Month: July 2023

The ancestral chocolate cake…that could pass as ‘just’ a delicious chocolate cake to those not in the ancestral ‘know’.
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Trying to interface cooking ancestrally with those I love that don’t dance this way is one of the hardest parts of my kitchen…but this cake does it 🙂
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It’s ancient grain (spelt), it’s sourdough, it’s egg and dairy-free (as my little one struggles with those), it is refined-sugar free, it uses ‘proper’ cocoa (not dutched)…
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AND it’s delicious; to me and my boys but also to my son’s classmates and my non-ancestral eating family and friends.
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(Next challenge…to try and explain to them why it takes a day to make and costs three times as much as a ‘normal’ chocolate cake.)
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I’m going to make this cake again this week – it’s my mum’s birthday and my sister is coming over with her three children. I’m thinking of going for it *big* time and making two layers sandwiched together with fresh cream. I’m not in my own kitchen…so if I pull it off even I’ll be impressed 🙂
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The recipe will be in the forthcoming @ancestralkitchenpodcast sourdough spelt cookbook 🙂

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I batch-make stock and freeze it, usually in pint/quart jars. But doing it like that means I don’t get broth as often as I want it; a large jar takes a while to defrost and I have to remember to get it out of the freezer in time.
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Problem solved thanks to a great idea from the book Better Broths and Healing Tonics – I’m now freezing some of my broth in silicone muffin tins. I fill these up, put them in the freezer until solid, pop them out and put them all into one bag.

Now, when I want a cup of broth or to cook some oats in stock, I open the freezer and get one out!! I also love grabbing one or two to add to a cast iron dish if it gets too dry.
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They are also on standby for when I forget to defrost a large jar of broth. I can take two or three and add them to a batch of cooking grains for supper.
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Thank you @its.just.health and @drkarafitzgerald for writing this amazing book. I love it’s practical broth essentials plus all the tonics, smoothies (yes, broth smoothies!) and recipes in it.
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We’ve a podcast coming up in a few weeks all about the book 🙂

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If you lived in the west of Cornwall a couple of hundred years ago, this is what you’d have eaten for breakfast: Gerty-milk.
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Well, it’s the best I can currently do to try and recreate it – there’s no written recipe and there’s no-one left who remembers it. Thanks to oat friends, I’ve gleaned the recipe from an 1880 book of folk tales from the area.
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In Cornwall, it was made from the local naked oat variety called ‘pillas’ (or pllcorn/peelcorn). The raw oats were sprouted, roasted and ground. They’d have used an open fire to roast, and, apparently, a sea-shore pebble to grind.
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I used a local naked oat, my cast-iron pan and a pestle and mortar. Once processed, I added the ground oats to raw milk in a saucepan and let the mix thicken.
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It tasted delicious! The roasting brought out all the toasty flavours of the fresh grain. The milk was sweet and creamy meaning it didn’t need any extra sweetener. I’d be happy to have it for breakfast every day!!
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Check my story today for more details, screenshots of the book and videos of my process.

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Leaning how to bake sourdough, for me, coincided with starting to eat bread again after a decade without it. I knew I wanted bread back in my life, and I also knew I had to bake it myself.
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The sourdough part was a no-brainer. I was certain I wanted wild yeasts in my bread. I also knew I wanted to use local flour, but, at that stage, I wasn’t sure *which* flour. I experimented with einkorn, emmer, rye and spelt.
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My hubby loved rye, so he was sold on that. I wanted a more ‘wheat-like’ grain and liked einkorn, emmer and spelt. The delicious spelt won out in the end because of its cost. It was much cheaper than the other two grains. I bake three loaves a week, every week of the year. The price of the flour is very important to me.
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I’m nailing down a price comparison for the sourdough spelt cookbook I’m writing. Turns out spelt is still cheaper. Making three spelt loaves a week I save 250 Euros a year over einkorn. I looked the US too. There, making four loaves a week, you’d save $480 over einkorn.
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I love all the alternative grains and occasionally bring emmer and einkorn to my bread-making, but my routine kitchen choices are a balance of health, pleasure and economics. Sourdough spelt performs in each of these areas for me.
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Here’s a just-cooked loaf. The recipe (plus, hopefully, at least 11 others) will be in the forthcoming cookbook. My boys and I have a bit more tasting to do before it’s finished 🙂

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Today’s podcast is all about preserving food. In it, @farmandhearth interviews expert @schneiderpeeps, author of two books on preserving.
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In the episode, you’ll hear:
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– How Angi got started and why canning is so important to her
– Hospitality in the home and how canning helps with that
– Staples Angi keeps in her pantry
– Dealing with busy harvest seasons
– Pressure canning beans and meat
– Troubleshooting pressure canning problems

Right at the end of the rich episode Angi talks about opening our homes to others – how there is no need for them to be spotless and perfect. It’s a beautiful window into the warm space she creates with all she does.
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Thank you Angi for sharing your knowledge with us 🙂

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4 reasons to bake with rye:
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1/ Rye has a lower gluten content than wheat. If you or anyone you know struggles with gluten, or if you want to try a lower-gluten bread, rye is a great option.
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2/ Wholegrain rye has unbeatable flavour! There’s a reason why traditional German and Russian rye breads taste so good. With all of the bran, you get all of the deep, dark flavour of this sweeter-than-wheat grain.
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3/ Sourdough starters are better with wholegrain rye. There is no better flour to kick-start you starter and to make it easy to maintain. It’ll be really active and you won’t need to refresh it as often, it can go in the fridge and you can get on with other things.
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4/ With rye, there’s no need to knead or shape. Due to their lack of gluten, rye bread do not rise using the same mechanism as wheat-style breads. This means no kneading and no worrying about whether you’re shaping it right.
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The words in the image are from a lovely lady @weissenhofnicole who, prior to taking my course Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering the Basics, did not have a sourdough starter and had not made rye sourdough bread. You can get fantastic results even if you are a beginner.
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There’s a link in my profile to the course, which has a free preview (you can check out my style and decide whether it’s for you). I’ll add a clickable link to my story today too. If you want to know more about baking with rye and like podcasts, listen to @ancestralkitchenpodcast #41 where you’ll hear @farmandhearth quiz me about rye bread-making 🙂

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I render lard in a slow cooker. After it’s been going 6/7 hours and there’s not much more liquid fat coming out, I rescue the cracklings and transfer them to the cast iron pan to crisp up further.
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We then eat these cracklings (they are called niblets in our home!) on everything. They are wonderful on salads or cooked vegetables, sprinkled over sourdough or as ‘croutons’ on soups before serving. I love oatcakes topped with them (I’ll post a pic in my story!) and include them in bread-making, as our ancestors have done for many years.
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I’ve got a recipe on my site (in the resources section of www.ancestralkitchen.com) which has a recipe for a sourdough version of a traditional Italian crackings bread – pan di ciccioli. If you have cracklings around, it’s a delicious way to enjoy every part of the lard-making process!
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How do you eat your cracklings?!

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