Adventures in Breadmaking...Part 1

I am an avid follower of the down---to---earth blog and forum, so it didn't take much to convince me that a simple life requires reviving the practice of bread making at home. It is cheaper, it is tastier and it is healthier. I am a self-proclaimed convert!

Now, spending so long in India, I was taught by so many lovely women how to make chapatis, or Indian flat bread, to eat with curried vegetables (or meat too, if that's your thing). But this post isn't about making chapatis. However, I think I just talked myself into doing one on that subject too soon...

Today, I'll share a little bit about my recent attempts at making bread with Spelt Flour.

Spelt is a species of grain related to modern day wheat which was widely used by the Romans. It seems to be making a bit of a come-back as a healthy alternative to regular wheat bread. Having been using it at our Steiner school playgroup, I decided to give it a go at home as the taste is, quite simply put, wonderful.

When I was in Nottingham, I popped into the tourist information office and picked up a leaflet on a 3-minute spelt loaf recipe. Hmm, I thought. 3 minutes? Sounds too good to be true. I was wrong.

Here's the recipe they gave (in their words):

Three-Minute Spelt Bread

You can also leave the dough to rise slowly, in a cool place overnight. It will be even better.

1lb/2oz/500g Spelt Flour
2 sachets/10g fast-acting dried yeast
Half tsp salt
2oz/50g sunflower seeds
2oz/50g sesame seeds
2oz/50g linseeds (optional)
17floz/500ml warm water

1. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

2. Combine all the ingredients, adding the water last. Mix well and turn the dough into a greased loaf tin.

3. Put straight into the oven and bake for an hour.

4.Remove the loaf, turn it out of the tin and the return it to the oven without the tin for a further 5-10 minutes.

Simple, isn't it?

Well, I looked at it and thought hang on - what about sugar for the yeast? Now I'm no expert, but I figured that the yeast might need it (or is it different with spelt flour and I just don't know?...). Anyway, I decided to do half these quantities shown above (to make a small loaf) and to add a few extras:

1 tsp honey (dissolved in the warm water)
1 tsp olive oil

I left out the seeds as I didn't have any!

I also used much less water as it made my dough extremely wet otherwise (I added more flour to compensate my over-wetting too) and I kneaded it for a few minutes. Ok, so it was maybe a 10 minute bread, but hey, it was worth it.

Finally, I only needed to cook it for around 30 or 40 minutes, maybe because it was half the quantity. It was brown and ready in that time. I guess you just have to be flexible and adjust things according to your conditions. I hear that different flours from different suppliers can act very differently, so just play around with it.

The result of my first spelt loaf, as can be seen above, was a slightly raised loaf (I was disappointed at first...), but with an amazing texture and nutty, distinctive taste. Really, it's a pleasure to eat. It's a bit dense, but soft and chewy. It's great with chutney, cheese and tomato, or simply hot with real butter. Yum, yum, yum.

I made another loaf today, using the same quantities but with a smaller loaf tin. It rose more, but tasted superb.

I'll be trying out some other flours and techniques and will share my findings here! If anyone has a bread recipe or story to share, please do!

Michaelmas Lanterns

At our Steiner School playgroup this week, we celebrated Michaelmas together. We feasted on bread we made together, apples and homemade jams and chutneys.

We also made beautiful colourful lanterns to light and warm our dark winter nights. Leela was so engaged with it, spending so much time 'painting' the PVA glue onto the glass jar, tearing up the orange, yellow and red tissue paper and sticking it on.

 {Bringing warmth and light to our home shrine}

I made a twisty for the handle. If you are not sure how to do this, I would urge you to give it a go (but be warned as it is surprisingly addictive). Now that I've looked it up on the internet, I'm not sure if that's the real word for them, so I'll tell you how to do it anyway!

To make wool twisties...

Take at least 2 pieces of wool (you could do this with as many as you like to make it thicker or thinner). Using different colours works well. The final twisty will be around half the length of the original pieces of wool, so keep that in mind.

If you have another pair of hands to help with the next step, that's great! If not, simply tie the wool lengths onto something, such as a door handle. Then start twisting it. If you're working with a partner, each partner twists in the opposite direction so that the wool pieces twist around each other. Keep going until the wool starts to want to 'buckle' or loop up.

Then comes the fun part! Take something to act as a weight, say a pair of scissors or a spoon with a hole in the end, and carefully thread in onto the twisted wool to about half way down the length. Then, holding the weight and keeping the tension high, catch hold of both ends of the wool so that the weight is now hanging down with all the ends at the top. When you're ready, let go of the weight and watch it spin, twisting the wool as it goes. Get ready to catch the weight as it slows and then tries to twist back the other way. Once you've caught the weight, simply cut it off the wool and tie both ends of the twisty. The wool will now stay in this twisted rope-like state and won't unwind. It makes a very much stronger and decorative twine which can be used for all sorts of crafts.

(If you read my previous post about making bird seed cakes, we used short twisties as the hanging loops there).

There have also been some very nice Michaelmas lantern tutorials on these beautiful blogs.

Moment to Moment Tutorial

Bluebirdbaby Tutorial

...and here's yet another lantern tutorial which I couldn't resist sharing... Enjoy!

Seedy creations...

:o)

Recently, we...

Carved a fun pumpkin

Me being the thrifty (and perhaps slightly disorganised) one, I bought this beauty a few days after Halloween for a much reduced price. I have also learned a valuable lesson, which goes something like - "Don't try to find a pumpkin for sale on the night of Halloween, especially when it falls on a Sunday when all of the shops are closed anyway". Oops.

In true permaculture fashion, I decided to make as many uses as I could from the pumpkin. We made spiced, baked seeds:

 Here's how I did it:

I cut off the top of the pumpkin and retained it as the lid for the finished carved pumpkin. I scooped out the seeds and stringy, sticky bits of flesh. The seeds were given a good rinse in cold water, before they dried out as I'd imagine the flesh would be tricky to get off them otherwise. I then popped them on a baking tray into a warm oven (say 100 degrees) just to dry them off (maybe 10 minutes).

When they were dry, I removed them from the oven and turned up the heat of the oven to around 200 degrees. I then stirred a dollop of butter into the seeds, along with a sprinkling of ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt (to taste). I then popped the tray back into the oven and baked them until they had turned crisp and brown. A very tasty snack indeed.

Now, I still wanted to carve the pumpkin for Leela and I to enjoy in the evening, but I also wanted to make use of the flesh. To satisfy both needs, I decided to use a spoon to scoop out the flesh before carving the pumpkin. I then made cream of pumpkin soup using this recipe. Be careful not to overdo the cream as I did!


The next 'seedy' thing I did was to make birdseed cakes, after seeing how to do it on The Magic Onions blog. I absolutely love The Magic Onions and it is a huge source of inspiration for me.

Mixing the seeds with the gelatine... Little wool twisties at the ready...

I used a cupcake tray (if that's the technical term?) to mould the seed cakes... and some bigger ones for a few cakes

I let them set for a few hours in the fridge and then...

...Voila! Within seconds of being put outside, they were being nibbled at by the local bluetits!

I would say one thing, which is that I didn't like using the gelatine very much, being vegetarian. Yes, it made it a very easy project, but I think that next time I'm going to look for an alternative. If anyone has any suggestions, please do leave a comment!

Moments

{Bubble toes}

Breathing in, I calm my body.

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment,

I know this is a wonderful moment.

~Ven Thich Nhat Hanh

Moments

choclit choclit choclit choclit choclit...

Breathing in, I calm my body

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment,

I know this is a wonderful moment

~Thich Nhat Hanh

94 journeys around the Sun

Today was my Grandpa's 94th Birthday!

Wishing you so much happiness xxx

A visual catch up

Ok, so I've been rubbish at posting pictures lately, so here's the post where I bung a whole load in just to give you an idea of my last month in pictures!

And incase you were starting to wonder... I will soon be writing a lot more about the things that are dear to my heart, such as how I'm working towards creating my simpler life and what progress I've made so far... Stay tuned.

...oh and one more thing...

... I've given up sugar...

(gasp)

It's an experiment to see if that's why my skin has become less healthy over the last year (vast quantities of super sweet Indian chai can't have done me a whole lot of good!).

So here goes - wish me luck and let's wait and see!

Recently...

...It's been so quiet here, so here's a little update before I have more time to write...


...We spent a week in Tenby in my parents' caravan and despite it not being my normal cup of tea, I thoroughly enjoyed myself (and Leela too! I think she would have quite happily moved into the swimming pool forever)...

...Leela and I both had bad colds which lasted 3 weeks, had a week of good health, and today started coughing and spluttering again. More vitamins please!


...We visited Nottingham to spend time with my friend Alice and her lovely family (photos to follow)...

...We met some very ancient trees in Sherwood Forest (One can hardly go to Nottingham and not play in Sherwood Forest - and collect pockets full of acorns to plant)...

...We zipped across country to stay near Llangollen with my dear friend Sue, where, for the last week, Leela and I have had a thoroughly lovely time...

...We visited the Taraloka community, which is where Leela and I lived for 6 weeks when Leela was a wee one of a few months old (we were indeed very privileged!). It was so great seeing everyone again (and Leela found it to be great fun to make meditation cushion towers)...

...We visited Chester friends and celebrated Diwali with Indian families in the city centre...

...and we arrived back a few hours ago, exhausted, sore throat, sore eyes and a babe who can't sleep for coughing. Time now for a good dose of honey, patience and love...

Good night!