Masterbaker?

Finding the good gut feeling

I bake a lot, as in a lot. Mostly bread, nice Danish rye bread, but also white bread, buns, focaccia and traditional cakes with slightly whole wheat flour and less sugar. I will be sharing my recipes on a regular basis on the blog. I’ll never be a professional baker, but I make recipes which are easy to follow and easy to remember when baking them often.

The lockdown spring of 2020 due to Corona, meant that the kids and I had to stay at home. One month for me and almost two months for the kids. Sigurd – my husband – still went to work every day, but since the canteen was closed, he had to bring his own lunch. As I was used to getting up early (I got up at 4 a.m.) I could manage to make buns or toast for breakfast before the kids had to attend online school and bake two loafs of rye bread a few times a week – or three.

Big boys are hungry boys

We simply love good bread here in the family, specially rye bread. A good toast of rye bread tastes great, saturates longer, gives energy and your conscience is better than if it’s made of all white bread. When we’ re all home, I make 5-6 loafs a week. Three teenage boys means an always-full fridge – or empty, if you like. They eat 24 hours a day. I often get up in the morning facing a kitchen that was cleaned before I went to bed, but looks like a mess with empty plates and glasses everywhere…

Gut problems

Like I mentioned, I love rye bread. If having to choose between white bread and rye bread, the rye bread is a clear winner. I do eat toast and rolls, but rye bread is just my favourite. However, in recent years I’ve had problems eating baker and supermarket bread without heartburn and sometimes stomach aches afterwards. Often it also tastes sour. A bread made on sourdough, should not taste sour nor acidic, but have a nutty taste. I have been wondering a lot about this until, a few years ago, I saw a German tv programme on bread. I learned that I am not the only one about the problem – large sections of the population of the Western world have problems with digestion; bloating and “irritated stomach” – IBS. Secondly, I learned rising time is not just the usual hour under a tea towel, in the oven and done.

A good bread is good craftsmanship; good ingredients, sufficient rising time and is made with care and respect for your health…

I found that gluten is one of the culprits. I’m not suffering from gluten allergy or gluten intolerant. The secret is chemistry – not added chemistry, but the chemical processes which happens when the dough is allowed to rise enough and let nature do it’s work. Thus, it’s important to work with a fresh and bubbly sourdough enabling the lactic acid bacterias to work. If the natural processes are shortened or even interrupted, gluten is not degraded and transformed and can cause stomach problems.

It gave me a bit of an aha experience and I made the decision to make my own bread.

I immediately started preparing a sourdough and was looking forward to baking my own rye bread… which didn’t turn out good.

The sourdough might not have been be ready, it must be fresh and bubbly. The flour was probably not the best and maybe I didn’t take my time mix the dough and let it rise enough.

After trying out many recipes, I figured out how to make my own recipe. A good bread that does not cause stomach problems, easy to make and tastes good. First of all, it tastes of rye bread and not sourdough.

A sourdough is a 100% natural product and will vary from household to household, from week to week, seasons, temperature fluctuations and which flour you use. If you use the same flour, have regular routines around your sourdough and look after it, the sourdough will be more or less the same quality every time.

Here’s my recipe for delicious homemade rye bread which keeps your gut healthy and happy – requires no prior boiling or soaking of the grains. Everything is mixed at once and the dough develops while the grains are softened at the same time. All the good stuff is kept in the dough.

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And bread mixture for the rye bread here:

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