I played around a lot in the Nourishing Traditions cook book this past summer, mostly with wheat and other grains, but made yogurt, falafel, and fermented veggies too.
The grain recipes in this book are all soaked. The flour is actually what’s soaked, not the whole grain, so it’s easy for anyone to do. By soaking the flour with something acid (lemon juice, whey, yogurt- see my step-by-step instructions in the links below) the phytates that make whole wheat bread normally hard to digest and the nutrients hard to absorb are broken down. I’m able to get a nice chewy bread that is slightly sour (how we like it, we’re from the California Bay Area- home of sourdough) and isn’t dry or crumbly or brickish, which is how my non-soaked whole wheat bread turns out.
I’ve started making bread again consistently in this past month because it’s healthier, and it’s cheaper. I bought a 5-gallon bucket of wheat berries and a wheat grinder over a year ago, so having those on hand makes it practically free.
Bucket of wheat from Wheat MontanaTo soak the wheat I put 4-5 cups of wheat flour in a bowl, add the juice of a lemon or a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Then I add water and stir until it’s pudding consistency. Yogurt can be used, or whey, but I’m dairy free right now to see if that clears up Sam’s eczema (it seems to be working too)
Then I cover it with a dish towel and set it on my counter for at least 12 hours, but I try for 24. After it’s done sitting, I dump it in my KitchenAid mixer bowl (I suppose this could all be done in my KitchenAid bowl, but I usually need it for something else while the flour is soaking), add a couple teaspoons of yeast, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, 1/3 cup of honey, and a few glugs of olive oil or a few tablespoons of coconut oil, and a cup of unbleached white flour. Then turn on the mixer with the dough hook on low for a few minutes until it’s all mixed. The dough is really wet, not like what you’d get when you’re kneading on the counter, but I seem to get better bread when I have wet dough. After it’s all mixed I let it sit in the kitchen aid bowl until it’s puffy, then turn the mixer on again to deflate it. Then I grease two pyrex loaf pans, put the dough in, and let rise until the dough comes up near the top of the pan. Bake at 400 for 30-35 minutes.
This is loosely based on the Yeasted Buttermilk Bread from Nourishing Traditions
Want to see more? I took pictures of the bread making process, start to finish:
Part 1: Soaking the flour
Part 2: Making the dough
Part 3: Baking and slicing
And
Soaked wheat pancakes
Soaked wheat waffles
Excellent sourdough online cooking class:
Hi Cara, I’ve been following your blog for a few months now–love it! I’ve got a grain mill in the mail on its way to me and I’m so excited! This weekend, however, I got some freshly milled flour from the farmer’s market and had some disappointing results. I made the bread in my bread machine (my strategy for summer bread baking as it doesn’t heat up the house), but it didn’t rise properly and was very dense. I did a soaker (in the machine, left overnight, timed to finish at 7 am) of the flour mixed with kefir and water.
Have you had any similar results using your home-milled flour? Any suggestions?
Thanks for any insight you can share!
That’s great that you’re using freshly milled flour! Bread machine cycles are quick and hot- whole wheat flour is usually going to require a longer rise than they allow. Baking bread does heat up the house quite a bit… I wonder if you could set the machine to the ‘dough’ cycle, then allow it to rise as it needs to (even up to 4 hours) at room temp, then somehow manually trick the bread machine into cooking from there?
Hi Cara,
I tried this recipe today and it all looked fine up until I put it in the oven. The dough was runny, but you said yours was very wet. I baked it for 35 minutes and basically the bread was really brown and crispy on top, but totally liquid underneath. ( I took photos if you’d like a laugh!) Any idea what could have gone wrong? I have this problem pretty much any time I try and soak my flour; the dough is just too wet, even though I follow the recipe exactly. I really want to make soaked bread work, but I’m getting close to giving up!
Angela