baking bread video

That's just about how I always did it
(it's been about a year of grain free around here and life is good but dang I miss the rhythm of kneeding our daily bread)

except for one thing
I would use beet water or blended squash or some other such as the liquid in my bread- you can get pink loaves that way :) and it packs in a few more nutrients too.

Gmom - yes, making a batter, about the consistency of pancake batter (forgot to say that - lol) and fermenting the dough will break down phytates in store-bought flour too. But the oils won’t be fresh, and that’s the major issue.

When we film sourdough bread baking I’ll show you more closely how the bran looks separated from the rest. Even with one sifting the flour becomes quite white. I imagine with a couple of passes through an even finer mesh sifter I would have “unbleached white flour”. That sifter is wonderful. It came from a great kitchen store in Arizona and was made in one of the eastern European countries. Went back to find more and they had become unavailable.

I buy 25 lbs of wheat at a time and store it in polycarb bins with tight fitting lids. If I had a cool basement or cellar I would store it there. It is dry here and we go through grain so fast that it doesn’t collect moths. If you live somewhere more humid, freezing would be an option.

So glad you both enjoyed the video. I only eat fruit and nuts in the mornings and never have bread more than once a day. When I do though, it’s usually two big slabs slathered with something delicious!

:) Christine

i'm completely gluten free and off the yeast, but you so make me want to be baking bread! i bet it's delicious!!! thank you so much for sharing all this...it is so great to see.

Hi Christine

I read on the website of Retsel Australia (Mill manufacturers) that you put your wheat in a container that has a loose fitting lid, and put a decent sized sprig of bayleaves in with it, say in your garage, outside the house. The weevils don't like the bay leaves, so they get out through the cracks in the lid. Then you allow enough time for the lifecycle of the weevil so the existing eggs can hatch and those newly-hatched little adults vamoose as well. Then you put the close fitting lid on the bin, and move the bin into its permanent storage place. You won't get any more weevils. I haven't tried it yet.
I just had another look at the site and couldn't find the info again. It might have been in the paperwork Retsel sent to me. It is currently buried in my deep litter filing system. I'll post the full info when I find it, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out the lifecycle of grain weevils, and work out for yourself how long you need to leave the bayleaves in there.

I found this info interesting because I have a bay tree, courtesy of my parents, in my backyard. It has been there about 22 years and is about 5 m high and 4 m wide. It started life as a bit chopped off our old one at home, with a root attached, though you can strike them from cuttings. It is not exactly a courtyard tree, more like a big, fat, multi-stemmed bush that I have underpruned, but you can keep them in a tub for many years. They are very tough and are quite slow to get going from pot plant size, so they won't take over your garden in 5 years.

In my Middle Eastern cookbook they recommend packing a bayleaf in each little packet of quince paste you make. I don't know if it is for flavour or vermin control, but the quince paste was pretty good! Corned beef and ox tail stew are two meats that I think really need bay leaves cooked with them. Oh yes, and in pickled beetroot, for all you Aussies who make their own beetroot for burgers. Yum, for omnivores.

For hardware moths, that I think you are referring to, we can get little sticky moth traps in Australia that have moth pheromones in them. You just hang them in the pantry and any loose moths are attracted to it. Well, let's just say that's the end of their breeding cycle. Sorry if anyone is a moth lover. The trouble is that you have to leave the lids off things so the moths can get to the trap. I guess you could stick it upside down under the lid of the wheat bin and catch the moths that are already in there. Unfortunately it doesn't catch the larvae that are already in the grain, but it does stop them breeding up more during long term storage. I actually caught a mouse in one of these traps once. It went in after a glued-down moth and didn't come out again. I couldn't work out why the moth trap was jiggling around on the shelf. Der! I despatched it real quick. It didn't suffer for long.

Louise

Gmom...I buy hard red winter wheat berries from our local food coop. :)

Louise...great ideas! Swamped here atm, but will get back soon!

Christine, what do you do with the bran you sift off?

Nikelle's chickens love it - they have a "crop" to ferment and digest phytates.

Today we're filming "heirloom beans with wild oregano." (probably won't be up for a couple of weeks - this week we'll put up English muffins) :)

Yes and no. I make half the loaves with full bran included - that's the 100% whole wheat batter that ferments. Then I sift the bigger pieces of bran out of the rest of the kneeding flour. That's just how I do it. I think it's a good compromise for maximum mineral content, lightness, and digestibility.

Thank you for the new video Christine, the muffins look absolutely yummi!

This week we will put up how to make an ironing board cover in the sewing room. I'm so glad people are finding the videos useful. :)

Ah fellow breadmakers and aspiring ones. A topic close to my heart as my family has eaten its way through my countless loaves - some are wonderful and some were great as house bricks.
I have had a wheatgrinder for about 30 years now and made most of our grain foods for our family. There has been breads and flat breads and cakes, to mention a few. My children made noodles with me and now my 7 year old granddaughter can roll a round chapatti almost as good and fast as I can.
There have been so many experiments and variations on the theme with all my cooking with wheat and other assorted grains, beans and lentils.
I like to add sprouted wheat to my bread - just a handful.
I usually add a bit of gluten flour to my bread when I bake for others who are not so keen on the full wholewheat bread.

I am really excited about this coming Thursday. I am teaching some young mothers the art and joy of chapatti making including how to vary the dough by adding any multitude of variation to the theme.
My current passion is using taro in with the dough. I have a great crop of taro growing this year. I love taro.

I would love to be able to share my experience and to learn from others on this topic. Thanks Christine for your efforts.

Hi granolamom (you must be from the US)
Basic chapattis are just flour and water. It is a dough that is rolled out very thin and cooked on a hot surface. No oil, no yeast, just flour and water- however this can be varied.
I like to add seseme seeds or any other seeds eg chia, or nuts either whole or ground. You can add small amounts of potato or other starchy foods. Just do not add too much.
The dough is best made an hour or more before cooking- as Christine says, the phytates in the bran are a law unto themself (well she did not use that expression!)
but I am using my freshly ground wheat- now that is something to behold. You know how wonderful coffee smells and tastes when it is freshly ground (provided you indulge in this vice)? After being stored for a while, that freshly ground coffee does not have the same appeal. Once the protective outer layer is cracked open and exposed to the air, the insides of the coffee starts to deteriorate-same with wheat. The fiercely protective bran keeps the goodness and vulnerability or the wheat germ locked inside. Once wheat is milled, the deterioration (oxidation and rancifying) begins.
Anyway back to our chapattis. I take a piece of dough about the size of a golf ball and roll it thinly. A cast iron skillet (frying pan in Oz language) is great for cooking on. Lately, I have been making rectangle ones and cooking on a toasted sandwich maker. Chapattis are usually cooked until just cooked and are still soft, able to be rolled with your choice of fillings and salad. Cover them with a clean cloth as you cook them to keep them soft.
I sometimes cook them until crisp and eat them with avocado and seseme seeds and some herbs.
A really decadent variation is to fry smaller ones in hot oil until crisp- great with soups.
In some places, chapattis are cooked in a hot oven or on the sides of a special oven. A really hot oven makes them puff and become "pocket bread".
I like to sprout wheat for a day or so, grind it in a small blender then add flour to make the dough. This is similar to a process used in "Essene bread". Sprouting wheat gives it so much more oomph for nutritional value and digestability.
happy eating!

The last couple I have made out of heavy linen. They are *so* tough. Best to use dressmaking quality. The first linen I used was a remnant of upholstery fabric, and it wasn't colour fast. Bummer! But at least the colour that bled when I ironed something wet off the line came out in the next wash. I just hate the ironing board covers you can buy. They never stay in place. I have made a pad for underneath, from an old wool army blanket (the grey type) that was quite felted, folded into three and stitched together. That is fastened to the expanded mesh top of the ironing board with ties sewn to its underside. I also fasten the top cover with ties, one side to the other, and end to end. It is tight as a drum, nice and squishy, and never moves. It is also easy to get it off to wash it.

L

Years ago when involved with an ayaveda(spelling) life style. Saved my life at the time. They used chappati a lot and did it for a while but over the years moved on to other things. Just last night was looking at chappati recipes. They are so easy and healthy! Thanks for your comments. It even inspires me more to get back to basics. I have a hand held grain mill but it is slow and a pain. Not sure where Christine purchased hers but looks so easy. Gotta check on that,

Best Regards Friend

The mill Christine uses is sold here in the WW store.
Melly

Guess I had better pay more attention to what is in the WW store. Just so many good things to read on this site. I would come here even without POP LOL

Been too busy trying to do the darn Nauli and Pelvic Rocks, maybe need to move on to the grain.
Love,
Heavenly

Hey Gmom, would you mind publishing your felafel recipe, please?

Hey Christine, I have been wondering why you only make your dough into a thick batter before proving it? I would have thought that getting as much flour into that first mixing as possible, would be better, so there is less of the fresh flour (still rich in phytic acid) added at the second stage. I guess you prove it again anyway before baking, so maybe it doesn't matter that much.

Another question. In the video you didn't sift out the bran from the flour you put in at the first stage. Is there any reason why I cannot mill and sift all the flour while the yeast is fermenting, and use sifted flour for the first stage as well as the second stage?

A third question. I found that my yeast took a long time to start fermenting. It is quite a new packet but DH keeps it in the freezer because he only uses such a small amount in his breadmaker bread.

You only use warm water, sugar and yeast for the ferment, don't you? I tried that, and stood it in a warm place, but nothing much happened for the first 3/4 of an hour. I then added half a cup of flour, and away it went! It had a foamy crust forming in about 10 minutes, as you said it would. This happened the previous batch as well, but it was the end of the last lot of yeast, and I thought it might have lost its vigour.

My old recipe from thirty years ago was to measure and mix the flour and salt, make a well in the top of the flour, mix the sugar with half a pint of warm water, then tip it in the well and add crumbled, fresh yeast, and wait for it to ferment, then add the rest of the measured water. From then on it was the same. I never had any trouble with the yeast not working. I am guessing that my old method had flour in it too, with the fermenting done in a well in the flour in the bowl.

I like your method of adding flour to water until it feels right. It is much easier to judge the consistency of the dough when adding flour to batter than it is when adding water to dry dough. Once the dough gets stretchy it is very hard to incorporate water without cutting the dough up with a knife. It all just sloshes around the outside of the bowl! Adding flour to water solves this problem neatly. Thanks!

A fourth question. Why do you boil the water? Is it to kill wild yeasts that might be in the water? For drinking we use rainwater straight off the shed roof, which is safe in our clean air. Nobody has died yet, but I imagine that it could have quite a bit of wild yeast in it. It might be good for sour dough, eh? Probably different types of yeast at different times of the year.

One final question. You say that you feed the bran siftings to a friend's chickens. Do you not think we should eat that extra bran?

I do hope you get around to doing a sour dough video at some point, but don't stress about it.

Louise

Hey Louise,

Sorry to take so long getting back to this.

Wheat bran contains many vital minerals. It also contains phytates, which bind some percentage of those minerals. I leave the flour whole for the first stage, where about half the total amount of flour is used. Then I sift much of the bran out of the second stage, which will sit and ferment some during rising, but not nearly to the extent of the foaming, more liquid first stage. This is not science, just my take on it. It seems like a reasonable compromise.

You can sift the bran out of all your flour (and give it to the birds!) but I think that’s a waste of good food. It just takes the rising action of the standard bread making process to dismantle phytic acid. This is illustrated by the serious zinc deficiencies in people whose diets consist primarily of unfermented wheat flat bread. Maybe my attempts at maximizing phytate breakdown are not that necessary? I like the lighter loaf anyway tho. Another issue is that wheat bran is pretty rough. My guts thrive on it, but that’s not the case for many.

I buy freeze-dried yeast in bulk and keep it in a small jar in the freezer. I don’t know how packets of cake-yeast behave. This yeast always bubbles right up to the surface. I have never let it sit for more than 10 minutes. You wouldn’t have to do this step if you knew the yeast was good. Hence the name “proof”.

Salt is a modulator of yeast and I have the sense that it’s best not to combine the two until the yeast has had a good chance to work on the “sponge”, or first stage. However, there are as many bread recipes as bakers, I expect.

Gosh, I am so envious of your water!! I drink low quality city water filtered through a clay pot. I don’t think I have ever drunk rain water in any quantity!! But yes, it would have stray organisms. Boiling water for bread making is best.

I think you should feed the excess bran to your chickens or favorite plants. :)

You will Love to make sourdough!!

Christine

Thankyou, Christine. I always find it is helpful to talk around food preparation. You are right. It is not science, but there are plenty of scientific principles in it. Cooking is what you do with the science. Talking about why you do a particular thing often brings great insight.

I think we have a dud batch of yeast. I will just use a bit more and add a bit of flour next time, which should boot it along. My son, the winemaker and avid homebrewer son, tells me that adding malt kicks yeast culture along. It is to do with the enzymes that are generated when the barley is slightly sprouted as part of the malting process. But he seems to think it logical that adding flour would work better than just having yeast and sugar and warm water, because there will be enzymes in the freshly ground wheat flour as well. One thing he did say was not to use honey in a yeast culture because honey is a great microorganism killer. Stick to sugar.

If honey is such a wonderful killer of microorganisms, how do you ferment honey to make mead without killing the yeast????

oooooooooooooh! That is an interesting question! I have two 3-gallon glass jugs gurgling away. They are so sweet with their little plaid, velcro, and draw-string quilted jackets - each in a little cupboard of its own. I have no idea, but the only time our mead has ever gone bad was when we didn't squeeze our own fresh, organic apple juice to add to the gallon+ of honey. In a hurry I took a short cut and used raw apple juice in plastic gallon jugs. Bad bacteria maybe? The plastic? I don't know, but we'll never do it again. Of course honey is naturally antibiotic, but it must get overwhelmed by a broad culture of good champagne yeast. M-m-m-m...around December 15th.....blub..blub blub.....

So Christmas passes in a meady haze, does it? Sounds quite novel to me. We just drink champagne as cold as we can make it. Sizzles on the palate.

My fave thing to do on Christmas Day is to have a warm shower about 10am, after opening prezzies and getting lunch underway. I always take a tulip of very well-chosen and well-chllled champagne under the shower with me. The combination of warm water and chilled bubbly is my special Christmas treat. I feel so ready for the big Weber cook-up on the front verandah when I am all clean and primed.

I guess the pre-crushed apple juice has been pasteurised and there are no bacteria or yeasts at all! It may also have something along the lines of a natural preservative or food acid or something that upsets the yeast. Maybe something that changes the pH or denatures enzymes, or something similar? The idea of a preservative, whether natural or not, is to prevent decomposition. Der!

I think I would stick to the freshly juiced apples.

I will ask DS1 about mead making. He is not enamoured with mead. Reckons there is little point in making mead when home made beer is so good. This young man is as close as you can get to a beer geek. And very nice beer he makes too (all preservative free - no need for it if it doesn't sit in a warehouse for weeks before drinking, and what's the point of making beer if you are not going to drink it straight away?) He has just purchased his own grister to make his own malt, so you can imagine the conversations we had when I announced that I had bought a Hawos mill.