Snow Day
I woke up to a wind chill of -13 this morning. Like much of the US, Colorado just had a big winter storm move through yesterday; I made it home just in time the night before to be able to watch it unfold safely from home. Grateful I didn’t have to go back out on the roads, I took some time to experiment in the kitchen yesterday as the snow fell and the temperature dropped; one of my favorite things to do. 💛
I am simply in love with the Kapha reducing spice blend and was wondering how it would taste in a loaf of bread (another one of my favorite kitchen activities on a snowy day is baking). So, I gave it a go, except I found that I was nearly out of bread flour. So I swapped in one of my favorite winter flours, buckwheat. This beautiful flour not only gives whatever you bake a beautiful dark color, but a richness of taste, all the while being warming, gluten free and chock full of nutrients including iron, magnesium and zinc.
*Note: I originally fell in love with buckwheat from the divine Buckwheat Cake recipe in Divya Alter’s “What to Eat for How You Feel”. It is dairy and gluten free and even without one spec of cocoa tastes like chocolate cake. It is among my favorite things to make, bake and eat, hands down.
The resulting bread recipe is below, and contains a mixture of flours. If you have the time and the energy, I would play around with the quantities, but the result of my loaf was very satisfying. A bit on the dense side, with a hint of both the savory and sweet of the spice blend. I paired it with a winter version of Laura Plumb’s One Pot Biryani, which is a comfort food go-to on days like these.
If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can make the dough the night before to rise overnight, or put it, loosely covered, in an oiled bowl in the oven on a warming setting.
Snowy Day Bread
1-1/4 c Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour
3/4 c Bread flour
1 c Buckwheat flour
2 t Winter Spice Blend
1-1/2 t pink sea salt
3/4 t yeast
1/2 t jaggery (or sugar)
3/4 c full fat Greek yogurt
1-1/4 c water
Mix all dry ingredients until combined, then add yogurt and 1 cup of the water. Add the next 1/4 cup slowly while combining (either with hands or a knife, which is what I usually use). You want all the dry ingredients incorporated, but not a wet dough ball. It should be slightly sticky.
Put the dough ball in a metal bowl in the Instant Pot on the yogurt setting and let rise for about 5 hours.
Preheat the oven to 450˚F. When preheated, insert your Dutch Oven or heavy oven safe vessel to warm for 20 minutes. While the vessel is warming, turn out the dough ball. It will be more airy. With oiled hands, fold it in on itself two or three times, then form into a ball. Let it sit covered on cutting board on the counter until the vessel is ready.
Carefully take the very hot vessel out of the oven, place the bread in it and cover. Bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake for another 10-15, checking to make sure you are not burning the bread.
Remove from the oven and vessel and let cool on the counter. This is indeed the hardest part of this entire recipe.
Happy snow day eating!
Sending you all love and warmth,
Stephanie
