Have you ever tried to transform a cake into a bread? Well this is what I've done with this experiment. I took a bunt cake recipe, where the rising agent was baking powder and baking soda and do some adaptations to rise it exclusively with sourdough.

The first, I baked the no sourdough version to see if I like it. As it resulted in a delicious cake, I adapted the recipe so I give up on baking powder and baking soda and introduce only sourdough. The result was absolutely impressive and I know for sure that I'll do this more often in the future.

Before launching myself into such an experiment, I did a bit of research on google to see how others have done it. Unfortunately, most of the recipes I found had sourdough in the title but actually it was not the main rising agent of the cake because they were adding baking powder. In this case, the sourdough mentioning looked faked to me because sourdough was used just like an extra ingredient without having any significant importance in the rise of the cake.

I had some experience with rising sweet bread in the past, see Romanian Sourdough Sweet Bread (Cozonac cu maia) but not with bundt cakes/bread where the dough is more hydrated, being in fact a batter.

My first concern when adapting the recipe was the preservation of the ingredients during the rising time. For a classical bread, a dough made from flour and water can stay at room temperature during 1 day without any problem, but when we are talking about adding ingredients like puree, eggs, things are changing as their perishable property needs to be considered. What I did to avoid this was to let the mixed butter (already put in the pan) in the fridge overnight. This benefitted from a cooling time (reduced unwanted bacteria development) while increasing the flavours. There is another aspect that balance this. The introduction of the sourdough adds a level of acidity in the batter that contributes to a better preservation of the ingredients. That's why, let's say that for this version I was extra cautious because in the case of the Cozonac cu maia the rise was at room temperature with no risk of altering the healthiness of the ingredients.

Taking into account the above considerations, I think that there is no risk if the rise is done at a room temperature over the day without needing to retard the batter in the fridge.

For this recipe I used stiff starter, at 50% hydration. Why? Simply because stiff starter has low acid taste and is more appropriate for sweet breads rather than 100% hydration starter.

I am sure you ask yourself which one was was better? With sourdough or without?

I found the sourdough version more soft, moist and flavoured than the one without sourdough. However the differences in taste I think they were minor, they were more just nuances. As for healthiness, I think there is no doubt which one is better.

There are differences in the methods of doing the 2 versions. The sourdough one takes longer and cannot be done in one shot like the no sourdough version can be. If you are a sourdough geek like me, most probably you'll find worthy to spend more time and make the sourdough version. If you are not, go for the no sourdough version.

Please also note that the temperature of baking is different between the versions and I can tell you that if you increase the temperature of the oven for the one with baking powder you might experienced cracklings. Otherwise, in the aspect they look almost identical. Maybe just the version with sourdough is lighter as colour due to the sourdough addition. I didn't photograph the no sourdough version but they are very similar as aspect.

Bellow are the 2 versions, which one are you tempted to try?

I am a big fan of French regional bread because they are fantastic and so diverse. There is no chase on open crumb for them and I know a lot of people who would not choose an open crumb bread over a French one. Open crumb bread is a baker's pride (as it is hard to achieve) but it is not so popular between consumers. I've received a lot of comments indicating that they would choose a loaf without an ear and with a denser crumb so they can spread butter on it. It sounds ridiculous for a baker who always dreams about an open crumb, but there are a lot of people who love other types of bread.

This year I made my first own grown pumpkins. Such an excitement! What a pleasure to check them every day to see if they became bigger. They filled my garden with life and colour.  When the autumn came, the leaves faded away and their beautiful orange aligned with the season colours. What to do with them? Oh, what to start with. First of all, we love pumpkins roasted in the oven and this is what we tried first. Then, I reserved a part for cakes and from another uncooked part I made a soup. This is the one. It is the food of the season and possibilities to cook with pumpkins are endless.

Here is a simple recipe but, oh..., this soup is so so delicious.

 

Too much sourdough discard? Make a simple and delicious pie crust with it and fill it with feta and cherry tomatoes.

Very simple and super delicious.

 Sugar, sugar, sugar... 

Is there a dedicated cake book somewhere with recipes that do not require tons of sugar? 

This is a large cake I know, but the recipe that I chose as an inspiration indicates 560g sugar. This is more than craziness. I love her book, it is very well presented but there is no way that I would put that amount of sugar in my cakes.

There are recipes where sugar is the base of the cake because it provides the structure (like meringues, Pavlova, sponge cakes etc) but in the rest, please..... please cut the sugar. It is not good for health.

I stopped eating sugar some time ago and the effects are absolutely incredible. I do bake cakes for my children and a cake like this can serve well as a sweet treat during a school break. Baking the cake at home gives me control over the amount of sugar I put inside. It has to be sweet but not that super sweet.

And this is not all. The original recipe proposes adding a glaze. Can you guess from what all glazes are made? Exactly, sugar. 

Then, most of the chocolate chips are also sweetened, so another extra quantity of sugar.

Seriously, control the amount of sugar that you eat. You can still enjoy sweets that are not having that much amount of sugar.

What did I do with this recipe? Well, you guessed right, I cut the sugar from 560g to 100g. I chose dark chocolate chips that have less sugar. And yes, my children loved it. I did not taste it, but as they enjoyed it, the cake passed successfully the quality test.

Here is the adapted recipe in which I had to change some of the ingredients/quantity compared to the original one.

I grew up in a country during communist times. I remember coming back from school by myself, because at that time it was safe for children to walk alone on the streets even in a town. My family brought me from school only during the first year but after that, I was coming back from school by myself. That means that after 7-8 years I was on my own to commute from school to home for a distance of ~1km in the town. Unimaginable these days. Those were other times....

 The relationship between me and the Mediterranean diet started 6 month ago and it was a love at first sight. I always liked the Greek, Italian and Spanish food. Not needed to mention the French one also. 

I never believed in diets but rather in cooking yourself at home with good ingredients. This is what I saw as a child, this is what shaped my taste over time. Romania is not in the Mediterranean part but we have a lot of similarities with the Greek cuisine. I have also some Greek roots from 3 generations ago in my family so no wonder that I enjoy so much this type of food.

But I want to tell you something about me. When I moved to Belgium I had no knowledge or skills of cooking. I only new to do basic things like fried eggs or fries. I was a catastrophe. I remember calling my mother in Romania from the supermarket from Belgium asking her how a celery looks like. And yes, I grew up since then... and I discovered a pleasure in cooking what you like and picking the ingredients that brings the pleasure of eating to another level.

This is the Mediterranean diet for me... it is a style rather than a diet. The flavours, the aromas ... unbeatable!

This is a stew and I have to admit I have never been a fan of stews. I could have never categorise them ... between a soup or a main solid dish, or a sauce?. But I had to "grow up" to understand its value.

When I made this one.... it was a WOW moment. I chose to have green lentils as a side dish for them and they matched perfectly together.

Super healthy dish and sooooo delicious.

I am approached many times by people who want to start baking bread with sourdough and they ask me for some starter. Most of them have never baked any bread or they tried once or twice in the past. The discussion usually starts like this: "I am so excited that I have starter now, I would like to start baking bread with sourdough and I can make my own whole wheat bread!" When I hear this excitement I am happy for them but on the other side, I know that they started already with the wrong foot. I am always replying the same: Do not start with whole wheat, start with white bread flour, master one recipe and then, you can add and increase gradually the amount of whole wheat flour. But the excitement is that high that they do not listen to me. They go straight at home, and make bread with  50% or even 100% whole wheat flour, just because they know is healthy. To bake a successful whole wheat bread you need first to understand some things first.

Flour comes from wheat berries. Wheat spikes hold the wheat berries. If you press a wheat spike with your fingers, you’ll notice that the wheat berries are popping out from the spikelets. If you blow away the chaff, the grains remain.
Flour is obtained through the reduction of the wheat berries into smaller particles.

There is a story about this bread. Although it looks like it was there since ever, in fact, this specific bread was invented only 40 years ago. French bread was very popular then and still is, all around the world. Italian bread was also great but maybe not as popular. One baker, Arnaldo Cavallari, from a small town near Venice, invented in 1982 a type of bread that suited sandwiches as well as its French competition, the famous baguette.

The ciabatta (translated literally means slipper) had a full success and in few months it became very popular in Italy. Many Italian regions made adaptations to the recipe and many variations were created.

But its success didn't stop in Italy. Two years after, was introduced to UK, and 5 years later to US.

The original ciabatta (called Ciabatta polesana) has a high hydration dough based on a high-protein flour and an open-crumb with big alveoli.

I made ciabatta before following recipes from books (Pumpkin seeds ciabatta, Ciabatta, Ciabatta with sunflower seeds, Ciabatta with pumpkin seeds, Buckwheat ciabatta) but I have to recognise that it was just recently that I've discovered its secrets. I am however not ashamed of them because they were part of my journey. Without them, I wouldn't have learned to look for more, to always search for perfection.

All ciabatta attempts I made were perfect as taste but there was something missing.... those big alveoli. I know that as a beginner I was not fully understanding the importance of strong bread flour. I changed my method, I added water, and yes, I can declare that 90% is the highest hydration I ever used with white flour. Baking sourdough bread for my family every single week during all these years improved my skills, and here I am, standing in front of my open crumb ciabatta.

This recipe is easy but it is not for a novice. Handling very wet dough is a nightmare for somebody just starting baking bread. But even if you do not have high skills you can do this recipe if you follow closely the instructions I gave in the video. I also give tips and tricks and I also try to explain why you should do things in a way or another.

You do not fully understand a type of flour before making a 100% loaf of that flour. I like to combine flours in my bread but to estimate what would be the consequence of each flour addition you need to have a good knowledge of how each flour you use impacts the final bread.

This is why, I baked this 100% spelt sourdough bread, to share with you how this flour behaves.

Spelt is a cereal, very close to wheat that has not been affected too much by industrialisation. The spelt grain is covered by a tough and thick hull. This one protects the grain from insects and diseases. Pollutants and pests are also less effective for this cereal. This is an ancient cereal, and we could consider that we are eating almost the same one that our ancestors were eating.

In recent years spelt gained a lot of popularity especially as an alternative to wheat. Keeping in mind the advantages of the hull, spelt is more organic. Spelt contains more proteins but less gluten. It is not only less gluten but its quality is also poor. The balance between glutenins and gliadins of the wheat is for spelt disturbed. It contains more gliadins that make the dough super stretchy and is low in gliadins that makes the dough less elastic. These are the factors that influence how a spelt dough behaves. Comparing to the wheat dough, it is soft, stretchy, sticky and it is difficult to build the structure inside. When the quality of the gluten network is affected, it is a challenge to trap the CO2 bubbles inside. More than this, spelt flour has fewer sugars, so less food for the yeast bacteria to feed. This means that there will be a lower degree of fermentation that will result in smaller gas bubbles. 

It might look that there are a lot of disadvantages of using spelt flour instead of wheat but there are good reasons why people prefer spelt over wheat.

The first one is that a lot of people who are gluten or wheat sensitive report that they tolerate much better spelt bread than wheat bread. The explanation might be that the gluten in spelt is different from the one in wheat. It is more water-soluble and it is broken much easier by the body. It is then easier to digest it. Another aspect is that it contains a lower % of phytic acid who is an anti-nutrient because it reduces the absorption of minerals by the body. The minerals seem to be in higher levels in spelt than in wheat.

But please, take into consideration that I am not a doctor either a scientist. I tell you here what I learned from studies and articles. The best is to consult a doctor if you have wheat/gluten sensitivity. However, keep in mind that spelt contains gluten so it is not for people with celiac disease.

I also read articles and studies swearing on the fact that spelt is the most miracle flour you can get. I've read others saying the contrary, that has nothing more special than wheat. But health and diet is not my area of expertise, I want to focus here only on how spelt affects bread making. One thing is sure, spelt flour is different from wheat flour.

With the above characteristics, bakers need to adapt their methods to get the best out of the spelt flour. 

The first thing to keep in mind is that the fermentation cannot be extended up until the dough doubles in size. The fermentation needs to be stopped at about a 50% increase in volume. Higher than 50% it looks like a trap, the loaf fell onto itself in the oven. I've tested this a few times and always the same result, the bread got flat. You might want to use tricks like baking the bread into a pan and in this case, you can extend maybe to a 55-60% increase. I wanted to bake this bread freestanding to learn its limits. You also need to understand that each spelt flour is different, so you need to run your own tests with every flour source/brand. Whole spelt flour has other limits of fermentation and hydration. 

To conclude, what works for me and my type of flour you also need to test for your case. Take away the basics and find your own "figures"/limits.