Sourdough Wheat & Spelt Bread recipe

I’ve been making this bread for awhile now and thought I should finally post the recipe!  I don’t remember where I got the original recipe from, this has been changed, amended and played with for about two years to end up with this very simple final version.

Sourdough Wheat and Spelt Bread

Ingredients

1 cup plain sourdough starter (that’s starter made from just flour and water)

1 cup lukewarm water

2 tspn salt

1/4 tspn baking soda

1 cup organic white plain flour

2 cups organic wholemeal spelt flour

(Proof your starter before making this, that is, mix the starter with about one cup of warm water and a cup of plain flour and leave in a warm place for 4-8 hours.  Then measure out the cup of starter and put the rest in the fridge for next time)

Method

Sift and mix together all the dry ingredients.

In a large pyrex or ceramic bowl mix the water and starter together.

Add most of the dry ingredients and mix well.  Keep adding the dry ingredients until you can’t stir with a spoon any more.  Tip the dough out onto a floured bench and knead.  Add more dry ingredients as necessary, however keep in mind that sourdough needs to be moister than ordinary yeast dough.  It should end up as moist as possible, but not sticking to your hands and the bench.  I usually don’t use all the dry ingredients, mostly I end up with a few tablespoons left.  I put any excess away and use it next time.

Knead for ten minutes.  Use a timer, you really do need to knead for the full ten minutes to get a good texture to your bread.

Scrape any loose flour out of the bowl, oil it lightly and place the dough back in.  Oil the top of the dough, cover the bowl and put in a warm place until it has doubled in size.  This could take from 2-6 hours depending on your starter and the temperature.  I keep mine in the oven with the light on – just enough warmth to help it rise.

Take the dough out, turn it onto the floured bench again and punch it down.  I then divide it into two, as I have two small loaf tins, or you can leave it as is for one large loaf.  Flatten it out so it’s about as wide as your tin, then roll the dough up and place into your oiled/buttered and floured loaf tin.  Place the edge where you rolled it on the bottom.

Cover the tin/s and place back in a warm place to rise until doubled in size again.  I’ve found this takes about the same amount of time as the first rising, sometimes a little bit faster.

Bake in a pre-heated moderate oven (mine is 170 deg Celsius) for about 40 minutes, until browned and sounds hollow when tapped.  Remove from the oven and leave in the loaf tin for about 15-20 minutes, then turn out and let cool.

This bread freezes well and will last a few days without refrigeration.  It has a strong sourdough taste and is very filling and healthy!

If anyone makes this and discovers an error in my recipe please leave a comment and let me know!

Saying goodbye to a wonderful friend

A very good friend of mine went into palliative care last monday.  She’s been my good friend, confidante, teacher, mentor, advisor, support and strength for eighteen years.  She taught me to have confidence in who I am, to see life in a positive light, to see the best and have belief in people, how to laugh and enjoy living.  I owe her so much.

For seven years she has fought cancer.  She has done everything she could to beat this revolting disease and in the end it has won over her body.  Her mind will never be conquered.  Even when I rang her and asked how she was she answered “Great”.

I heard that she went into palliative care last tuesday and flew down to see her on the thursday. Thursday was a good day/bad day. I started it on only about 4 1/2 hours sleep, which was not good but unavoidable.

I arrived at the Palliative care unit just after 9.00am I was able to spend about three and a half hours with Paula, just holding her hand and talking.  I went down there thinking that I had so much to say, and in the end what mattered was simply:

Thank you

I love you

I’ll miss you

I’ll see you again one day

And a lot of swearing and crying in private over how unfair it is. She’s only 52 and will never see her sons get married, know her grandchildren or any of the other things that she should still have time to do. And they won’t get to meet an amazing lady.

I didn’t fly out of Melbourne until after 6.00pm, so had a bit of time sitting in the Virgin Blue lounge (almost as good as Qantas Club) before the flight. I was emotionally and physically exausted by the time I got home and am still feeling quite wrung out for a few days.

Update: Paula passed away two weeks later on 22 Jan 2009.

Business Update

It’s been an interesting few months business wise.  I realised during October that there was no way I could continue working two markets in coaching, complete with two websites, two newsletters and two very different audiences!  At the same time I was coming up to exams at school, working four days a week on a contract position within Defence and looking at being a single mother when Eddie deployed!  Can you say “Overwhelm”???  LOL!

Anyway, I ended up emailing both my ezine mailing lists to say I was taking a sabbatical until January.  It was one of the best things I’ve done business wise!  Taking a sabbatical gave me enough mental and emotional space to sit back and really look at what I was doing.  I had pushed so hard all year to keep everything going that I was working crazy hours just to do the bare minimum, and that not very well.

In December I made the decision to close down one of my websites and coaching markets.  I’ve been finding it difficult to work with this side for quite a while, my focus has been on coaching Work at Home Moms, yet I didn’t want to end it as that site/business had been my ‘baby’ since I started coaching.

Well, it’s done.  I sent the email out yesterday to announce the closure, I’ve altered the website so it is notifying anyone who goes there and as of 10 January I’ll have the site diverted to my other website.

Which brings me to the really cool news!  I’ve got a new business website!  It’s for Work at Home Moms/Mums/Mothers who are beginning to build their online (and offline) business.  I’ve called it WAHM Biz Builder and it will be based around helping work at home moms whose businesses aren’t bringing in huge amounts to build their business.  I’ve seen a lot of coaching businesses who have high priced tools, however very few focus on helping the new WAHMs build their businesses.

There’s not much on the site at the moment, I expect to have it finished by mid january.