PASTA!!

Last week I found this pasta machine in a thrift store for $9.99. I HAD to get it since it is normally sold for about $90. Today was pasta day!  

I had was out of white flour and so I used whole wheat and spelt. I made a ring of 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat and 1 cup of spelt. Then broke 4 eggs into the well and sprinkled about a teaspoon of salt on it. Mixed up the eggs in the well slowly incorporating the flour until I was able to make it into a dough ball. I kneaded the ball for about 5 minutes, trying to make sure not to let it get too tough.  I had a lot of flour left (and made another couple of 1 egg batches).  I then flattened it out with a roller (flouring it as needed ) and fed it through the pasta maker. I cooked some right away for about 4 minutes in boiling water. It worked! I was amazed! And now I have a whole bunch of pasta made up and drying. I am going to try a gluten free batch next :)

Cooking with Spelt

My mother asked me why is it that people have been eating gluten forever and yet just recently have been having problems. Well, the answer to that is that wheat we are ingesting today is nowhere near what wheat started out to be. 

I am definitely not an expert on it, but I do know that wheat (along with lots of other things) has been manipulated (whether hybridized or genetically modified) to the point that it is no longer the same wheat our ancestors (or even our grandparents) ate.

Anyway, I have been attempting gluten free, but decided to play around with spelt today. What is spelt? Basically, it is the "antique wheat". Click here to read up on it a bit.


So, here is what I did today:

Spelt Banana Spice Cake

2 1/2 cups Spelt Flour
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Cloves
1 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 cup Butter
1/2 cup Honey
1/2 cup  Pure Maple Syrup
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
2         Eggs
1 Tbsp Vanilla
3         Large Ripe Bananas, mashed
1         Large Banana, sliced

• Preheat oven to 375
• Mix spelt flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a mixing bowl.
• In a separate bowl, beat butter, honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, and eggs with an electric hand mixer until fluffy.
• Add a third of the bananas and beat well. Follow with a third of the dry ingredients. Repeat until all ingredients are mixed.
• Pour half the batter in a 9x9, greased baking dish.
• Place the slices of banana on the batter.
• Pour the rest of the batter on top of the sliced bananas.
• Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
• (I actually ended up turning it down to 350 for a bit to finish it off.. the 8x8x2.5 pan made for a deep cake!)

This cake had RAVE reviews by EVERYONE who tried it.  Most people would take a bite and then their face would show surprise as they tasted it. 

I'm going to try it again as a bread loaf and maybe see if it turns out differently with regular flour.