Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
INTRODUCTION
Melissa’s Story
The Team
Healthy Eating
Healthy Baking
Sugar
Flour
Gluten-Free Flours
BREAD
Basic Techniques
Equipment
Making Your Sourdough Starter
Wheat Starter
Rye Starter
Gluten-free Brown Rice Starter
Modern Baker Basic Sourdough
Multiseed Sourdough
Walnut Sourdough
Olive and Feta Sourdough
Sweet Potato and Rosemary Sourdough
Broccoli and Stichelton Sourdough
Beetroot and Sauerkraut Sourdough
Seaweed Pesto Tear and Share Sourdough
Green Tea, Lemon and Sultana Sourdough
Sprouted Wholewheat Sourdough
Apple and Cider Sourdough
Superloaf with Chia and Quinoa
Sourdough Focaccia
Chocolate, Hazelnut and Raisin Spelt Sourdough
Rye Sourdough
Rye Seeded Sourdough
Wholegrain Rye and Beer Sourdough
Rye, Caraway and Raisin Sourdough
Rye Sourdough with Raspberries and Blackberries
Spinach and Spirulina Sourdough
Tartines
Gluten-Free Seeded Sourdough
Gluten-Free Chickpea Sourdough
Gluten-Free Nutty Sourdough
Gluten-Free Sourdough Flatbreads
Gluten-Free Low-Gi Super Sourdough
Gluten-Free Chocolate, Raisin and Hazelnut Sourdough
Gluten-Free Sundried Tomato and Basil Sourdough
Sourdough Cinnamon and Pecan Buns
Savoury Pesto and Walnut Sourdough Buns
Coconut and Lemon Curd Sourdough Buns
Sourdough Pitta Bread
Sourdough Pizza
CAKE
Melissa’s Life-Changing Carrot and Olive Oil Cake
The Big Cake
Turmeric and Orange Big Cake
Matcha and Lemon Big Cake
Apple, Rose and Walnut Big Cake
Strawberry and Pink Peppercorn Big Cake
Lime, Chilli and Cinnamon Big Cake
Modern Baker Victoria Sponge
Chocolate Moringa Cake
Maca and Vanilla Cake
Tangy Barberry Cake
Sweet Potato and Banana Flour Cake
Coffee and Pecan Nut Cake
Orchard Cake
Coffee, Chocolate and Chestnut Cake
Carrot, Apple and Walnut Cake
Completely Coconut Loaf Cake
Courgette and Pecan Loaf Cake
Fig Upside-Down Cake with Lucuma
Coconut and Lime Cake
Simnel Cake
Raw Marzipan
Apple and Almond Butter Cake
Banana, Cinnamon and Lucuma Cake
Plum, Chestnut and Black Pepper Cake
Chocolate, Avocado and Millet Cake
Apple and Sourdough Bread Pudding Cake
Parsnip and Coconut Cake
Breakfast Friands
Fruity Friands
Chocolate and Pear Slice
Maple Sugar and Blueberry Scones
Matcha Green Tea and Lemon Scones
Quinoa Brownies
Sourdough Cakes
Sourdough Cake Sweet Starter
Chocolate Sourdough Cake
Lemon Sourdough Cake
Ginger Sourdough Cake
Apple Sourdough Cake
Carrot and Walnut Sourdough Cake
Sourdough Peanut Butter Blondies
Vanilla and Raspberry Cheesecake
Raw Millionaire’s Shortbread
Chocolate and Ginger Tart
Raw Carrot Cake
Raw Beetroot, Strawberry and Coconut Cake with Coconut Cashew Nut Icing
Raw Banoffee Pie
Raw Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cups
Vanilla Cashew Nut Icing
Chocolate and Avocado Ganache
Maple Cream Cheese Icing
Coffee Cream Cheese Icing
Yoghurt Icing
Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing
Lemon Cream Cheese Icing
Raspberry Chia Jam
Kale and Feta Scones
Spinach, Yoghurt and Goat’s Cheese Loaf Cake
Rosemary, Parsnip and Parmesan Loaf Cake
Carrot, Cumin and Gouda Loaf Cake
BISCUITS, BARS & BITES
Salty Sweet Seaweed Biscuits
Tigernut Biscuits
Tahini and Olive Oil Biscuits with Sesame Seeds
Golden Turmeric and Honey Biscuits
Ginger and Pepper Spicy Biscuits
Golden Lucuma and Chia Biscuits
Bright Green Matcha Biscuits
Cinnamon Biscuits with Pecan Halves
The Ultimate Chocolate Biscuit
Ginger and Turmeric Sourdough Biscuits
Chocolate Chip Sourdough Biscuits
Cheesy Stick Sourdough Biscuits
Sourdough Rye Crackers
Life-Changing Crackers
Peanut Butter Oat Bars
Sourdough Oat Bars
Tahini and Olive Oil Oat Bars
Apple and Poppy Seed Oat Bars
Almond Butter Protein Oat Bars
Raw Bites
Raw Oat Bites
Sourdough Granola
Coconut, Nut and Seed Granola
Christmas Granola
Glossary
Suppliers and Stockists
About Us
Thank You
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473551008
Version 1.0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London, SW1V 2SA
Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Text copyright © Melissa Sharp 2017
Photography © Laura Edwards 2017
Cover design by Two Associates
Melissa Sharp has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The nutrition and health claims made in this book have all been checked by a registered food nutritionist. All recipes labelled as healthy have been checked to ensure that they do contain ingredients with levels of micronutrients that warrant a EU registered nutrition claim such as ‘High in Iron’. All nutrition claims relating to ingredients themselves have also been checked. Any other health claims made have been researched and do not state fact but indicate that this is what research suggests. Please be aware that many of the recipes contain coconut oil which is very high in saturated oil and so from a nutrition standpoint it is important that these recipes are seen as a treat and are eaten as part of a balanced and healthy diet. We also talk about the health benefits of novel ingredients that are not always easily available. This is because we are passionate about trying new nutritious foods but this should not be misconstrued to imply that you need to cosume these foods to achieve a healthy diet, nor should consuming these ingredients warrant/excuse an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle.
First published by Ebury Press in 2017
www.penguin.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Editor: Louise McKeever
Designer: Sandra Zellmer
Photographer: Laura Edwards
Illustrator: Charlotte Orr
Food Stylist: Annie Rigg
Prop Stylist: Polly Webb-Wilson
Production: Lucy Harrison
ISBN: 9781785035555
If you’ve become used to thinking cakes are bad, bread dangerous and baking best kept as an indulgence, this book is a whole larder full of good news. It will transform your ideas and show you a revolutionary way to bake that is absolutely delicious and also positively good for you.
Modern Baker is a thriving bakery and café in Oxford where we make the healthiest breads and cakes it is humanly possible to produce that still taste delicious. All of our many kinds of breads are made with natural sourdough starters – our own wild yeast cultures – teeming with beneficial lactobacilli bacteria made with just stoneground flour, water and fresh air and then fermented for 48 hours. Many of our cakes, biscuits and bars use our sourdough starters, too. Research shows that sourdough is great because it addresses the vitally important issue of helping to improve our gut health. It also naturally reduces Glycemic Index (GI) and gluten levels.
More and more people are realising the importance of a healthy digestive system for our overall wellbeing. Gut health is no longer a squeamish subject. When the ingredients are combined to make sourdough they explode into the millions of fermenting microbes that our gut is crying out for, vital elements of which survive through baking. This opens the door to a wealth of benefits that can transform our overall health.
Sourdough bread can be an everyday, health-giving delight, but who doesn’t also love the occasional sweet treat? The way we make them at Modern Baker ensures that there is no reason not to enjoy these too. We only use unrefined ingredients to sweeten our treats, such as coconut sugar, dates, maple syrup, raw honey and lucuma. Although evidence shows these are all better for you than the white sugar generally used in baking, they are none the less sugars and should still be regarded as occasional treats. Coupled with stoneground whole grains and as many wonderful nuts, seeds, fruits and other nutritious ingredients as we can pack in, baking has never been so good for you. Every ingredient earns its place according to our three core principles of good provenance, nutritional benefit and great taste. Nothing is included just for the sake of it.
We believe passionately that it’s possible to make wonderfully delicious cakes, biscuits and bars that also make a positive contribution to a healthy diet. What’s more, the recipes are so simple to make. There are no complicated instructions here, you can rustle up a batch of something delicious in less than an hour. Finally, we can all have our cake and eat it!
All of our recipes are vegetarian and each is clearly marked with symbols to show if they are also gluten-free (GF), dairy-free (DF) or suitable for vegan (V+) diets.
This book is a labour of love, packed with fabulous recipes that are positively, proactively good for you – and, most importantly, simple to make and excellent to eat. The Danish concept of ‘hygge’ holds that the value to the soul of making simple pleasures special is central to our wellbeing, so any food that ignores the pleasure principle is missing the point. Sometimes a slice of cake or a hot chocolate can be just the thing. It’s no accident that the shop embraces a fresh Nordic aesthetic: hygge operates at its heart.
Before you get started on putting into practice the art, science and miracle of natural fermentation in your own kitchen, find out how Melissa started on her transformative journey to becoming a Modern Baker.
In January 2010, aged 36, I found a lump in my right breast. The consultant told me it was benign, but gave me the option to have it removed. My gut told me I should, and that small procedure was the beginning of an incredible journey that changed my life. My lump turned out to be home to an aggressive, triple-negative, grade 3 cancer. The full house of chemo- and radiotherapy was prescribed.
My new boyfriend, Leo, had been through his own bout of trauma and illness and had already adopted alternative, healthy ways of living. He immediately bought an organic cabbage, blitzed it, and encouraged me to drink it. Not long after, we were discussing the detoxing merits of coffee enemas, a topic I had never imagined ever discussing with anyone, let alone a partner! Very quickly I found myself talking to a number of alternative practitioners. Their advice was clear: supplementing my chemo with an array of natural supplements, organic green juices and probiotics, cutting out dairy and eating only grain-fed meat, were all likely going to improve my body’s ability to cope with the massive dose of toxins it was about to be hit with. I moved in with Leo.
Chemo was vile. It went on and on. But when a nurse asked how bad my mouth ulcers were I could say I had none, because I was drinking aloe vera four times a day, and she’d say, ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of that before.’ At the end of my treatment I still had my hair, and when I explained it was because I hadn’t washed it for nine weeks, some would take a step back, forgetting that shampoo is only one hundred years old. On the chemo ward the tea trolley was always laden with fizzy drinks, sweets and biscuits. I was just learning about the connections between sugar and cancer, and was shocked to see these things here of all places.
Finally my treatment ended. My nutritionist was clear that my post-chemo routine, and my diet for the rest of my life, was even more important than during treatment. So, dutifully and gratefully, I kept my diet green, clean and in control. I decided to immerse myself in it – and Leo came too.
Meanwhile, I had given up my stressful job as Operations Director in a management consultancy and halved my salary to work for a local, online organic supplements business. I packed boxes, did their social media and started to increase my confidence and knowledge of nutrition. I discovered that not all sugars are equal and, shock-horror, nor are calories. Most scary of all, especially to someone who had spent much of her life fighting an eating disorder, I learned that some fats are positively good for you. This was just the start.
I began to apply my nutritional knowledge to my cooking at home, and a switch flicked on. I started writing online recipes for my job; they became really popular. What’s more, I was eating like a horse but my weight remained stable.
I signed up for courses on nutrition and baking, and kept cooking for friends. When our local organic farm asked me to host a pop-up in their café for a weekend, I suddenly found myself faced with preparing a nutritious menu for one hundred and fifty people. I was petrified, but somehow I got through it – and found that I’d taken over £2000. That felt good. But so did the fact that my courgette, sweetcorn and chilli fritters were gone in a flash. My quinoa patties had caused a stir, and several people had asked for ‘the same again’, especially my courgette chocolate cake served with homemade cashew nut cream.
It was at the farm café that I first appreciated how simple baking can be. Their bakery was the size of a garden shed, with just three domestic ovens, one work surface and a dozen tubs of flours and seeds. The fact that it was always immaculate appealed to the dutiful side of me. And the bread was absolutely amazing, the best I had ever eaten – and the sourdoughs were my favourite. It’s amazing to think that back then I had no idea about the simple world of natural fermentation that gives sourdough its unique power.
I became determined to make this my business. As many people with my history do, I jumped in at the deep end, spending the next three years visiting organic bakeries, avant-garde delis and restaurants everywhere – Scandinavia, Paris, New York, London – all in the interests of research. Our holidays became missions, and were all the more pleasurable for it.
We finally alighted on the concept of a café-bakery. I needed a professional baker to join me, and having scoured the country I found the wonderful Lindsay Stark, a graduate of the School of Artisan Food in Nottingham.
We decided to go as hard-core as anyone in the UK: long-fermented sourdough breads only (no added, commercial yeast), made with organic pre-industrial, stoneground grains of wheat, rye and many others. Everything over refined would be forbidden: our cakes, biscuits and pastries would be made only with unrefined sugars. Our proposition of healthy baking was born.
Modern Baker finally exploded onto an appreciative Oxford community in May 2014. More recently we have received a substantial two-year research and development funding award from a government department to lead a project working with academia, food industry scientists, farmers and millers to bring our vision of healthy baking to a much wider public. We have also invested in a new state-of-the-art bakery to put our sourdough baked goods into wider production, to sell through other shops and online.
We love what we do. We’re passionate about spreading the word that delicious, healthy bread and treats can nourish the soul as well as the body.
So our first book is a celebration of the delights of healthy baking, and a call to arms to get in the kitchen, experiment, enjoy – and thrive.
Our team is now fifteen people strong and growing, but we started with just four.
I advertised for a baker and when I met Lindsay, I was completely humbled. There was I thinking that a baker was a baker – who would fit into my concept of healthy baking. But I instantly realised that Lindsay was one of probably a handful of bakers for whom pushing the boundaries of healthy food meant as much as it did for me. I had struck lucky in an astonishing way. Lindsay’s credentials included a year’s training at the prestigious Nottingham School of Artisan Food. With her knowledge of the miraculous properties of bacteria, yeasts and fungi she could turn a handful of flour, salt and water into a delicious loaf packed with nutrition.
I knew I’d be behind the counter every day for the foreseeable future, but I also needed help. A friend told me about a ballet dancer who could make coffee … and along came Charlotte Orr, a petite pixie, always smiling. ‘Would you like me to sign-write the boards?’ she asked, and from that it emerged that she was a highly talented illustrator, trained at Falmouth School of Art and hoping to get a career off the ground. We asked her to design an ‘urban forest’, with Modern Baker’s shopfront lurking in it to represent the metaphor of our healthy food being at the centre of a natural life and feeding your gut bacteria. Her interpretation quickly became a really important part of our look and feel. Since then Charlotte’s career has taken off, including winning a World Illustration Award, but she still keeps us looking Scandi-cool when we need her to.
Completing our initial team was Leo. After the ad agency in which he was a partner was sold, he developed a portfolio of business interests, which now includes Modern Baker. No one ever sees Leo behind the counter, but behind the scenes it’s always the pair of us representing the business. We never stop talking, planning and day-dreaming, Modern Baker is all-consuming.
The team quickly grew, and because of the sector we’re in – healthy food – right from the start we were inundated with CVs, from people of all ages and from all walks of life, and from that we have been lucky enough to have assembled an incredible team, which includes lots of talent. Every team member has had a part to play in bringing this book to life.
Should we count calories, are fats in or out, are supplements to be avoided, should we be eating more raw food? Well, yes and no – to all these. Only a few decades ago, it wasn’t this tricky. Shopping and eating was a simpler business. Our choice was more limited, and we knew instinctively what was good for us. We ate a greater variety of foods, and most of them were unprocessed and unrefined.
Now we are overwhelmed with both choice and advice. The relative merits of individual foods are revised constantly, alongside the even more complex science of how they react together. For example, adding butter to bread greatly lowers its Glycaemic Index (GI) value, as the butter slows the body’s insulin response. Then there’s the matter of bioavailability, meaning how well our body is able to make good use of the theoretical benefits of a particular substance.
We have two simple views on how to deal with all this. First, the key thing we focus on isn’t calories, or fats, or even sugars: it’s gut health. And second, we’re all about the quality and provenance of our ingredients. Everything used is as whole and unprocessed as it can be, with nothing or as little added as humanly possible. As the saying goes, stick to foods that a great-grandmother would have recognised and you won’t go far wrong.
A healthy large intestine contains trillions of microbes that make up your gut flora, also known as your gut microbiome. This weighs up to an astonishing 2 kg. Like a garden, your gut flora needs to be tended. Processed, nutritionally poor foods offer no fuel for it, they effectively bypass it. The good kinds of flora flourish when we eat a varied diet of the right kinds of foods, specifically those that contain prebiotics and probiotics. Prebiotics provide the fibre that nourishes the flora that are already there. Good examples include chicory, artichokes, leeks, bananas, apples and wholegrains. Probiotics provide more live bacteria from fermented foods. Sourdough, sauerkraut and yoghurt are all natural probiotics.
A healthy gut is key to our overall health, both mental and physical. The gut is home to our enteric nervous system, sometimes referred to as the ‘second brain’. Scientists now think that some 95 per cent of our serotonin – a neurotransmitter essential to mood stability – is made in our gut. Research shows that our gut health plays a crucial role in controlling stress, anxiety and even depression.
Our physical health is profoundly affected by our gut flora, too. About 80 per cent of our immune system is our gut microbes, so to be healthy and fight off diseases our gut flora needs to be in championship shape. It processes the good nutrients in our food so they can be absorbed in the intestines and enter the blood. It also neutralises harmful substances.
Our ancestors ate on average one hundred and fifty different ingredients a week; all whole foods, naturally rich in prebiotics and occasionally probiotics. Many people now eat fewer than twenty, mostly refined, which are often packed with chemicals and unrecognisable biologically from the foods we were eating just decades ago. It’s hardly surprising that human health in the West is deteriorating.
The good news is that it’s not hard to change, and healthy baking can help. We should feel encouraged that our body is brilliantly made and resilient, and start to think about what we can do to change. When we know better, we do better. Every meal is another chance to nourish our body with good food. People are waking up to this; it’s working; they tell others. It catches on. That’s happening all around us.
There are four simple steps we can all take to greatly improve our diet, none of which are remotely controversial: reduce the amount of sugar we eat; increase the amount of fibre and wholefoods; switch to foods with good provenance; and eat fermented foods. This books helps you achieve all four – with a generous helping of more-ishness.
In the middle of the 20th century, refined white industrial flour began to dominate the baking scene. It slowly pushed out the sourdoughs made with stoneground flours that had been our daily bread for millennia. Along with this came processes designed to speed up production built around industrial yeasts. The dough for factory-produced bread is proved for less than an hour and laced with processing aids. Adding extra gluten is another shortcut, and one that is well documented as having contributed to the widespread rise in gluten insensitivity. The result is a loaf low in nutritional value and, of course, taste. A million miles away from where it all started.
A proper sourdough loaf is as good as it’s always been. Long fermentation breaks down the carbohydrates and gluten in the grains, so many find the finished loaf is much easier to digest and the nutrients more easily absorbed. The result is healthy bread, packed with nutrients and bacteria created by the fermentation. One of nature’s better miracles.
Another benefit of sourdough bread is that is has a lower glycemic index (GI), which means it doesn’t cause the spike in our blood sugars that processed bread does. Then come the benefits for our gut health, partly from the fibrous stoneground wholegrains used to make the flour, and partly from the bacteria that results from fermentation as some of the good bacteria remains after baking.
The only ingredients in a basic sourdough loaf are flour, water and salt – and, crucially, time, to produce the carbon dioxide that makes the bread rise naturally (no artificial yeast is added). The lactic acid this produces is full of lactobacillus bacteria that create the familiar tangy, slightly sour flavour. They also make the vitamins and minerals in the flour easier for the body to absorb.
The best way of knowing your sourdough is healthy is to buy it from an authentic artisanal bakery or, even better, make it yourself. Some bread labelled as sourdough is really ‘sour-faux’, made with an accelerated process that results in none of the healthy benefits. Like everything else in this book, ours is real – and transformative.
Making bread and cakes in the way we describe in this book gives them so much more flavour. With bread, the lactobacillus give that tangy flavour, but the true nature of the grain also comes through, whether it’s wheat, rye, spelt or Kamut. It also gives it more body, so you need to eat less. One or two slices of the majority of breads in this book will leave most people feeling full. You can eat this delicious fermented food and feel full and well, without quick-fix dieting or endless self-denial.
In contrast to factory-produced, commercial breads, an authentic sourdough contains a whole host of nutrients. Vitamins B1-B6, B12, folate, thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, vitamin E, selenium, iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, potassium, balanced proteins and fatty acids are all examples of what many good sourdough breads can contain.
We’ve all fallen into the habit of buying more than we can use. Happily with our foods this tends not to be a problem. The long fermentation of sourdough slows the processes that make bread go stale. As a result, your delicious, healthy loaf retains much of its moisture and lasts longer. A week-old loaf (yes, they can last that long) is in fact better for toast, for example, while the flavour of a carrot cake develops in intensity over time. The good news is that once you start on this journey of healthy baking, your waste bins will be much lighter for it.
Incidentally, our bread freezes brilliantly, too. Many of our customers slice and freeze a range of breads, so they’re readily available for different occasions.
With bread, not really. All the basic loaves in this book will cost less in ingredients than a cheap loaf in a supermarket, last twice as long and contain a compelling list of health benefits – and taste much, much better.
When it comes to healthy cakes and biscuits, yes. Coconut oil costs more than butter, maple syrup and honey more than white sugar, and cacao more than chocolate. But, when you’ve been through what I have, what price do you put on health? And by the time you add up the other less obvious benefits of staying fuller longer, less waste and much tastier baking, in our humble view, the extra cost isn’t what it seems.
Our customers love the purity of our bread, but what generates more discussion and excitement, and more buzz on social media, is the fact that we don’t use any refined sugars in our cakes and other sweet treats.
Our philosophy on sugar is really very simple. We only use unrefined sugars. We’re quite fussy about which ones we use and we use them as sparingly as we can get away with, using fruit wherever possible. There are three reasons why we are firmly against using refined sugars and artificial sweeteners. First, research shows that they play havoc with gut bacteria. Second, they cause blood sugar and insulin levels to soar. And third, they contain no nutrients or fibre, they are empty calories.
Natural sugars and fruits, on the other hand, contain more nutrients, and fruits add fibre. They also bring some wonderfully rich flavours to your baking.
Healthy baking also means significantly less sweetness overall, and this is a plus because it allows other flavours to emerge. This makes the use of other carefully selected ingredients even more worthwhile and opens up whole new dimensions for baking.
The natural sugars we use are still sugars, however, and they should still be regarded as a treat. Your taste buds will quickly become attuned to how sweet many supposedly ‘unsweet’ foods are, and appreciate all the other wonderful flavours available.
Time to start experimenting!
We use stoneground flour. This means that the grain is ground between two stones. It creates flour with much more flavour and better nutrition, because it retains some of the bran and the germ of the grain. Commercially made bread mostly uses flour that has lost its bran and germ during the milling process.