Author: Ali

Rye sourdough breads work so much better if they are made with with a large portion of pre-fermented dough. That means, instead of making a starter with 10% of the flour weight (which is what I do with my spelt breads), I will most often preferment around 30% of the flour.
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Here’s a rye preferment that’s been rising overnight. It’s about to go into a mix with more rye, some salt, some water and a touch of honey.
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Making rye bread like this means the yeasts and bacteria which rise my bread will have a chance to do their job without being degraded by a ‘nasty’ enzyme in rye which can ruin the whole show – the acidic environment created by the large preferent protects them!
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I’ve posted a video in my stories today showing the ready-to-use preferment. It’s a clip from my course at @thefermentationschool Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics.
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If you’ve been think of trying your hand at rye sourdough this course is for you. It’ll walk you through creating a wholegrain rye starter, two breads, a cake and pancakes, even if you’re completely new to sourdough baking.

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I first read about Rutherglen Sour Cakes in F. Marian McNeill’s book ‘The Scot’s Kitchen’. Her description was short, but intriguing: There was an ‘elaborate ritual’ around their preparation which was ‘clearly from a pagan source’. When I then saw that they were wild fermented, I knew I had to find out more.
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Rutherglen Sour Cakes were prepared in Rutherglen, close to Glasgow, Scotland, to celebrate St Luke’s day (October 18th). 8-10 days before this, oats and water were mixed up into a dough and left to sour. The eve before the fair, a group of women would gather to prepare the sour cakes. They’d sit in a previously-chalked semi-circle in front of the fire. Sugar and aniseed or caraway would be added to the now fermented dough. Each woman (ceremonially, they were called ‘Maidens’) would hold a wooden board and beater on their lap. A piece of dough would then be passed between them in an east/west direction, each lady batting the oat dough down on their board. By the time the cake got to the end of the semi-circle and was handed to the designated baker, called ”The Queen’, it would be ‘as thin as paper’.
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This ceremony was last witnessed in 1854, as far as I know. And, at least online, no-one has tried to re-make Rutherglen Sour Cakes as an authentic wild ferment.
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This picture is my fourth attempt. I’m getting used to wild souring the dough – it’s easy to tell when it’s ready using your nose. The shaping is best done using a board and a rolling pin. I don’t think I’ve got mine paper-thin yet, but I’m not doing badly!
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Rolling them out, alone in my kitchen, brings so many emotions. This process was once so tied to place, to women, to ritual. I feel the weight of what I, what we, have lost: community, sacredness, ceremony, connection, seasonality. At the same time I feel immense gratitude for the path life has shown me, my family that supports me and the beautiful souls that I have connected with (a lot of them here) that *get* it.
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And I remember food is never solely about feeding ourselves.
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(Check my story for more pics and some historical sources.)

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If you’ve ever asked ‘What fermented drinks can I make?’, today’s @ancestralkitchenpodcast is for you. We cover over 20 fermented drinks – all of which, between us, @farmandhearth and I have made at home. We’ll tell you what they are, where they come from, how they are made and why we love them!
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You’ll come away super-informed and inspired; ready to start fermenting (and loving) your next drink 🙂
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You can subscribe to Ancestral Kitchen Podcast on your app, or stream/download from the link in my profile.

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Making nutrient-dense food for a children’s party can seem like a tall order. Yes, my son will eat virtually all of the ancestral food I make at home, but this is different:
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1 – It’s really special day and I want to mark that by giving him out of the ordinary food, and
2 – There are going to be 15 other kids there who are used to eating ‘normal’ food. I really want them, for my son’s sake, to like the food.
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Here’s the chocolate cake I developed for Gabriel’s 9th birthday. It’s made of spelt flour, has no refined sugar, is risen by the power of sourdough and is egg and dairy free.
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In the tests, my son, Gabriel and husband, Rob, loved it…but I was still nervous on the big day!
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Thankfully, it went down brilliantly. Every little one there finished their piece and I saw some of them come up and raid the plate for stray crumbs!
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Job done. Phew!
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@farmandhearth and I are putting together a spelt sourdough cookbook for @ancestralkitchenpodcast (it’ll be our second cookbook!) and this recipe will go in there 🙂 You don’t have to have a children’s party imminent in order to make it!!

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Does this sound familiar: Get all excited about a cookbook, buy it, then realise that, in order to get the recipes to work with how you eat, you need to change a load of things?!
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I’ve been there many times. To the point where I now consciously check my excitement at a possible book (which feels *so* sad!) as I know I probably won’t want to cook most of the things in it.

So, what a treat it is to have recipes from someone whose kitchen looks like yours! Thank you @farmandhearth for sharing some of your go-to recipes, including this one for Soaked Cream Biscuits, in our @ancestralkitchenpodcast cookbook!
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I am using spelt flour here, but Andrea tells us in the recipe that we can use any type of flour, including gluten-free. I don’t have fresh cream (I’ve not got my own cow as she does!), but I do have access to grass-fed, organic soured cream.
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There are more pictures, including the end result, in my story. You can also see my bashed up baking tray in the story too – and tell me I’m not the only one who uses kitchen equipment until it literally dies?!!
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If you want a cookbook with simple recipes you’ll be totally happy to make, it is $12. There’s a video of it pinned to the top of my feed. And you can find a link to it in my profile 🙂

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I don’t like rice much. So I end up using every other type of grain imaginable to make rice-style dishes! Here we have whole oat groats cooked in stock on the hob for an hour and a half, topped with pork meat balls cooked with the last of the winter vegetables – leeks and broccoli.
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When you cook whole oats like this they give that same creaminess we associate with porridge. So as I taste I’m getting creamy, stock-rich and chewy in the same mouthful.
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Do you cook with whole oat groats?

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I thought the joys of soft-boiled eggs were universal. Then, I started talking to @farmandhearth and realised that not everyone does (or even knows that others do) this to their eggs!
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She asked:
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But don’t you get shell everywhere?
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How do you eat it?
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I’ve been promising I’d share a video showing how ‘us Brits’ get into our soft-boiled eggs, so here’s one I snapped as my morning tummy was rumbling!
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Have I convinced you (or were you already convinced?!)? Soft-boiling is so easy (put egg in water that almost covers it, bring to boil (no lid), turn down to a strong simmer, cook for three minutes). Try it – a runny yolk is amazing with bread dipped in!!
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Are you a soft-boiler?! Aren’t they great?!
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I’m trying to up my morning protein: I’m now often soft-boiling two eggs for breakfast, instead of this one here. Protein at our first meal is so important: if you’d like an email in your inbox next week with 16 ideas on how to get a protein-rich breakfast, you can sign up for my newsletter at ancestralkitchen.com/newsletter (link in profile).

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