A Word on Sweetwater Bread….

Excerpted from the article Awakening the Wheat by Lyla Kaplan

The first leavening of wheat with water is thought to have occurred in Egypt almost 5000 years ago. At Sweetwater Bakery, one finds the bread of our ancestors - bread that is mixed by hand, slowly leavened, and baked in a woodfired oven - bread that is quite different from the commercial bread of today.

The [wheat [used in the wheat varieties is] biodynamic and organic, and some is ground by hand in a mill, which is good for the wheat because it keeps it cooler preventing oxidation. [Note, Sweetwater also carries 100% spelt, rye, and now gluten-free]. The dough is mixed by hand rather than machine because, like the grinding, it is gentler on the bread, simple, and easy to clean up after. In lieu of adding baker’s yeast, which has only been used in commercial breads for about the past 100 years, a starter dough is added into the mix, and left to slowly ferment and rise. The starter is a bit of dough that is saved after a good leavening. It is kept dormant in the fridge, and then made active by being fed with flour for several days until it grows to about 10 pounds before being added to the larger mixture of dough.

The slow fermenting process of naturally leavened sourdough breaks down phytic acid, enzymes and complex carbohydrates, making the wheat easier for the body to digest. As the dough is left to rise, the fire in the hardbrick oven is brought to high heat, cleaned out the next morning, and the radiant heat of the bricks bakes the many loaves of bread and cookies. Saul and Natalie Schwartz have been baking in brick ovens for over 10 years, and wanted to move to the area to get closer to their roots and their children to the Waldorf School. In 2007, they serendipitously discovered that the bakery at Kimberton Hills needed leadership, and was even originally designed in the 1980s to someday, perhaps, accommodate a woodfired brick oven. They have been baking a variety of delicious breads, cookies, and granolas side by side with the villagers ever since. They were pleased to discover that Kimberton Hills’ grinding mill could work seamlessly into their bread making cycle. To Saul and Natalie, the whole process is simple and elegant, the renewable energy of scrap wood is free, and the taste speaks for itself.