PASSING ON BREADMAKING SKILLS - BREAD IN A FRYING PAN

Walking around Taunton the other day, I was stopped by a woman who said, "Excuse me, are you Paul Youd? " She turned out to be a student I'd known about 20 years ago - and she told me that I'd inspired her to get into teaching breadmaking! She'd taken the City and Guilds Teaching Adults course and had been teaching bread making classes for about 10 years. Needless to say I was thrilled to hear this.

Then, this morning, I heard that world famous violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was considering retiring. But she said that, tucked away in her head are something like 60 symphonies, plus countless other classical works - and she'd like to pass on all that musical knowledge in retirement.

This struck a chord with me! I taught breadmaking from 1993 until 2020, and I've got countless bread recipes and methods tucked away in my head. Which I'd like to pass on - by means of this post, and also the numerous other recipes that are on this blog. And if I could inspire someone to begin teaching breadmaking - that would be awesome!

Given the present-day cost of living crisis, I've given up using the oven to bake my bread - instead I bake my bread in a large, dry frying pan, which I cover, creating a sort of Dutch oven. I also keep back a portion of dough in the fridge, which I then add to my next batch, so it's sort of sourdough-ish. On occasion, if I'm organised and have the time, I won't use any dried yeast, but generally I use half a teaspoon of dried yeast to hurry the process along.

Starting from scratch:

For the first batch of bread, use 750g of flour; 525g water; 1 teaspoon dried yeast, half a teaspoon sugar and a small splash of olive oil. Mix into a dough as specified, then weigh off 850g of dough for the bread you’re about to make, and place the residue in a sealed container (I use an ice cream tub - but, remove the ice cream first! 😉)

This will stay happily in your fridge until you want to make another batch of bread.

From then on:

Ingredients:
500g breadmaking flour - I use Doves organic wholemeal flour
1/2 teaspoon salt ( instead of the usual 1 tsp - this is a tasty flour which doesn't need all that much salt)

1/2 teaspoon of dried yeast (+half a tsp sugar), or a heaped teaspoon of fresh - leave this out if you're going for the sourdough version

350ml lukewarm water

1 dessertspoon olive oil (I generally just add a small splash - not keen on oily spoons!)

Method:

Stir the yeast (and sugar if using) into the liquid and leave for 5 minutes.

Measure the dry ingredients and place them in a large mixing bowl

Add the yeast liquid plus a modicum of olive oil

Mix together with either your hands or a table knife - if you're using your hand, I recommend you hold the bowl with one hand and mix with the other. That way you'll have a clean hand with which to answer the phone if it rings. 

Halfway through mixing, incorporate your dough from the fridge. This will look a bit gloopy, and smell rather odd, but it's fine, believe me! And there's no need to wash this out - you're going to put some dough back in it shortly.

Lift the side of the bowl whilst mixing - that way you can utilise a bit of gravity to help you

When it all comes together as a dough, lift it out onto the table and begin to knead. You may have to add a little extra flour or water to ensure you have a firm, manageable dough - a little tacky to the touch.

Knead by flattening the dough, then folding it over. I generally repeat this action around 50 times - I've found this is about the right number which ensures the ingredients are thoroughly mixed - important if you're incorporating some white flour in the mix, which many people do to give a lighter loaf.

When you're happy with your dough, weigh off the 850g of dough you are about to use, and place the rest of it - about 400g - back in the container and place it in the fridge until needed again. There is no need to wash this container. 

Now divide your dough in two, then each half into 5 pieces. Shape these into bun shapes, then flatten them out - with with your hand or with a rolling pin. How big you want these to spread out depends on how big your frying pan is. Mine is quite big, and I find that 5 will fit comfortably. You may need to sprinkle your rolls with a little flour to stop them sticking to your hand or the worktop. 

As you shape them, place them on a baking sheet covered with a floured piece of baking parchment to allow them to rise and cover with a dry tea towel.

Now you can either leave them to rise by themselves, or, like I do, place the baking sheet on top of your frying pan on a low heat.

Keep an eye on them, and when you can ascertain they are beginning to rise, you can put the first batch in the frying pan - they will continue to rise a little during the first part of the baking process.

Cover the frying pan to create the Dutch oven.

On a low heat, mine take about 6 minutes each side, but you'll need do a bit of trial error to see how long the rolls take in your set-up.

So, after 6 (or so) minutes, turn each roll over carefully, using a spatula.

Bake the second side for a further 6 minutes. Remember, it's always better to over bake your bread than underbake it.

Put the first batch on a cooling rack or tea towel and repeat with the second batch.

When you're satisfied they're all done, take a breadknife, split one of the rolls in two, add your spread of choice (mine is homemade marmalade) and savour the flavour of homemade bread, and revel in your success!

Any comments or questions, I'll gladly answer them!

Why use a frying pan and not the oven? My electric oven takes 10 minutes to warm up, and a loaf takes 40 minutes. The frying pan is on for a total of 24 minutes, roughly, and the cost is a fraction of using the oven.

The sourdough version:

This takes all day, so you can either: Make the dough the night before, place the residue back in the fridge and leave the bulk of the dough overnight. So, cover the dough with your upturned bowl and place a tea-towel over the top. 

Or: Start the process in the morning.

The procedure is exactly the same as above, from where the dough is divided into 10 pieces and shared into flat rolls - except these will be left to rise all day.

Freshly shaped - cover and leave all day

11 hours later - ready to be baked

A dough scraper/cutter - very useful for transferring the rolls into the frying pan

Freshly baked

 

A WHOLE FOOD PLANT-BASED (VEGAN) DIET AND CANCER

21st April 2023

Just in - turkey tail mushrooms prove effective against some cancers.

Why is there such a huge disparity in prostate cancer rates? For instance the incidence of clinically malignant prostate cancer is highest in African-Americans—some 30-fold greater than in Japanese men, and 120 times greater than seen in Chinese men in Shanghai. The reason has to do with lifestyle.

When I began intermittent fasting (something else I would recommend for optimum health), I did so because it was shown to reduce the level of IGF-1 (insulin growth factor 1) in the body: IGF-1 being a marker of cancer risk (the more IGF-1, the more risk of cancer growth). It turns out that a WFPB diet also lowers IGF-1. Cow’s milk, being designed to produce a 600lb calf in very short order, is packed with IGF-1. (It’s also, because cows are made to produce milk whilst pregnant, full of oestrogen and other unwanted hormones).

At the last count, I have four friends and family members suffering from cancer. Here I've tried to gather in one place, all the info I can find on the subject.

"Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and there is an urgent need for a new direction in battling this disease. That’s why the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has created materials specifically for cancer prevention and survival."

https://www.pcrm.org/health-topics/cancer

Dr Michael Greger, who runs NutritionFacts.org, has many short videos on how diet influences cancer. 

Cancer and a WFPB diet. (Whenever I look at one of Dr Greger's videos, it's always worth checking out the comments section, there is a wealth of info in there - plus some inspirational stories!)

Fasting and cancer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CxMsqpzhT4&t=13s

Protect your prostate from cancer

Effects of a low-fat, high-fiber diet and exercise program on breast cancer risk factors in vivo and tumor cell growth and apoptosis in vitro.

https://www.pcrm.org/health-topics/cancer

Stunning results from the largest diet/nutrition study ever: Cornell University: 

A healthy diet will slow and/or stop most cancers: Why not?

“Study finds vegan blood is 8 times more effective at killing cancer cells.”

I didn’t know just what study to link that sentence to, but if you put that into a search engine, you get loads of results.

Finally, there’s help available here, from someone who has been through it:

chrisbeatcancer.com

SOME OF THE MANY BENEFITS OF FASTING - FIGHTS COVID, CANCER, AGING, AND MORE

(I have previously posted about intermittent fasting here and here. What follows is general - pretty comprehensive it seems to me - info about the benefits of fasting.)

[This person fasted when they caught covid] and it was gone completely in a couple days, absolutely nothing. [Study of one] Some of the many benefits of doing occasional extended fasting: Blood clotting is reduced and blood clots and arterial plaque are reabsorbed into the body. Blood pressure is quickly and dramatically lowered. 

Fribrosis/scarring is reversed over time and telomeres are lengthened, which also helps with lung fibrosis. 

Fasting increases nitric oxide.

Fasting stimulates phagocytosis, the ingestion of bacteria, plaques and viruses by the immune system. It will also remove any 'foreign material' that is not supposed to be there.

After 72 hours or more fasted, your body recycles large numbers of immune bodies and creates new ones, rejuvenating your entire immune system. 

Vitamin D plasma levels are increased, and vitamin D in turn increases autophagy.

Fasting increases anti-aging Yamanaka factors!

Fasts from 36-96 h actually INCREASE metabolic rate due to norepinephrine release! 

Weight loss from fasting only loses10% lean tissue and 90% fat compared to the typical 25% lean tissue and 75% fat lost when calorically restricting for long periods. The hunger hormone ghrelin lowers with extended fasting and rises from dieting. 

Blood sugar and insulin are lowered, allowing white blood cells to move more freely throughout the body and do their job. Ideal blood sugar is around 80. Some viruses activate glycolosis (the release of sugar in the body) and clinically it has been shown that decreasing glucose metabolism in the body weakens the influenza virus.

Thymus is regenerated, which suppresses aging and renews the immune system. 

When you move out of MTOR your body shuts down the building blocks of the cell which are used to produce organelles and proteins. This means the mechanisms needed by viruses to replicate are by and large unavailable when you are in a deeply fasted state.

What breaks a fast? Anything with protein or carbohydrates in it will break a fast, though if the amount is tiny you will go back into ketosis very quickly. Most teas and herbs are OK. Most supplements and meds will either break ketosis directly or contain a filler that will. Many medications are dangerous to take while fasting so you may have to talk to your dr. about discontinuing them during a fast.

Fasts of several days will not affect short term female fertility and may increase long term fertility, especially in women with PCOS.

Does fasting lower testosterone? No, it raises it when the fast is broken by increasing lutenizing hormone and helps build muscle by increasing insulin sensitivity!

The hormone Leptin is an immunomodulator that keeps the body from attacking itself and obesity causes leptin resistance. Fasting very quickly reduces leptin resistance and leptin levels and one day of fasting can cut your leptin levels in half and gets your immune system working properly again!

Does the body preferentially prefer glucose as a fuel? No, your body always runs mainly on fat except for brief periods of very intense exercise. Your brain also prefers to burn ketones at a rate of around 2.5 to 1 when they are available in equal quantity to glucose.

Fasting stimulates the AMPK complex and activates autophagy. Autophagy (literally self eating) will cause cells to recycle foreign matter such as viruses and kill cancerous and senescent cells. AMPK does many helpful things in the body including activating the body's antioxidant defenses. 

Deep ketosis virtually eliminates chronic inflammation in the body. This can offset the life threatening symptoms of viral pneumonia which effectively kills you through inflammation. This also creates BHB ketones in your body, which also help your immune system and anti-oxidative system, especially in the brain. Ketones also provide an additional energy source during infection, which is critical when trying to fight off a bug. In fact you can have as much as three times the total energy available in your blood when you are in deep ketosis, or even more.

It increases mitochondrial function and repairs mitichondrial DNA, leading to improved ATP production and oxygen efficiency and thereby making cells better able to fight off infection. Increased mitochondrial function also has the added benefit of increasing your metabolism and cancer prevention!

When you fast, this stimulates apoptosis in senescent or genetically damaged cells. This kills these cells off completely. Senescent cells are responsible for the effects of aging and are the root cause of the development of cancer. If it were possible to destroy them all it would completely stop aging and cancer. That is not possible but fasting can help limit these effects by killing off many of the affected cells and limiting the future effects of aging.

Fasting also releases BDNF and NGF in the blood which stimulates new nerve and brain cell growth, helping a great deal with diseases like MS, peripheral neuropathy and Alzheimers.

In fact, the biochemical regulator of BDNF production is beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is the same ketone the body produces to nourish the brain while fasting.

Fasting also increases telomere length, negating some of the effects of aging at a cellular level.

A fasting mimicking diet for 3-5 days in a row also provides many of the same benefits as water fasting. FMD usually has 200-800 calories, under 18 g of protein and under 18 g of carb.

Exogenous ketones can aid with fasting, making it easier in healthy people and allowing some people with specific issues to fast in spite of them without worrying as much about hypoglycemia.

Children, pregnant or nursing women should not fast for periods longer than 16 hours. People with pancreatic tumors or certain forms of hypoglycemia generally cannot fast at all. Type 1 diabetics can also fast but it is more complicated and should be approached with caution as it could lead to ketoacidosis. Those with Addison's disease may also be unable to fast without liberal use of exogenous ketones, depending on severity. If you experience extreme symptoms of some kind, especially dizziness then simply break the fast and seek advice.

Resources:

https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(18)30605-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1097276518306051%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04375657

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7714088/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31877297/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23707514/

https://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/36/3/217

https://europepmc.org/article/MED/22402737?javascript_support=no

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2005.02288.x

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/05/16/study-shows-how-fasting-for-3-days-can-regenerate-your-entire-immune-system/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29727683/

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001176

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23408502/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27569118/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21410865/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005272806000223

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1413655/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(15)00224-7

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/25712

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1779438/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6859089/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876457

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1537&context=edissertations

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30849-9

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25686106

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/abundance-of-fructose-not-good-for-the-liver-heart

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20102774/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10232622

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/81/1/69/4607679

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25909219/

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa012908

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15522942/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6407435/

https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijrsb/v3-i11/7.pdf

https://www.amjmedsci.org/article/S0002-9629%2815%2900027-0/fulltext

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20921964/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141719/

https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.819.10

https://www.biorxiv.org/node/93305.full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7093158/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28235195/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24905167

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10859646

https://n.neurology.org/content/88/16_Supplement/P3.090

https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/research-intermittent-fasting-shows-health-benefits

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-treatment-pulmonary-fibrosis-focus-telomeres.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017674/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312809002832

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5895342/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526871/

This list compiled over years of research by the user known as Pottenger's Human on youtube but feel free to copy and paste this anywhere you like, no accreditation needed!

My channel which will always contain an updated version of this list of fasting benefits on the community tab. I also have playlists on fasting and health topics.