Sourdough Spelt Rye

It’s time for the big storm. Is everyone ready for the big storm? Did you put your snow chains back in your Jeep? Did you stock up on almond flour at Costco? Do you have enough wine??? Big Bear Lake, California has not had a storm this wet and cold since 1977. Our small alpine community is ready and excited for a snowy April! Snowshoeing in April? No, it’s not a April fool’s joke! It’s reality here in Big Bear Lake California in 2024. Now these are the kind of winters I love. And you better believe I have Sourdough Spelt Rye proofing in my fridge for tonight’s dinner.

Do you really knead springtime?

In our house the sourdough and bread baking jokes are endless. Sure I could take a break from baking Sourdough Spelt Rye and go for a spa day down in Palm Desert, throw on my favorite romper and lounge by the pool at Miracle Springs Resort and Spa but I’ll do that end of April when the snow is melted and I’ve packed away winter gear like crampons, snowshoes and ice axes for the season. A snowy early spring day has me stuck at home staring at my mother and wondering what I should bake.

And by mother I mean Billie, my inherited twenty-two-year-old sourdough starter. Yes, I named her after the most famous twenty-two-year-old of 2024, Billie Eilish.

You couldn’t save me, but you can’t let me go/I can crave you, but you don’t need to know (“NDA”)

Once you have tried baking your own sourdough bread, believe me, it will become a craving. You can never go back to even Whole Food’s organic sourdough once you have started down the road to autolyze and stretch and folds. Baking your own Sourdough Spelt Rye is incredibly addicting. Creating your own sourdough bread at home is truly simple once you have done it a few times.

This early spring, I’ve become obsessed with stretching and folding. And no that has nothing to do with my day spa obsession! When it’s time to go to town on my sourdough, I get sprung, No Becky, not like that. The key to creating a perfect sourdough bread is getting the spring correct when your bread is finally, thirty-six hours later, placed in the oven. Seriously it’s important. You can not stretch and fold enough!

Here in 2024, it’s a different world than in 1992 when Baby Got Back. Although some of us may have big butts and we can not lie, because creating sourdough bread at home is much easier than you would imagine. Thank God for snowshoeing! Did you know snowshoeing can burn up to a thousand calories in an hour?

If you simply adore a good Rueben Sandwich like I do, you simply must bake that deli fresh Sourdough Splet Rye at home. And if you use corned beef for the meat, even better. Once you have the bread in the oven, just gather your Rueben Sandwich fixins; Corned beef, aged Swiss cheese, Russian dressing and of course spicy pickles!

Sourdough Spelt Rye

150 grams of spelt flour

200 grams white bread flour

170 grams of rye flour

380 grams water

150 grams rye sourdough starter

30 grams honey

24 grams olive oil

1o grams caraway seeds

12 grams salt

3 teaspoons rice flour

Cool 2 hours

Mix your lukewarm water with your starter, and honey and let sit just a few minutes. Mix in your rye flour, olive oil, salt, freshly ground spelt flour and bread flour until you have a shaggy dough. Let sit for thirty minutes.

After thirty minutes do 6 sets of strrthc and folds to add in organic gluten. What the F is a stretch and fold? Watch this video!

Do six sets of stretch and folds every fifteen minutes. Make sure you cover your dough with stretch tight in between so you don’t lose any liquid from the dough. After the last set off stretch and folds cover the dough well and set aside in a warm place to rise for at least six hours.

Now you are ready to shape your bread and cold ferment! Have some extra flour at hand in a small bowl and also a small bowl of rice flour. Your dough will be sticky as you pull and shape it back together and it helps to add more flour into the dough as you shape it into your final bowl. Have a shaping bowl ready. Place a tea towel in the shaping bowl and coat it well with rice flour. When you finally have your dough shaped correctly, liberally dust the outside with rice flour and place it in your shaping bowl. Pull the rest of the towel over the top of your loaf to keep it moist as it cold ferments. Place a plate over the top of your bowl to keep all that moisture in. You want to place your bread in the fridge and let it cold ferment at least six hours. You can cold ferment it overnight or up to fifteen hours.

When you are ready to bake, place your Dutch oven, with the lid on, in the oven and preheat for thirty minutes at 500. Pull your bowl out of the fridge at the last minute. Place your bread on a large piece of wax paper and scour the top in any pretty way you would like. Bake for forty-five minutes with the lid on.

Turn the oven down to 450, wait six minutes and take the lid off your Dutch oven. Place the Dutch oven bake in the oven and bake for another fifteen minutes. Remove the bread from the oven and remove from the Dutch oven. Allo the bread to cool for two hours before slicing and serving.