Enjoy Bread and Improve your Health - Use Natural Yeast!
By Alice Osborne
According to authors Caleb Warnock and Melissa Richardson, (The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast: Breads, Pancakes, Waffles, Cinnamon Rolls and Muffins), commercial yeast is so foreign to our bodies that many people are allergic to it. Research says natural yeast converts dough into a digestible, vitamin-rich food that's free from harmful enzymes and won't spike your body's defenses.
The idea is to improve your health with recipes calling for natural yeast. On a very helpful blog, "Original Yeast" (www.OriginalYeast.Blogspot.com), I found good information on how to make our own natural yeast. I haven't been able to locate the blog's author to ask permission to reprint her material, so I'll just thank her now and openly say, this is not my brilliance; it all comes from "Original Yeast" and am I grateful I found this and I would love to find her! This gal's a genius. Here's what she says:
"Fruits, vegetables and all other things in natural settings have yeast around their surface.
You can separate those yeast cells by simply soaking them into water for several days.
"You need:
• A clean glass jar ( I use 24oz apple sauce jar from Trader Joe's)
• Clean water (purified or bottled water, tap water ok, don't use alkaline water)
• Organic raisins (almost any kind of dry fruits work but the raisin's yeast is strong; I prefer green raisins)
"What to do:
1. Put a handful of raisins in the jar. (about 3-4 tablespoonfuls. More fruit means it will be done sooner.)
2. Pour water to fill 80% of the jar.
3. Loosely close the jar.
4. Leave it at room temperature.
5. Wait for few days until small bubbles surface and it all smells like wine. (Almost all raisins should be floating by this time. It would be done in about 3 days in summer, 6-7 days in winter. If you don't have enough of one kind of dry fruit, you can mix several kinds such as raisins, apricots, apples or dried cranberries.
6. Once it's done, store in refrigerator.
"Now you have your own natural yeast water for baking! Adding 1-2 tablespoons of sugar or honey to your jar makes the yeast water ferment faster and lead to better results - you'll have a stronger yeast water. Use this yeast in place of the typical store-bought yeasts a recipe calls for; just know that natural yeast calls for longer rising times. Allow several hours and be patient. The results are worth the wait."
