A few weeks ago, I posted on social media that I was trying a new soaked bread recipe. Quite a few of you commented or emailed asking for the recipe, but I wanted to get it just right first before sharing. Making traditionally prepared bread (as opposed to modern, difficult to digest yeasted breads) can be a bit tricky to master. No one wants to waste quality ingredients not to mention precious time on failed attempts!
To make a long story short, it took me a little trial and error to get the recipe to work, but the results are awesome. You can even slice the loaf for sandwiches! I thought I’d share for those of you who enjoy using soaked flour to bake traditionally prepared bread for your family.
Please note that I have only used einkorn flour to make this loaf so if you want to try making it with another type of flour, it may take you a couple of tries to get it exactly right. My friend Cathi who shared this recipe with me uses spelt flour. Based on our joint experience, it should work the very first try with either einkorn or spelt. Other flours may take a bit of trial and error on your part.
What is Einkorn?
Never heard of einkorn? It is the purest and most ancient form of wheat available.  It is completely nonhybridized (my kids affectionately refer to it as “Jesus wheat”) as it only has 2 sets of chromosomes unlike all other types of wheat which are hybridized and have between 4 (emmer, kamut, durum) and 6 (spelt, modern wheat) chromosomal sets. Moreoever, einkorn contains good gluten. It is different structurally from modern gluten and quite easy to digest even for many who have sensitivity to modern gluten.  The truth is that not all wheat gluten is created equal!
The only downside to einkorn is that it is a low yield crop and hence rather pricey compared with hybridized wheat. However, if you don’t eat a ton of bread in your home anyway and really want to opt for the most digestible wheat flour available when you do bake, einkorn simply can’t be beat.
One other point of note: you must used raw kefir for this soaked bread recipe. The dough does not rise well if you soak using raw yogurt, clabbered raw milk or buttermilk. Â It also does not work well with plain store bought kefir.
The reason? I don’t actually know for sure, but my guess is that raw kefir has many more strains of beneficial microbes compared with other fermented dairy products – up to as many as 30. In addition, raw kefir would have all the original enzymes from the raw milk intact. Pasteurized kefir would not have the same level of enzymatic activity as raw kefir. In addition, clabbered raw milk, buttermilk and raw yogurt would have far fewer probiotic strains than raw kefir.
How to Make Soaked Bread
Onward to the soaked bread recipe! Â I do hope you enjoy it – please let me know the various ways you end up trying it, with gluten free flours and whatnot!
Soaked Bread Recipe
Easy soaked bread recipe that can be sliced and used for sandwiches as well.
Ingredients
- 6 cups flour freshly ground and organic, einkorn or spelt recommended
- 3 cups raw kefir plain, preferably grassfed
- 2 Tbl butter preferably grassfed and organic
- 1.5 Tbl sucanat
- 1.5 tsp baking soda
Instructions
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Mix 3 cups of flour and 3 cups of kefir well, cover with a clean cloth and let sit on the kitchen counter for 12-24 hours. After soaking, the dough should be liquid-y and very bubbly.
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Add baking soda, sweetener, coconut oil or butter and 3 more cups of flour. Stick to 6 cups of flour and don't add more even if tempted to do so based on consistency of the dough.
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Mix well for 3-4 minutes. The resulting dough should be soft and easily workable with your hands.
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Divide loaf into 2 ... put in 2 buttered loaf pans (these are what I use) or make 1 huge loaf with a single large loaf pan.
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Let the pan(s) sit lightly covered with a clean cloth for another 12 hours on the kitchen counter. The dough will rise nicely in the pan(s) so allow for enough room at the top or it will spill over the sides.
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Bake at 350 F (177 C) for 30 minutes for 2 smaller loaves and 350 F (177 C) for 55 minutes for 1 large loaf of soaked bread. Check that a knife inserted in the center comes out clean to ensure that the loaves are done.
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Once cooled, slice into sandwich slices. Enjoy immediately and refrigerate what will not be used up within 24 hours.
Recipe Notes
Coconut sugar may be substituted for the sucanat. Do not use honey as cooking honey is not healthy.Â
Coconut oil may be substituted for the butter.
Do not use yogurt, clabbered milk or water plus lemon juice to soak the flour as the bread will not rise properly. Only raw kefir works based on my experience making this recipe.
Once you’ve made your loaf, be sure to save the crusts! You can make homemade breadcrumbs with them!
Kris
I make bread with homemade kefir that is made from regular milk, as raw milk isn’t easy to get around here. It will make bread rise.
Celeste
Has anyone tried Hard Red Wheat berries with this recipe?
aneffie
Why a quick bread versus a yeast bread?
Sonia
This recipe makes FABULOUS bread! I tried it today for the first time (well, I started yesterday). The second rise (in the loaf pans) only took 7 hours. The bread is so soft, the texture is perfect, and it tastes delicious!
haley kunz
Could this recipe be halved? I don’t usually have 3 cups of raw kefir at a time, and at $10 a gallon/week my raw milk only goes so far. And what are the differences in health benefits between this and sourdough? Thanks!
Erica
I have been making this bread since November, about once a fortnight and find it simple and very satisfactory.In fact it almost takes longer to butter the bread tins than anything else! I have adapted some quantities of the additions though NOT the quantity of flour and raw milk Kefir. I reduce the sugar to 1 tsp or omit it altogether.Reduce the baking soda to 1 tsp and add 1 tsp salt. Also I have recently started adding 2 tsps of Seagreens, an organic wild seaweed product, for the minerals and trace elements it contains.
As to flour types – I have mostly used Einkorn, Spelt or a mix of the two. But there seems to be a shortage of white Spelt in the UK at present so the last time I made it I used half Einkorn and half Canadian strong white bread flour and it still worked. I like making this recipe with half wholemeal and half white flour.
Sara
I think the reason kefir would so much different than yogurt or other substitute for fermenting in this recipe is because kefir contains yeast AND bacteria, and yogurt does not contain yeast only lacto-fermenting bacteria, so while it would culture the wheat it would probably not raise it. Just something to consider. I look forward to trying this sometime when I have dairy kefir again.
Jacqueline Marie via Facebook
Do you have a recipe for Spelt bread that could be used for sandwiches? I’ve tried it several times but the bread would always collapse in the oven.
Jasmine Liegard via Facebook
<3
Lisa
Hi Sarah, Thank you so much for all your recipes and videos. They have been so helpful in adapting to the WAPF way of eating. In my search for dinner rolls/bread made with kefir soaked flour, I came across this article on http://www.traditional-foods.com and I was wondering your opinion on it. This is only part of the article.
The Devil In The Soaking
There is over 80 years of research now in university libraries on the topic of reducing phytic acid in grains. The literature is voluminous. One problem with scientific literature this big and non-experts (like me) taking a peek into them is that we do not always have the bigger picture while we are peeking.
It is true that an acid medium will break down phytic acid – the acidity of the soaking medium is one of the key factors in reducing phytic acid.
What we have not appreciated is that not all acidic soaking media are equal. In fact, I did not really discover this issue until I started delving more deeply into the issue of iron for the iron rich foods website. Iron interacts with calcium and so I became interested in how calcium in bread dough affects iron absorption.
It turns out that calcium in dough does affect iron absorption but it also impacts the break down of phytic acid. If you add a calcium food (such as milk, yogurt. kefir, whey, or buttermilk) to your dough or your soaking breakfast cereal, you may actually be inhibiting the breakdown of phytic acid or at least not encouraging the breakdown. (Check out one study.)
(If you have made your children eat soggy soaked bread or sour oatmeal I want you to walk into your kitchen right now and get a beer. Go on.)
Soaking flour does work and soaking in an acidic medium is optimal for the break down of phytic acid. However, adding yogurt, kefir, or whey to your soaked flour is actually worse than soaking the flour in plain warm water because of the calcium content of those foods.
My point in telling you this is to set you free from recipes you do not like that you are trying to make work in your kitchen.
There are many ways to skin the proverbial phytic acid cat and those ways are easier and taste better. This is really great news for our kitchens.
Lynda Wilson
So are you suggesting we don’t eat calcium containing foods because it will interfere with iron absorption? Seems pretty drastic.