Ancestral Kitchen https://ancestralkitchen.com Thu, 22 Feb 2024 17:16:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.1 The Fascinating History of Jannock: The Giant Oat Bread That Defined Authenticity! https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/03/05/the-fascinating-history-of-jannock-the-giant-oat-bread-that-defined-authenticity/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/03/05/the-fascinating-history-of-jannock-the-giant-oat-bread-that-defined-authenticity/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:20:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5148 Read More]]> Jannock is scarcely ever seen in south east Lancashire now; but it used to be highly esteemed. The common expression “That’s noan jannock” applied to anything which is not what it ought to be, and commemorates the fame of this wholesome old cake”

Edwin Waugh, Sketches of Lancashire Life, 1855

“Can you rely on his support?” “Yes, lad, oi’m sartin he’s jonnock”

Notes and queries, 1882

Industrialisation, technological development and its partner, globalisation have led to not just a loss of culinary diversity; we’ve also, in parallel, lost so much linguistic uniqueness.

The oat bread called jannock, from the northern county of Lancashire in England, tells the story of both of these changes.

Many dictionaries, like the Oxford English Dictionary, include an entry for jannock which reads as follows:

Jannock”: fair, genuine, straightforward.

And indeed jannock used to be a word in common parlance to describe something genuine. I have found it in transcriptions of speeches from the English parliament (it’s said to have been used by the famous Victorian Prime Minister, Gladstone) and it was part of the Lancashire dialect until very recently.

But jannock was an oat bread long before it was a way to describe something as fair or honest. It was the unadulterated qualities of jannock that prompted its transport into local vernacular. The bread was always made of oats and solely oats (unlike other breads that were often mixed with peas or beans). It could be relied on to be ‘the real deal’ and that motivated the communities that ate it to start referring to other things that were straightforward and honest as ‘jannock’.

Jannock, reinterpreted in my modern kitchen!

The History of the Jannock

In 1327 the young English King Edward III came to the throne and needed a marriage that would help cement his political security. He chose the Flemish Philippa of Hainault (in Flanders, now Belgium) and they married in York.

Edward then invited communities from Philippa’s home to settle in the UK, and many of them came to Lancashire. It is said that they brought the jannock with them.

The first written mention of jannock is in the 1500s, as part of the text for the Chester Plays (a series of plays performed by the tradesmen of the city of Chester to illustrate stories from the Bible to the illiterate masses). It is then also included in other texts from the 1500 and 1600s, being defined in English, Latin, Dutch and Italian dictionaries as a loaf made solely of oatmeal.

What Was a Jannock?

The jannock was originally oats and water formed into a wide, circular, sloping loaf and baked. It was made in various sizes, some of them very big! In 1902 the jannock was reported as being 9 pounds in weight, 20 inches across, 4 inches in the centre sloping down to 1 inch at the side[1]. When we remember that the average large pizza is around 12 inches, we can grasp just how big the jannock could be!

The jannock became a favourite and staple food for working class communities in the early manufacturing towns of the area. The large circular breads were cut into slices called “thwacks” or “thwangs” that could easily be put in a pocket. This gave the breada huge advantage over the other popular oat bread of the region; the thin, fragile havercake which “did not satisfy the appetite or offer the same staying power as the compact, fresh, sweet and at the same time soft conditioned, jannock”.

As a bread, jannock was made in many northern counties of the United Kingdom – but survived the longest in these Lancashire communities. It was still being made there at the turn of the 20th century (below youwll see a picture of a jannock shop in Standishgate, Lancashire, 1889).

Recreating the Jannock

For a bread that was so renowned for being straightforward that it gave birth to its own adjective, recreating an authentic jannock is challenging! Though most original sources point to jannock being an unleavened bread made solely of oats, some define it sour (being made with buttermilk) and yet others, from a slightly later period, talk of it as a fruit loaf! It seems that, as with so many other regional recipes, each particular area made it their own and that, as dried fruit became more readily available and the advent of the home oven meant jannocks did not have to be made at the bakery, home cooks could add the luxury of fruit to this satisfying, simple loaf.

I have been unable to find any recipe or direction for how to make a jannock. Re-envisioning it in my own kitchen has seen me considering every word of the original quotes that I’ve found and much fun experimentation.

In my planned book on oats, I am hoping to be able to give you two recipes, one for a ‘thoroughbred’, three ingredient jannock and another for a sweet fruit version. Watch this space!

Roeder, Charles. Notes on Food and Drink in Lancashire and Other Northern Counties, 1902.

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7 Delicious Ways to Use Millet in Your Kitchen! https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/02/20/7-delicious-ways-to-use-millet-in-your-kitchen/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/02/20/7-delicious-ways-to-use-millet-in-your-kitchen/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2024 13:04:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5114 Read More]]> Millet, is a tasty and versatile ancient grain. It’s economical, easy to digest, gluten and lectin free. And it’s simple and quick to cook too!

On top of this, it’s an ecological grain; millet is super sustainable, requiring the lowest amount of water of any of the grains, being tolerant to drought and heat and also growing in poor soil.

I’ve been creating dishes with millet in my kitchen for over a decade and have come up with some wonderful ways to eat it. I want to share seven of those with you here so that, if I turned up in your kitchen with a sack of millet, you’d know exactly what to do with it!

Note: There are many types of millet. The one most commonly available in Europe and the US is the yellow pearl millet; that’s what these recipes here use.

1. Simple Cooked Millet

It takes as little as 25 minutes hands off time to get whole, dehulled millet from the packet to your table. Bring millet to the boil with water (with a ratio of 1:2) in a lidded saucepan and then turn the pan to a simmer, cooking it for 15-18 minutes like this. The turn off the heat (leaving the lid on) and don’t touch it for another 10 minutes. After that time, take the lid off and use a fork to separate the grains.

The above method will produce a pilaf-style millet, with the grains distinct from each other. For a more porridge-like consistency, use more liquid: a millet to water ratio of 1:3.

You can use something other than water as the liquid when cooking to add more flavour. I often use bone broth or meat stock.

Serve warm, well-seasoned, with your favourite oil or fat.

2. Leftover Millet

I regularly cook more millet than my family needs at one meal. Once it is cooled, I remove it to a container and store it in the fridge for eating on subsequent days. Millet does not keep brilliantly and therefore needs a little attention when eating as leftovers. Here’s how I do it:

I will often reheat the millet in a small amount of stock before serving. This brings it back to life again!

Broth

I like to make Breakfast Broth Bowl, adding stock, onions, carrots, herbs and miso to the leftover millet. This kind of improvised one bowl dish can include whatever vegetables, herbs or flavourings you have or fancy.

3. Cold Millet Salad

I have taken this dish to many potlucks. Being gluten and lectin free (and potentially vegan), it’s accessible to many diets.

1/ Cook your millet as described in the pilaf-style way described in number 1 above, and let cool.

2/ Add vegetables: I like to dice carrots very finely and also add frozen peas (so easy!).

3/ Add flavourings: I use miso, made runny by mixing it with a bit of water. You could also use specialty oils, like walnut or avocado, alongside lemon or lime juice or a tasty vinegar.

4/ Add seasonings: Salt and pepper are great, but also look to the world of herbs and spices to jazz up the salad even more!

5/ If you haven’t added oil, do so now, then mix everything together really well. Done!

4. Sourdough Millet Polenta

Polenta is, these days, almost universally associated with corn. It hails from Northern Italy, but, perhaps surprisingly, corn wasn’t actually brought to Italy until the 1500s. Before that, and more recently in areas where corn has not been available, polenta was made with other grains, one of the main ones being millet.

I love to ferment my polenta before cooking it. It brings a refreshing tartness which takes the dish to another level!

It’s great served for breakfast with cream, fruit and nuts and it’s also wonderful savoury; I love to pile it onto my plate and then add a sausage and tomato sauce or instead top it with a bolognese sauce.

You can read about and watch a video I filmed on how to make Sourdough Polenta here.

5. Sourdough Millet Polenta Bread

I love cooking in batches and eating the leftovers for days after. It’s such an economical and time-saving way to run a kitchen. And Sourdough Millet Polenta Bread is another great example of it.

Make Sourdough Millet Polenta as described in number 4 above and then, before the leftovers in the saucepan get cold, pile it into a loaf tin. Gently push it down and smooth the top. Leave to cool and then transfer it to the fridge. When completely cold upturn it onto a plate. This can now be sliced, eaten cold, warmed under the grill or, my favourite, fried in lard!

There’s a video of how to make Sourdough Polenta Bread here.

6. Sourdough Millet Crackers

I often make millet crackers for supper. They are delicious warm, straight from the oven, spread with butter or topped with cheese. With only three ingredients and a very little hands on preparation time needed they are super easy too. You can see my recipe here.

7. Boza

My absolute number 1 favourite way to use millet is in the ancestral fermented drink Boza!

Boza is an ancient tart, sweet, creamy and fizzy drink. It’s probiotic, and because it’s gluten, lectin and dairy free, it’s a great fermented food to make for people who can’t have those foods. In fact, that’s why, when I first heard of it in 2019, I started researching it – my son had problems digesting dairy and we’d also recently taken lectins out of his diet. I wanted a tasty, healthy, probiotic alternative for him that I could make at home.

My experiments subsequently led to the whole household falling in love with Boza! I created a video course so that others interested in this drink can make it in their own kitchens. You can find that here.

Boza_advert_1

I hope I’ve inspired you to go by that bag of millet and get using it in your own kitchen!

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Sourdough Millet Crackers https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/02/10/sourdough-millet-crackers/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/02/10/sourdough-millet-crackers/#respond Sat, 10 Feb 2024 08:26:02 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5120 Read More]]>

Millet is a wonderful grain to have in your cupboard. It’s quick to cook, gluten and lectin free, easy to digest and tasty.

I use it in many ways in my kitchen; here I’m going to show you how I make airy, sourdough millet crackers. If you’re inspired to take millet further in your kitchen, you can read about additional ways I use it here.

I’ve been making crackers out of fermented millet for over a decade. They are wonderful hot from the oven spread with butter. They are so simple – they use just millet flour (I grind mine myself using my Mockmill), sourdough starter, water and salt.

I’d got used to them always being flat and dense. But then, last week, I stumbled upon just the right batter consistency to trap sourdough gases, leaving the resulting cracker airy and light. It was a revelation and my family loved it. Here’s how you can replicate in your kitchen:

Sourdough Millet Crackers

Ingredients (for 12 crackers):

300g millet flour (you can buy this or grind it, very finely, yourself)

45g sourdough starter (you can use a millet starter to make the crackers gluten-free)

c. 180g water

Optional: coarse sea salt

Method:

1. Mix the sourdough starter into 130g of the water and stir well.

2. Measure the flour into a bowl (ideally glass so you can see the fermentation) and slowly add starter/water, mixing well. You want to aim for a thick batter, one that will hold sourdough gases as the batter ferments. Add extra water, up to or slightly above the 180g total that I use for my cracker batter.

3. Cover the bowl and leave on your counter to ferment for at least 12 hours. I leave mine 24 hours. The longer you leave it, the more sour the resulting crackers will be.

4. When you return to the batter it should be light and airy (if you used a glass bowl you should be able to see bubbles around the side). If you don’t see bubbles and you know your sourdough starter is good, it will be because your batter is too think or too thin. You can continue making the crackers, but they may not come out airy. To remedy for future bakings, make a note of how much water you used and adjust it next time.

5. Preheat your oven to 175°C.

6. Prepare two baking trays/sheets by greasing them or lining them with greaseproof/parchment paper.

7. Disturbing it as minimally as possible, carefully spoon out cracker-sized blobs of the batter (which should remind you of very loose scrambled egg) and gently place them onto your baking tray avoiding spreading or flattening them. Do this until you have finished the batter – you should have twelve crackers. Sprinkle a dash of coarse sea salt on the top of each one.

8. Bake the crackers at 175°C for 20 to 25 minutes.

Once baked, remove them to a cooling rack or, as we do straight to your plate! These are best eaten immediately (expect them to be crumbly on top) so I usually only make as many as we are going to eat but they will last a day or two in an airtight container and can be toasted to bring them back to life!

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14 Tips For Changing Your Food Habits https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/31/14-tips-for-changing-your-food-habits/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/31/14-tips-for-changing-your-food-habits/#respond Wed, 31 Jan 2024 09:04:30 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5098 Read More]]> Changing food habits can be daunting. We may have tried before and not achieved what we wanted. We may have very little support. We may have what seems like a mountain to climb.

I’ve made a lot of changes in my food habits in my lifetime. I’ve lost 140lbs, I’ve eaten raw vegan and then, after two years, reintroduced animal foods in order to heal PCOS, I’ve water fasted, I’ve cut all sugar (including fruit) out of my diet in order to help address menstrual vertigo and, in the process of trying to heal my son, I’ve worked with many diets – including two years on GAPS and forays into AIP and Lectin-Free.

Looking back, some of these were more useful than others, but all of them required massive change in what I was eating. I’ve learnt what helps and what doesn’t along the way and here offer you my top tips for changing food habits below.

This blog post accompanies and expand upon my podcast episode #74, 14 Tips For Changing Your Food Habits which you can find here.

Before we start, I want to bring up the D word: Discipline. The world would have us believe that changing food habits requires incredible discipline…and consequently we can often blame ourselves when we ‘fail’; recognise the “I’m just not strong enough” response?

When I first started my food changing journey, I applied discipline with incredible determination. And what I’ve learnt is that, even if you can achieve your goal, there are always consequences of disciplining yourself to do something. I’m still living with the consequences of the discipline I apply to myself in my 20s to lose half my body weight and I’ve learnt through subsequent changes that the safest, most long-lasting, a most satisfying way to change your food habits is to apply tenderness, to come closer to yourself and to work gently, step-by-step. Yes, it may take more time, and it may even be more painful, but it will change your whole life for the better!

OK, let’s get onto the tips:

Know Your Why

Being clear and excited about the reason why you want to change your food habits is the biggest determiner of your success.

Is it because you want more energy? Then, think about why you want more energy. What are you going to be able to do with that energy that you can’t do now? How will that impact your life? What will your life look like when that happens? How will you feel?

At age 20, I weighed 240 lbs (over 20 stone, you can see pictures here. Over the next year I went on to lose half that weight. The thing that kept me going was that I was really clear where I was heading. I wanted my 20s to be fun – I wanted to wear nice clothes, be able to move around with ease, to love how I looked when I went out. I held that vision in my head through every decision I made.

What is it for you? Why do you want to change your habits? Time spent getting clear and fleshing out all the details of this will really help.

Work On Your Emotions And Stresses

The stressful situations in your life have a huge impact on your food choices. If you’re angry at your boss or your partner, you’re not going to make a good food choice. If you’re frustrated because you’re not able to express how you feel, you’re going to look for ease in food. Actively find a way to work through your emotions and stresses. Sometimes this can be a simple as being in nature, sometimes more friend time can help.

Clear The Decks

When you’re six inches away from food and hungry (or upset), you are not going to make a good food choice. Clear the food that you do not want to eat out of your home.

Think Ahead

When you are hungry, it’s best to have good food in front of you as that then becomes what you eat. But this requires some planning to make good food easily available when you need it. Perhaps you need to do some bulk cooking at the weekend or have a standby snack available for those times when you’re really tired?

Tell Someone What You’re Doing

Accountability can be really helpful when we want to make a change. Finding someone who will support you and telling them your plans can cement the intentions in your own head and also give you an extra boost when you feel most vulnerable. If you can find someone who wants to make changes along with you, even better.

Be Careful Of The Thing You “Have To Have”

It is well-known in food intolerance practice that very often the thing that we “just can’t” give up is the thing that is causing us the biggest problems. If you are suffering with problems that you believe are linked to food, and have that food that you can’t live without, be wary and consider going without it for a stretch of time.

Find Something To Replace It With

Before you give up a particular food, think about what you can replace it with. For example, if you want to cut out gluten but love bread, work on finding or creating a gluten-free bread that you can turn to instead. Or if you want to cut sugar from your diet, think about what else can give you that sweetness (tropical fruit, cinnamon, roasted root vegetables) and actively bring more that into your diet.

Change The Habits You Associate With Food

Food is never eaten in isolation. Things come before it, rituals happen with it, and we do things after it. If you can change those up, you’ll find it easier to let go of unwanted foods.

The clearest example I can give you for this is when I gave up cigarettes. I had previously strongly associated smoking with two things – post-eating and when drinking alcohol. I determined that these could become weak points for me. In order to facilitate breaking my nicotine addiction, I set up my routine to go for a walk after my meal and I stopped drinking alcohol. It made a huge difference; not putting me in a habitual associative state and therefore helping me quit successfully.

Make The Food Yourself

Putting your time, effort and love into creating food is an incredible way to help you avoid overeating on it. Making food yourself changes how much you value that food.

Since I started making chocolate from raw cacao beans at home, the value I place on chocolate has rocketed! I know just how much work has gone into producing it, and therefore I’m really careful about how much I eat it.

Ensure You Are Eating Enough

It is extremely hard to make good food choices and resist food temptation when you are hungry or malnourished. Make sure that you are giving yourself enough energy through food, and that you have a good balance of proteins, carbs and fats. That may mean changing your habitual patterns, for example eating a breakfast, eating breakfast earlier, having a snack, or eating more meals a day.

Give Yourself What You Need Outside Of Food

If you are not paying attention to what you need in life, you are much more likely to turn to food to fill voids.

I find this to be particularly true for women and sweet foods. We need to give ourselves ‘sweetness’ in our lives. We need to feel luxuriousness, we need to feel treated, we need to feel satisfied, we need to feel rested. How can we give ourselves these things throughout our days? Can we rest with a cup of tea on the sofa? Can we spend time rubbing essential oils into our bodies? Can we cuddle up on the sofa with our partner, child or pet? Can we spend an un-scheduled afternoon once a week doing whatever we feel like?

The more we give to ourselves outside of our food, the more we won’t look for those sensations in what we eat.

Find Out What’s More Interesting To You

It’s so easy, if we’ve been plagued by ill-health or simply love being in the kitchen, for us to let food become the centre of our worlds.

It’s important to find other things in our lives that are more interesting to us than what we are about to eat. What holds you spellbound? Creative pursuits are wonderful for this. Do you have a garden? Do you like to paint? Can you knit/weave/crochet? Can you join a choir?

The more we can build these pursuits, the more balanced our awareness will become. This way our lives become full of little centres of interest and excitement of which food is just one.

Breathe

Creating space between my actions has really helped me in my food journey. It’s not been easy: held in the grip of an addiction, the last thing we want to do is pause; we want to just eat the chocolate! But if we can slow ourselves down and breathe, we open up an opportunity for conscious choice to get a look-in.

This habit, of pausing, is something that gets stronger the more we practice it. And the good news is we can practice it in many areas of our life – pausing to breathe before we respond in anger, pausing before we answer the telephone, pausing before we choose our next action. Each moment we practice it, we build muscles to help us deal with our unwanted food habits.

Do It, With Consciousness

When my husband first suggested to me that, upon wanting to eat a sweet treat that deep down I knew was wrong, I should eat it anyway but do it slowly and consciously, I went crazy at him!

Of course I shouldn’t be eating the food! That was a problem in the first place!

A decade on, although I still balk at this idea, I’ve had experience of doing it and know it changes the energy of a situation.

Sometimes giving ourselves the ‘bad’ thing that we want can be a step forward in our food journey. If we can eat that food calmly – enjoying every single crumb, and consciously – noticing what we feel and what it brings us, we can not only satisfy ourselves but also learn a lot.

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My Sourdough Spelt eCookbook! https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/15/my-sourdough-spelt-ecookbook/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/15/my-sourdough-spelt-ecookbook/#respond Mon, 15 Jan 2024 13:52:22 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5086 Read More]]>

Want to bring sourdough spelt breads, pancakes, pizzas and cakes to life in your kitchen?

My new book, Sourdough Spelt Everyday will help you do just that.

I’ve been baking with spelt for a decade and LOVE it’s versatility and taste. There isn’t anything you can’t do with it and that’s what my book is all about! Not only will its 110 pages give you my stash of spelt sourdough recipes, it’ll also share with you the low down on spelt, how it differs from other grains, how to get the best from it and how to know when it’s ready to move through each of the sourdough phases.

There are plenty of colour photos, detailed instructions and lots more.

Check out the book here.

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Taking On Too Much? https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/11/taking-on-too-much/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2024/01/11/taking-on-too-much/#comments Thu, 11 Jan 2024 13:42:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5084 Read More]]> Doing, doing, more crazy doing…

Crash…burn.

Recognise this one?

It’s a cycle that’s dominated my life. I was reminded of it over Christmas, spending two weeks unwell. For most of that time I was unable to get up from the sofa. All my beautiful festive food plans went out of the window and I was forced to leave my incredibly helpful but, food-wise, pretty mediocre husband in charge of the kitchen. We had leftovers for Christmas lunch!

Was it a coincidence that the day I decided to stop work for 2023 I got really ill? I doubt it. When we let go, the adrenaline that’s been fuelling us dissipates and we are left vulnerable. Our body shows us what’s actually going on.

Those hours on the sofa gave me time to reflect. Pause for thought. If only I’d allowed the space for it more often during the previous year, it may not have been foisted upon me in such a frustrating way.

I’d been trying to do everything: Create the podcast and support its community, write, cook three meals a day from scratch for my family and be a mum (with all that that entails).

I’m really enthusiastic about the food and family things that fill my days. But enthusiasm can easily morph into having to do it all and every task comes with unplanned ‘shrapnel’ – the cleaning up, the accounts, the filling in forms.

I’m betting you recognise this pattern in areas of your own life.

Here’s how it plays out in my kitchen: I’m making two breads, the sauerkraut’s due, I just picked up half a lamb and need to process it, plus I’m trying to make beer. The washing up is piling up, there’s no room anywhere (my kitchen is tiny) and, when I’m not paying attention, a glass jar will slide off the counter and smash on the floor.

Maybe for you it’s more general; you say yes to all the things – yes I’ll help you move house, yes I’ll look after your kids, yes I’ll bake something for the fete. Not wanting to let people down or shirk obligations, you keep going even though you’re exhausted.

How can we sift through all the things we’re doing when we’re doing too much? Before it’s too late and life forces us to stop?

Every time this happens I turn to my North Star: Joy.

The more priority we can give to the things that bring us joy the more energy will have to complete all of the tasks in our lives.

What is it that I love doing? How can I do more of that? How can I streamline the things I don’t enjoy doing? Can I jettison any of them?

In my work, recording the podcast and writing brings me joy and I need to do more of that.

This makes me realise that we need more administrative help for the podcast. It’s a scary idea to contemplate, as it means taking a financial risk. But when I weigh up what I’ve been taught by crash and burns I know that risk-taking, no matter how scary it is, is necessary for us to change any situation.

In my kitchen life, playing and experimenting brings me joy and I need to do more of that.

I’ve started reading The Flavour Thesaurus. My mind is buzzing with flavour combinations that I am really enthusiastic about tasting at our table. I need to make space for that, so I’m moving the day-to-day of bread-making over to Rob and Gabriel and accepting that on non-experimental days we might be eating the same things over and over.

What is it that you love doing? How can you focus on that? What risk do you need to take to let go of something that drains your energy?

As writing is one of the most fulfilling things that I do, I hope to be with you regularly this year with topics that explore life through the lens of that which we love: food.

In the meantime, my very best wishes go to you and those you love for a joyful start to 2024, in and out of the kitchen.

Alison

P.s. If you’d like more support on your ancestral journey, consider joining the podcast community. There are private podcasts, a treasure trove of goodies and a non-Facebook forum! Check out the details here.

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Slow Spiced Honey & Oat ‘Fermented’ Cookies – Part 2 https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/12/12/fermented-oat-cookies-part-2/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/12/12/fermented-oat-cookies-part-2/#respond Tue, 12 Dec 2023 07:45:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5053 Read More]]> Fermented oat cookies

This recipe will walk you through a traditional cookie process – transforming a ‘fermented’ honey dough into festive cookies and also guide you through some precious moments of reflection during the often busy weeks of holiday preparation.

In order to bake these cookies, you’ll need a previously-prepared dough. You can find instructions for that here.

Go get your ‘fermented’ dough (it doesn’t matter if it’s had a few day or a few months maturing – all timescales will work) and let’s get to transforming your honey and oat dough into some slow spiced honey & oat cookies!

Why are these called ‘Slow’ Cookies?

Whilst developing the recipe for these cookies, I was aware that so much of the process was slow and manual. To start with this seemed like a negative: Doesn’t the whole world want everything, including recipes, to be ‘quick and easy’?

But soon I could feel how much I was enjoying the process because I had to slow down. And seeing that I was creating a festive treat, my mind turned to the holidays; I started dreaming of how I wanted my Christmas to be.

The cookies, slow as they are, were gifting me a few moments of meditation! Time when I could step outside the often frenetic Christmas build-up and revisit my deepest values.

So much about the festive season can push us into rushing. These cookies are an antidote to that; a slow process and one during which we have moments to focus in on our own heartfelt desires for the holidays.

I’ll hand hold you through this; at the end you’ll not only have 16 delicious cookies but also be much clearer and focused on giving yourself and your family a wonderful Christmas, those intentions brought forth during the process and literally baked in to your honey and oat spiced treats.

Fermented oat cookies

Slow Spiced Honey & Oat ‘Fermented’ Cookies

Will use half your dough and make 16 cookies

What you’ll need:

1/2 the original dough (this is around 220g)

Spices, I use 1 tsp ginger and cinnamon

Salt, pinch

Baking powder 5g (about 1tbsp)

Remember UK tsp and tbsp are slightly bigger than US ones, so for every 1 UK tsp/tbsp indicated here you’ll need 1.2 of the US equivalent.

23g butter, chopped

Rolling pin

Flour

Circular cutter 6cm/2.5inch

This is a slow process to be lingered over, so you might want to make yourself a cup of tea too!

  • Chop your original dough in half (you’ll end up with about 220g of dough).
  • Put the dough into a bowl and break it up into small breadcrumb-sized pieces with fingers.

Slow opportunity #1!

Here’s your first opportunity to think about how you want your festivities to be. Meditate on them as your fingers work (it’ll take 5-10 minutes to break up your dough).

What’s important to you over the holidays?

What do you value and what do you want to show up?

Is it peace, is it meeting people, is it spirituality, is it joy, is it slowness?

How do you want to feel?

How do you want people around you to feel?

What do you want to be able to say was true of your holidays when you look back on them?

The more you can get clear and detailed on this, the more it’ll help inform all your choices and decisions.

Fermented oat cookies
The dough, after breaking up. Some of the larger lumps will be broken down further with the inclusion of the butter.
  • Once your dough is broken up into small breadcrumb pieces, mix in the salt, baking powder and spices.
  • Add the chopped butter and break it up/work it in to the crumbs using your fingers.
Fermented oat cookies
Butter, before mixing in

Slow opportunity number 2!

Take your time. Think back to your desires for the festive season.

How are you going to enable those wishes to come to fruition?

What do you need to do less of?

What do you need to do more of?

What do you need to remember?

How are you going to remember that? Do you need to write it down/draw it/set yourself reminders/commit to a festive season ‘practice’?

It can help to write this all out. Not now, but once you fingers are clean! Or you could set up a voice recorder and talk into it as you mix.

  • Once the butter is broken up and worked in well, bring the mix together into a ball.
  • Roll it out on a floured board until it’s 4-5 mm thick and cut your cookies out.
  • Place the cookies onto a baking sheet, squeeze the left over dough into another ball and do the process again (and potentially again) until you have used up all the dough. You should have around 16 cookies.
  • Bake them. This is the only part of the process that is quick – you will need to pay attention to the cookies in the oven to make sure that they don’t burn. At 170C/340F my cookies take around 7 minutes.
  • Remove the cookies to a wire cooling rack using a wide spatula. Be careful whilst you’re doing this – at this stage they are still soft and will bend/break easily.
Fermented oat cookies

Once they have cooled, the cookies are ready to eat! If you’d like to spend more time with them you can decorate them with melted chocolate and orange zest. Mine are decorated with home-made bean-to-bar chocolate; you can find out how to make this in my course here.

Keep the cookies in an airtight container, they are good for a week (though I’m sure they won’t last that long!).

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#72 – All About Spelt Sourdough https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/12/05/72-all-about-spelt-sourdough/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/12/05/72-all-about-spelt-sourdough/#respond Tue, 05 Dec 2023 16:15:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5003 Read More]]> Spelt is a wonderful, economical alternative to wheat. I’ve been baking with it for a decade now and I love its deep, nutty flavour, its flexibility and its digestibility – many people who don’t get on with wheat can enjoy spelt, especially if it’s in a sourdough loaf.

Whether you’ve tried spelt or not, this episode will give you everything you need to know to get the most from this grain in your own kitchen. And we’ll celebrate the podcast’s second ecookbook, Sourdough Spelt Every Day, that distils so much of my baking experience into a guide that’ll get you rustling up all manner of spelt goodies to enjoy!

Get your copy of Sourdough Spelt Every Day here!

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The organ supplements we use and trust – get a 5% discount (and free shipping) on grass-fed supplements, including liver capsules by visiting: https://www.oneearthhealth.com/AncestralKitchen

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Get 10% off any course at The Fermentation School: click here and use code AKP at checkout.

Alison’s course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics is here, with a 10% discount automatically applied!

Alison’s oat fermentation course is here, with a 10% discount automatically applied!

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here.

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Our podcast is sponsored by Patrons in ancestral kitchens around the world!

Patrons can choose to simply sponsor the podcast, or select from a variety of levels with benefits including additional bonus content, monthly live Zoom calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content from Alison and Andrea as well as our podcast guests, and a Discord discussion group.

To read more about becoming a patron and explore the various levels, click here!

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We love 5* reviews on apple podcasts!

If you love the show here’s how to leave one:

  1. Open the Apple Podcast app
  2. Find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
  3. Scroll down to ‘ratings and reviews’
  4. Click on ‘write a review’, choose 5*s then let us know why you love us in the lower box.

Thank you. We really appreciate you taking the time to support us!

Thank you for listening – we’d love to continue the conversation.

Come find us on Instagram:

Andrea is at Farm and Hearth

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Original Music, Episode Mixing and Post-Production by Robert Michael Kay

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Kitchen Table Chats #30 – Cooking During Busy Times/with Babies, ‘Natural’ Sugars, Pig Butchery & Coming Off Instagram https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/12/01/kitchen-table-chats-30-cooking-during-busy-times-with-babies-natural-sugars-pig-butchery-coming-off-instagram/ Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:15:00 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5010 Read More]]> These are the show notes for a podcast episode recorded especially for patrons of my main show (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast). These patrons pay a monthly subscription to be part of the podcast community and in return receive monthly exclusive recordings (like this private podcast) along with lots of extra resources. You can get access to the recording and see how the community works by visiting www.patreon.com/ancestralkitchenpodcast.

Thanks for your support! Today we cover the three questions below plus talk about coming off Instagram.

Kelsey’s question:

During busy seasons, pregnancy sickness, newborns, moving properties, busy work schedule, etc, what tips do you have for still cooking ancestral food?

Megan’s question:

It’s possible this has been covered somewhere and I’ve not seen it yet, but I’d love to hear a breakdown about types of “natural sugars”. For example rapadura versus sucanat .. are these the same thing or two different things? When you search online you can find conflicting info. I’m interested in this in general, but especially through the lenses of making water kefir.

Nick’s question:

Any tips/tricks/hacks for pig butchering time, especially more than one at a time? I’ve relistened to the original episode with Naomi a couple times now to glean information from the Slovak butchering tradition (which is also the episode that got me hooked to the podcast!) and know little bits from how my family used to do it but would be interested in any advice!

Resources:

Meredith Leigh’s The Ethical Meat Handbook in our US bookshop

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My Favourite Bakeware https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/11/29/bakeware/ https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/11/29/bakeware/#respond Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:43:41 +0000 https://ancestralkitchen.com/?p=5017 Read More]]> I have baked bread and pizza in ceramic, non-stick and glass bakers as well as using casserole dishes and Dutch ovens. Here are my current favourite ways to bake:

Emile Henry Loaf Baker

This ceramic baker gives the most amazing crusts! I use it as my go-to baker for all my spelt and rye loaves (and you’ll find instructions for baking spelt loaves in it, in my ecookbook Spelt Sourdough Every Day).

It’s easy to use and clean, the lid (which has cleverly-designed holes) means my loaf has the right amount of humidity to rise well and it looks and feels amazing to use; breads that come out of it feel special to me!

If you are in the US, you can purchase this baker and support my work by using this link (it won’t cost you any more).

Spelt
Chocolate malt and hazelnut spelt sourdough baked in the Emile Henry Loaf Baker

Emile Henry Smooth Pizza Stone

I bake all my pizzas on the Emile Henry ceramic smooth pizza stone. I pre-heat it to 250C (480F) and the pizzas bake in 8 minutes, coming out with a beautifully-crispy bottom, a well-risen crumb and perfectly cooked toppings!

Find the recipe for my wholegrain spelt sourdough pizza in Spelt Sourdough Every Day!

If you are in the US, you can purchase this pizza stone and support my work by using this link (it won’t cost you any more).

Wholegrain sourdough spelt pizza baked on the Emile Henry Smooth Pizza Stone

You can browse all Emile Henry cookware here.

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