I’ve ignored my Sourdough cultures of late. I’ve taken to this process:

Day 1: Put 1 1/2 cups of whole grain spelt in a bowl, and mix into that 1 cup of yoghurt. Cover with plastic well, and sit that bowl on a shelf until sometime the next day, to make bread with it.

I continue to use my breadmachine to make bread, but don’t alway allow it to “make the bread” but use it to “make the dough”. My preference for the latter is starting to come alive.

Today that is what I did.

I take my bread machine pan and add 1-1/2 cups of white spelt flour, 2 tsps. salt, 1 egg, 2 Tbsps EVOO,  and yeast, and let the bread machine begin mixing, and add the spelt/yoghurt mixture on top of all that.

As the mixing/kneading process goes on I add more white spelt flour as needed to make a lovely non-sticky dough.

I can use more whole grain spelt in the yoghurt mixture, I just have settled on the 1-1/2 cups for now because my grain buckets are getting mighty low.

Anyhow, the breadmachine can take it all the way and does make a nice loaf, but as I did the other day, and also did do today (well, yesterday, Friday) I set it to only make dough, and when the time was up I put it in a bowl to rise again, then shaped it and put it in a bread pan to rise then bake.

No mistaking how much nicer it is when I let it rise as long as I deem right, and how lovely it is when slicing it later, no hole to contend with. 🙂

Now years ago I used to make a big batch of bread, several loaves of bread and I fell off of that wagon and do prefer to make one loaf at a time now, fresher bread, nothing frozen.

Of course this will have to change, something will have to change, very soon. My hubby will not make bread with any of my methods. I doubt he could actually follow any recipe that the breadmachine’s book has in it, and produce a sliceable as well as eat-able loaf. 😉

The whole deal about it is “soaking” though. Whole grain is better than white. A mixture is alright though. I do like a 3 to 1 mixture, or less. Soaking the whole grain makes for a finer loaf of bread, but it’s an artform, not a scientific recipe, and not something to write down and have hubby attempt when I am down with the end of my pregnancy, or post-pregnant with little newborn baby.

So I have to get more Spelt grain, and be sure and put some loaves into the freezer that they can use in June/July. Or else I know what will happen, icky bread from Publix … ugh.