Here is an idea. If you haven’t got any kids yet and you aren’t sure if you are ready to take care of a pet, maybe a sourdough starter is a good thing to start out with? If you nurture it right it can help you create infinite amount of breads, it can live forever (we’ve heard rumors of living sourdoughs that date back to early 1800′s), and you only need to feed it once a week. Doesn’t it sound like the perfect companion?

If you don’t know what a sourdough starter (also known as Levain) is you can read all about it here. But shortly explained it is a mixture that contains a living Lactobacillus culture, which you use instead of yeast in baking. It is especially effective when you bake with rye. You can grow it yourself or get a small part of someone else’s.

The sourdough gives the bread a special tangy taste that we really love in our family, but depending on what ingredients and flours you mix it with you can achieve all kind of different flavors. In this recipe we have added some dried figs to give a sweet balance to the tanginess.

Sourdough is in almost every aspect healthier than cultural yeast, but it is not merely as used since it is a lot more time consuming to bake with. We urge you however give it a try, you won’t regret it. And once you have your sourdough started, what’s the point of going back to yeast? Also, the starter makes a great going away gift.

We would love to tell you the story about how we grew our sourdough starter ourselves several years ago. And how we have been feeding it regularly and singing songs for it ever since. But that would be a Big Fat Lie. We have tried growing sourdough starters many times, but we have managed to kill every one of them somewhere in the middle of the process. Starting a sourdough apparently isn’t one of our greater talents. So instead we actually bought a starter (we know, it’s cheating) that we now have been feeding for a few weeks. And we can finally  report that it is thriving in our company. Just see (above) how happy and bubbly it looks.

We won’t tell you how to grow your own starter since we are such losers on the subject. Instead we will just give you some links to some different starter recipes, try this, this or this. Or you can ask your friends, relatives or colleagues if anyone has a sourdough starter tucked away somewhere that they are willing to share. You can also buy a starter online here or here or in certain bakeries.

Walnut & Rye Sourdough Bread (adapted from the book Surdegsbröd by Martin Johansson)
2 breads

This bread has go a thick crust and a great taste, with lots of walnuts inside. We added figs to the original recipe to give a sweet hint to the tanginess from the sourdough.

Day 1, evening
80 g (1/3 cup) rye sourdough starter (read above how to get/make/buy one)
240 g (1 cup) lukewarm water
150 g (1 cup) rye flour

Mix sourdough starter, water and flour in a large bowl. Cover it with plastic and set aside on a warm place over night, around 73F – 75F (22°C – 24°C) degrees.

Day 2, morning
Sourdough from yesterday
480 g (2 cups) cold water
340 g (2 1/2 cups) fine rye flour
500 g (4 cups) wholegrain wheat flour
20 g (1 tbsp) sea salt
250 g (2 cups) whole unshelled walnuts
150 g dried figs, roughly chopped 

Add all ingredients, except salt, walnuts and figs in a large bowl or a stand mixer. Stir with a wooden spoon for about 10 minutes or use the stand mixer (with dough hook) on lowest speed. Add salt, walnuts and figs and knead it for about 5 minutes. Place it in the bowl, cover and let rise/proof for about an hour.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into two pieces. Kneed them into two round doughs that you leave to rise for about 3 hours. Use round rising baskets/bannetons if you have. Dust the baskets generously with flour before placing the dough inside them. If you don’t have a rising basket, place the breads on parchment paper and cover with a clean towel. Preheat the oven to 525F (275°C), place a baking sheet or a baking stone in the middle and a baking sheet on the lowest possible.

Slash the top of the bread a few times with a sharp knife. Take the hot baking sheet from the oven, dust it with flour, and carefully transfer the risen dough to it by tipping it out of the rising basket, upside down, on to the sheet (or place the parchment paper on it). Place it in the oven and put a few ice cubes on the lower sheet, close the oven and lower immediately the temperature to 490F (250°C). After 15 minutes lower the heat to 400F (200°C), open and close every 5 minutes to get the steam out. Bake for 20 minutes more, or until golden and sounds hollow when you tap its base. Leave to cool on a rack.

Baking gluten free bread can be quite challenging. The ingredient list is often so long (and expensive!) that I 9 times out of 10 give up after reading it. It often calls for many different flours, flakes and seeds, and the process always seems to be So Very Complicated. I recently made a gluten free rye bread that took 3 days(!) to make and the ingredients cost me a fortune (it tasted d-i-v-i-n-e though). So, I dedicated this month to try out a variety of different recipes and share the healthiest, most delicious and easiest with you. Meet the Blue Bun, our new family favorite! It is easy to make and the ingredient list can be adjusted to whatever you have at home. We have also been experimenting with some different flavors for it. My favorite was when I added vegetable juice and thyme. David was crazy about the cardamom and raisin bun. Elsa doesn’t seem to have an opinion, she eats them all. Next time we talk about trying lavender and rosemary. Let us know if you try them with some other flavors.

Elsa has got a terrible cold, so I also came up with this Pink Super Food Smoothie for her. It is filled with C-vitamins and antioxidants. She loved it and so did we!

Blue Buns
Makes around 12 buns

You can substitute the brown rice flour and amaranth flour for a gluten free flour mixture or other gluten free flours; amaranth, millet, corn …

4 tbsp psyllium seeds husks
2 tsp natural xylitol, honey or stevia
a pinch of salt
25 g active yeast
3 3/4 cups (9 dl) lukewarm water (or half vegetable juice and half water)
1 1/2 cup (200 g) brown rice flour
1 1/2 cup (200 g) amaranth flour
150 g mixed seeds (we used pumpkin, sesame, flax, sunflower)
75 g dried coconut flakes
1 tsp ground spice (cardamom, thyme or turmeric)

3 tbsp blue poppy seeds, to sprinkle

Combine psyllium, natural xylitol, salt and yeast in bowl, add lukewarm water (and vegetable juice) and stir around until you get a gel like consistency. Measure all flours, seeds, coconut and spices and mix well. Add the dry mixture to the gel and stir around with a spoon for a couple of minutes and then kneed it by hand. Make 12 round buns and place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Let them rise for 30 minutes and bake them for 1 hour and 10 minutes at 350°F/175°C. Let them cool before serving. We always make two batches of bread and throw one in the freezer, for emergencies.

Pink Super Food Smoothie

1 1/2 ripe banana
2 handful blackberries/raspberries
2 inches ginger
1 tbsp goji berries
1 tbsp flax seeds
2 tbsp dried nettle
1/2 tsp ground vanilla
1/2 cup cranberry juice (unsweetened)
1/2 cup water or young coconut water
1 cup milk (soy, almond, rice or oat)

Just mix it up in a blender! Pour into bottles, add ice and serve!

Did you know that the clear coconut water from young coconut is full of electrolytes (mineral salt)? The electrolyte balance found in coconut water is similar to that found in our blood, therefore great as a hydrating drink when you are sick. If you don’t live in parts of the world where you can get young green coconut in the vegetable department, you can buy them in small boxes in health stores.

Potato pizza has a special place in my heart. This simple rustic pizza made with just a few basic ingredients (no tomato sauce) is pretty impossible to find in Swedish restaurants. So the only time we eat it is when we make it ourselves, and it always makes me think of Rome. There you can get it in almost every restaurant but they taste best bought from any of the many hole-in-the-wall ovens. They bake them incredibly looong and you buy a slice of it by showing with your hands how big piece you want. Normally they are baked with lots of olive oil, wheat flour and parmesan cheese, we have made a little healthier version of this recipe from the lovely blog The Italian Dish, by using less olive oil, rye flour and goat cheese. The rye flour makes it a little bit trickier to knead, but you end up with a very crunchy and tasty crust.

We have a special reason for posting this right now. By the end of next week we are going on a family vacation to Tuscany (I know, we are traveling a lot at the moment), and we have decided to bring camera and computer. So if we can just find an internet connection we will give you a couple more Italian favorites.

Potato Pizza with Goat Cheese (Adapted from The Italian Dish)
Makes 1 large pizza, 16 small slices

Dough:
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tsp instant dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 cup rye flour (we used half light, half dark wholegrain)
2 tbsp olive oil

Filling:
3 medium size firm potatoes
2 tbsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
2 small spring onions
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
100 g goat cheese
salt & black pepper

Pour warm water in a medium size bowl. Add salt and yeast and stir around. Mix in 2 cups of flour. Gradually add more flour until the dough comes together enough for you to start kneading it. Knead for a couple of minutes, add additional flour if it sticks to your hands. Put the dough back in the bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Work the dough until it’s completely covered in the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, you prepare the potatoes. Slice them thin with a mandoline or with a knife. Place the slices in a deep plate, drizzle them with salt and cover with cold water for about an hour. Drain the water, rinse the potatoes and pat them dry on a towel.

Preheat the oven to the highest possible temperature (450-500°F). Remove the plastic cover from the dough and start working it with your hands on a slightly floured work surface. Stretch and flatten the dough until you get the desired size and thickness that you prefer and move it to a baking pan covered with parchment paper. Rye flour doesn’t stretch as good as wheat flour but if you work carefully and flatten it with the palm of your hand you will get it right. Another trick is to roll it out directly on the parchment paper with a slightly floured rolling pin and then just move the parchment paper to the baking pan.

Brush the dough with a thin layer of olive oil. Cover it with potato slices, onion, rosemary, 3/4 of the goat cheese, salt and freshly grounded black pepper. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil over the pizza and bake for about 15-18 min until the potatoes are golden and the edges are slightly burnt. Sprinkle the rest of the goat cheese over it and serve immediately.

We think the layout of our blog looks pretty neat, although it can be a bit hard to get a quick idea of how many recipes we have and where to find old ones. So to make it a little bit easier for you (and ourselves) we have put together a recipe index, which you can find in the top right corner. And while we were putting the index together we noticed that we only had a few bread recipes, which is kind of strange since we love bread!

Most of the time you will find dark danish rye bread in our home, but sometimes we bake breads like this. Light on the inside, hard on the outside and with the most wonderful scent and taste of lemon. We use spelt flakes and spelt flour which contains more proteins and less calories than ordinary wheat flour. Spelt also has a little nuttier taste. But the greatest thing with this recipe is that we dissolve the yeast in cold water instead of lukewarm water. And this is great because every time a recipe calls for lukewarm water the two of us disagree on the temperature: “It’s too hot!” “no no no, it’s too cold!”.

Imagine how it sounds like when we try to give Elsa a bath …

Oh, we almost forgot. If you like our recipes and don’t feel like missing out on anything you can now leave your email-address here and we will send you a new mail whenever we post a new recipe. We won’t spam you. Promise.

Lemon Spelt Bread (Adapted from a recipe by danish chef Oscar Umahro)
Makes 2 big breads

1 cup (2,5 dl) spelt flakes
2 medium size organic lemons (juice and zest)
3 cups (7,5 dl) ice cold water
1 tbsp sea salt
1 oz (30 g) fresh yeast
2-3 tbsp olive oil
7 cups (1 kg) spelt flour (whole or light or both)

Mix the spelt flakes with lemon zest and juice and let it set for 30 minutes.
Whisk together water, salt, yeast and olive oil in a large bowl. Add half of the spelt flour and stir it together to a lose mixture. Add the lemon marinated spelt flakes and the rest of the flour (a little at the time). Knead it for about five minutes (not too long since spelt has a fragile gluten), it should feel light, elastic and a little bit moist. Split it in half and form two loaves that you put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover with a towel and let it rise until twice the size (about 2 hours). Preheat the oven to 425°F/200°C about 20 minutes before the loaves are done rising, put a broiler pan in the bottom rack. Wait 20 minutes, then put the loaves in the oven and pour 1 cup of tap water into the broiler pan, quickly shut the oven door to keep the steam inside. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Making these nut crackers was a different story. On our first try we used to many eggs, second try they became to thick, third try to thin (and burned). On our fourth try (and 1,2 kg of nuts later) they finally came out as we hoped. Thin, crispy, salty and gluten free. And you only need a handful of ingredients to make them! No yeast, no flour and no butter. They are one of those rare kind of snacks that only contains good stuff, are simple to make and taste really, really good.

You can make them with any kind of nuts and seeds. We mainly used cashew and almonds together with some pumpkin seeds and flax seeds, but it would probably taste great with hazelnuts and walnuts as well. They work perfectly as snacks for a party or together with a cheese platter after dinner. If you skip the salt and top them with sesame seeds, you can have them for breakfast as well.

We have actually also made a quick goat cheese dip that you could serve together with them. Recipe is here!

Gluten Free Nut Crackers
Makes around 30-40 (depending on how large you make them)

2 cups (300 g) of mixed nuts (we used cashew, almonds, pumpkin seeds and flax seeds)
1 egg
2 tbsp water
1 tsp sea salt

Top with: sea salt, anise seeds, nigella seeds or some other seeds of your choice

Preheat the oven at 360°F (180°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment papers. Mix nuts into flour in a blender. Add egg, water and sea salt and stir around with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together in a quite stiff dough. Divide the dough into two and place them directly on the parchment papers. Roll them out to two rectangles, about 0,1 inches (2-3 mm) thick. If the dough sticks to the rolling pin you could roll it with a parchment paper covering the dough. Use a knife to cut them in slices or squares. Spray some water on them and top with the seeds. Bake for about 10 minutes. Always keep an eye on the oven, they burn easily. Store them in jars or out in the open if you eat them within the first days.

25 g package active dry yeast
1½ cups warm water
3 dl yoghurt
0,5 tbsp sea salt
200 g grated carrot
3 tbsp linseed
3 tbspl sunseed
3 tbsp pumpkin seed
3 tbsp rolled spelt (like rolled oats, but from spelt)
100 g corn flour
750 g whole grain rye- or spelt flour

Solve yeast in the water, add all ingredients except rye flour and stir it around. Add rye flour little by little and knead the dough for a couple of minutes by hand, it should be a bit sticky. Let it rise for 60 minutes. Gently punch down and form into 15-18 buns on a baking sheet and rise until double in size. Bake at 420°F for 15-20 minutes.

Make the buns a bit bigger and use them as sandwich buns, they are delicious with tuna salad or egg salad.

We got inspired by a recipe from danish Urtekram.

Chestnut spelt bread
2 big bread

10 g yeast
1 tbsp sea-salt
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1½ l cold-water
1 kg whole grain spelt flour
½ kg chestnut flour
some extra virgin olive oil to grease 2 tins

Day 1: Solve yeast, salt and oil in water, add half of the spelt flour and stir it together. Add the rest in smaller amounts while you work the dough. Work it for 5 more minutes after you have added all the flour. Put the dough in 2 greased tins and put it in the fridge over the night.

Day 2: Take the breads out 30 min before baking them. Preheat the oven at 225°C. Bake the breads for 30 min, turn down the heat to 200° and bake for another 20-25 min.

Remove from tins and cool on a wire rack and serve!

Preheat the oven to 250°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk the spelt with the muesli, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir in the butter and the “filmjölk” until it all comes together. Form 4 buns (about 10-12 cm wide) with your hands and put them on the baking sheet. Bake the scones for 15 minutes or until golden. Serve with butter, cheese and sugar free marmalade.

Photo by: Johanna Frenkel