New Sourdough Book

 

A new to me book

When I was researching the nutrition in fresh ground whole grains, and moreso sourdough, I found this gal. She's called the sourdough queen in the UK and started a sourdough school.

When reading Amazon's sample (and I read the samples of all three of her books) I knew I wanted them. Their Kindle versions were so cheap I got them first, but then realized I needed the physical books so I can flip back and forth to differing pages and even mark them up ...

(The mention of owning them and liking to mark them up reminds me of a series I'm reading. At Christmas my granddaughter was reading them and her mom eventually told me she'd give me the first two for my birthday, I am savoring them!!! I'm on book 5. I can't show you book number 1 because a friend came today for tea and borrowed it. I've already heard from her that she loves it and is going to savor it! Anyway, Emma M. Lion LOVES books and likes to own them so she can mark them up. I periodically text my daughter-in-law to tell of a part I'd recently read that kept me chuckling!) 

The sourdough queen Vanessa has really studied the 'chemistry' of sourdough and our gut. Her first taste of sourdough was when 9 years old in a French bakery. By the time she was 11, she was working there. She moved to the UK and could not find any sourdough bread. She got sick. She ate gluten free for four years and then when visiting France, at her old bakery, she ate half a loaf and knew she'd soon be suffering ... but she didn't get sick. At that point the trajectory of her life changed - she had to understand why/what was so different about sourdough. This book is about answering her questions and the knowledge of this magical fermentation process that is integral to making the most nourishing and delicious bread in the world!

I have a large collection of breadmaking books. I am going to work my way through this book and its recipes. I have friends who have had the experience of being able to eat bread in Erurope, and my bread, and not gotten sick. 

The fresh milled Kamut, and Whole Wheat bread I started yesterday, I'd put in a Cambro overnight, I decided to make a lot of folds and form into a nice boule and put back into the fridge. I'll bake it tomorrow.

 I read in her book that this method (what I've always done) of getting the dough autolyzed and fermented, then leaving it overnight to proof, even to 48 hours is the healthiest. It is more digestible.

And she takes it from the fridge, shapes it, and puts it to bake in the hot oven. This too is what I've done for years! She likes the spring of the dough from cold fridge to hot oven.

I bought another sourdough book that adds lots of veggie or fruit pastes into sourdough bread. It's a seasonal book, even adding mashed chestnuts, which I only see at Christmas, into the bread. I have to start baking from it as well.

 This morning I ate not just oatmeal, but a mixture I'd ordered from Azure, that has lots of rolled grains. I mixed it with reconstituted freeze dried strawberries. It was so good. A 7-grain cereal. 

I've really missed leaving by the wayside for awhile, all the whole grains I used to eat. After reading people's healing stories I'm starting to look at my health history since then . . . 

The cereal bag is next to my ancient yogurt maker. It was already used when I bought it almost 40 years ago and still working. I've made our 1/2 gallon of whole milk homemade yogurt all those years to this day still. 

Tomorrow I'll post about the bread baking.