and often you bake, your disposition that day, and who knows what else. You can begin with the general guidelines, but be flexible and patient.
8. Spelt sourdough will not rise as much as wheat will. Spelt flour makes the dough kind of runny and doesn't hold shape well. Taste-wise, though, it is delicious.
9. Sprouted flours work very well in sourdough. You can replace regular flour entirely or partially with sprouted flour. 100% sprouted sourdough will make a darker, denser bread.
10. The degree of sourness of your bread depends on the time of fermentation. The longer you let it ferment, the more sour your bread will be.
11. You can delay bulk fermentation and final rise by placing your dough in the refrigerator. By doing that, you can manipulate the process to fit your schedule.
12. You absolutely need an iron cast dutch oven or a combo cooker to bake your sourdough bread if using a home oven. It allows for just the right amount of steam needed in the first 20-30 minutes in the oven.

Sourdough Starter
1. In a medium sized glass jar, mix 70g of rye or whole spelt, or wheat flour (I use sprouted flours) with 70g of purified water. Cover the jar with cheese cloth, a nut bag or anything breathable. Wait for 24 hours and see if any bubbles appear. If not, leave it for another day or two, checking periodically. A crust may form on the surface. Remove it with a wooden spoon, check for bubbles and a specific sour smell.
2. Discard 100g of the starter and replace it with 50g of flour and 50g of water. Repeat that every 24 hours. Observe your starter carefully, it should begin to rise and fall in several hours after the feeding. Your starter is ready when it gets into a pattern and rises and falls predictably, at the same time.

Levain
1. Take 1 tablespoon of the starter, place in a large glass mixing bowl, add 100g of flour (you can use a 50/50 mixture of whole sprouted flour and white flour, all sprouted flour, or any ratio you prefer) and 100g of purified water (78F (25C)). Leave to ferment overnight, covered. Your oven is a good place for that.
2. Perform the floating test. Drop a small amount of levain into a bowl of water using a wet spoon. The levain should float on the surface. If it does, begin mixing your bread, if not - leave to ferment more and check again in 30 minutes. I've noticed that all whole grain levains don't float as well as 50/50 levains. At times, even if the all whole grain levain floats for a few seconds and then sinks, it is enough to make bread. That is if your levain looks obviously well aerated - all bubbly and porous when moved with a spoon. It should also smell in an overripe fruity sort of way.

Mixing the Bread Dough
1. Weigh 100g of levain in a large bowl (never use metal when working with sourdough). Dissolve it in 350g 80F (26C) of purified water and add 500g of flour (sprouted, whole grain or a mix, whichever you decide to use). Mix it with your hands until no dry lumps are left. Leave it covered for 40 minutes to an hour to autolyse. Don't skip this step.
2. Add 10g of sea salt and mix it in, squeezing the dough between your fingers.

Bulk Fermentation
1. Begin a series of turns. Every 30 minutes, grab the underside of the dough with wet hands, stretch it up and fold it back over the rest of the dough. Repeat this action 3-4 times until you complete the circle, to let the dough be evenly developed. Do this over the course of 2 hours.
2. Then leave the dough undisturbed for another 2 hours. You may need a longer bulk fermentation time if your ambient room temperature is very cold or the dough doesn't become lighter after 4 hours.

Bench Rest
1. Turn the dough onto a liberally floured (use brown rice flour) working surface. Dust the surface with more brown rice flour and shape it gently and briefly into a round loaf. Leave for 30 minutes, covered with a bowl or a kitchen towel. The dough will spread to the degree that depends on the flour that you use.
2. Fold the third of the dough closest to you up and over the middle third of the loaf. Then fold the thirds that are right and left to you, one at a time, over the center. Finish with the farthest side from you, stretching it over the previous folds. Grab the dough nearest to you, stretching it up and over, rolling the whole piece away. This way all the seams should be on the bottom. Round your loaf against the work surface.

Final Rise
1. Prepare a basket or bowl covered with a clean cotton or linen towel and generously dusted with brown rice flour. Turn your dough into the basket, seam side up and cover with the towel.
2. Let it rise for 3-4 hours at warm room temperature (around 75 F (24 C)) or place in the refrigerator for up to 20 hours. The time of final rest will affect the taste of the bread. The longer it ferments, the more complex and acidic the taste will be.

Baking
1. Preheat your oven to 500F (260C) 30 minutes prior to baking time. Place your cast iron combo cooker or dutch oven in the oven.
2. After 30 minutes, unwrap the dough, place a piece of parchment paper over and invert the dough onto it. Score the top of the dough with a very sharp knife.
3. Quickly but carefully remove the bottom of your combo cooker or dutch oven from the oven, leaving the lid behind. Use oven mittens and be very careful. Drop the loaf into the cooker together with the parchment paper. Transfer back into the oven and close the lid tightly. Decrease the temperature to 450F (232C) immediately. Bake for 20 minutes.
4. Open the oven and remove the lid. Bake for another 20-25 minutes until a nice deep colour. Wait for 1 1/2 hours before slicing if possible.

Pink Peppercorn Cookies from Small Plates and Sweet Treats

This post is also available in: French

Aran Goyoaga hardly needs an introduction. Her amazing blog Cannelle et Vanille attracts thousands of readers with its sunny photographs and clever gluten-free recipes. I waited for the arrival of her first cookbook Small Plates and Sweet Treats with little patience, but it was very much worth all of the wait. It is full of the same gorgeous photography and exciting ideas. Everything that I've made from the book so far has been more than delicious. Paloma and I cooked the Glazed Apple and Chestnut Bundt Cakes and the Chocolate, Beet and Almond Butter Molten Cakes for Thanksgiving. Then we tried the Chocolate Frangipane and Raspberry Tarts for our New Year's celebration. Friends loved them all. I also haven't been able to get enough of the Roasted Parsnip and Apple Soup and these shortbread cookies - they are truly addictive.
Pink peppercorns have become somewhat of an obsession for me lately. They are so good on almost anything - in savoury dishes, as garnish for creamy soups, sprinkled on salads, and as an aromatic, spicy addition to a dessert. In these cookies, the combination of ingredients is mind blowing, the flavour is unlike anything I've ever tasted before. I tweaked Aran's recipe a little by adding pumpkin seeds instead of pistachios and substituting regular butter with nut butters and ghee. Lately, I've been experimenting with adding ground pumpkin seeds in place of some flours in baked goods, and I'm really loving the results. Another thing that I've been making regularly is pistachio butter. Like any nut butter, it's easy to make with the help of a food processor and is wonderful on its own or added to baked treats.
Look for many more inspiring recipes in the book.

Pink Peppercorn Cookies
(adapted from Small Plates and Sweet Treats)

makes about 50 cookies

1 cup pumpkin seeds - ground into flour in a food processor
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons pink peppercorn - coarsely ground in a mortar with a pestle or in a dedicated coffee grinder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons almond butter
5 tablespoons pistachio butter
5 tablespoons ghee
1/2 cup honey or 3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 vanilla bean - seeds scraped out
3/4 cup powdered coconut sugar - for dusting

1. In a medium sized bowl, combine pumpkin seed flour with the other flours, starch, peppercorns and salt. Set aside.
2. Scrape seeds from the vanilla bean. In a bowl of a stand up mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine all the butters with the honey/coconut sugar and vanilla bean seeds and beat until well incorporated and fluffy. Add in the dry mixture and mix everything into a dough.
Alternatively, use a hand mixer to combine the butters with honey/sugar and vanilla seeds and then add the butter mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix with a spoon, then knead with your hands to form a dough. If using coconut sugar, the dough will be drier and slightly harder to combine.
3. Place the dough on a work surface and shape it into 2 logs, about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap them in parchment paper and roll, trying to make the log as round as possible. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350 F. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap and cut into disks 1/4-inch thick. Place them on a parchment paper-covered baking tray about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes until the bottom is golden. Don't over bake to prevent cookies from getting hard and dry. The cookies will be very soft when hot. Leave them to cool on the tray for 10 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar. Keep in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Roasted Parsnip and Apple Soup with Radish Greens

Happy 2013 everyone! Wishing you a year of health, peace and many delicious meals. We're so grateful for yet another year of exchanging recipes and ideas in this space, let's make it a very happy one.

Greens peas

I want to tell you about a small vegetable patch at our city's community garden that we challenged ourselves to take care of last year (as strange as last year sounds). Even though it seems wild to all those experiencing the bite of winter frost, Florida is right in the middle of its growing season and we're here to take full advantage.

Freshly picked radishes

I grew up in a community, where gardening was always on the summer agenda. My mother used to grow many of the fruit and vegetables that we ate, and canning the harvest was mandatory in preparation for the winter. I was very excited to finally test my own green thumb.
A few friends were regulars at this garden and offered some much needed planting help and advice. Certain things turned out to be easier to grow than I thought and others - (cucumbers!) - not so much. I was curious about the appearance of the garbanzo plant, so I sprouted and planted some garbanzo beans, ending up with a plant that blooms purple and sports small, individual garbanzo pods. We've also had success with sweet peas, green beans, tomatoes, broccoli, eggplants, and herbs (chocolate mint!).

Baby Swiss chard / Baby tomatoes

But most abundant are radishes, all kinds of them. They take very little time to grow and are practically maintenance free. Every visit to the garden results in a nice bunch of fresh, bright radishes. Their leafy tops are so rich and green, that I've had a hard time tossing them. One of my fellow gardeners mentioned that some cultures grow radishes for their tops specifically, while feeding the bulbs to animals. I was intrigued and decided to give radish greens a try, sauteing them with Brussels sprout leaves until barely wilted. They contributed a slight bitterness and definite freshness to the dish. I've seen many other interesting recipes online, where radish greens are sauteed with onions or added to soups. Please let us know if you've had any tasty experience with them, we'd love to hear.

Garbanzo beans

I also had some new potatoes from my gardening friends and decided to use them in this creamy parsnip soup from the beautiful cookbook Small Plates and Sweet Treats by Aran Goyoaga, which I want to talk about more in the next post. The soup is perfect for winter - warming, creamy, and very nourishing - and even better when topped with sauteed Brussel sprouts, radish greens, and pink peppercorn.


Roasted Parsnip and Apple Soup
(adapted from Small Plates and Sweet Treats)

1 lb parsnips  - peeled and diced into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 medium yellow onion - diced
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 celery stalk - diced
2 medium Pink Lady or Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and diced
2 medium or 3 small potatoes
5 cups broth (I used water, the original recipe calls for chicken stock)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
minced fresh radishes for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Prepare a foil-covered baking tray. Toss the parsnips with 1 tablespoon of oil, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste. Place the parsnip pieces on the tray and bake for 30 minutes, flipping the parsnips after 15 minutes.
2. Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and celery, cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the roasted parsnips, apples, potatoes, broth or water, coriander, and the remaining salt and pepper. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook covered for 15 minutes, until vegetables the are tender.
4. Puree the soup in a blender and enjoy.