January always feels like a clean slate — we dust off the indulgences of December and look for ways to nourish ourselves a little better. If healthy habits are top of your list this month, one of the simplest and most rewarding changes you can make is with your home baking. This year, when baking, try experimenting with two brilliant grains: rye and spelt. Full of natural fibre, packed with nutrients, and full of flavour and character, they’re the perfect partners for comfort bakes with a healthier twist.
🌾 Why Rye & Spelt Deserve a Place in Your Cupboard
Rye and spelt can bring something extra to your home baking — not just in goodness, but in taste, texture, and satisfaction. Here’s why they’re worth embracing this season:
1. Better Gut Health
Rye is rich in fibre, making it particularly helpful for digestion and for keeping you comfortably full for longer. Wholemeal Spelt, too, offers a generous fibre boost, helping support gut health and steady energy levels throughout the day. Both grains offer diversity in your diet helping your gut microbiome.
2. Nutrient-Rich and Wholesome
These grains carry an impressive range of vitamins, minerals, and natural proteins. Spelt contains iron, magnesium and zinc, while rye offers B vitamins and antioxidants — the kind of goodness that helps keep your body fuelled and resilient through the winter months.
3. Full of Flavour and Character
Rye has a deep, earthy taste with a slight tang — perfect for pairing with spices, citrus and winter warming flavours. Spelt brings a lovely mild nuttiness and bakes beautifully tender cakes and breads. They’re grains with personality, turning familiar recipes into something layered, comforting, and truly satisfying.
A Simple Swap for a Brighter Start
Introducing rye and spelt into your baking doesn’t require a complete kitchen overhaul — just curiosity and a willingness to try something new. Whether you’re stirring a banana bread batter or rolling out biscuits, these grains bring heartiness, goodness, and real satisfaction to homemade treats.
So warm up the oven, grab your mixing bowl, and bake something that feels good in every sense.
This January, wholesome can still mean wonderfully delicious. 😊
🍌 Wholemeal Spelt Banana Bread
Moist, additionally sweetened by the bananas, and wonderfully wholesome. Spelt’s softer gluten structure creates a tender crumb and a gentle nuttiness — ideal for a January bake that feels like a treat but still nourishes you.
Wholemeal Spelt Banana cake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups (220g) Nelstrop Wholemeal Spelt Flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons mixed spice
120ml vegetable oil
50g dark brown sugar
85g honey
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
320g mashed ripe bananas
Method:
1. Preheat the oven:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line two 500g loaf tins with baking paper
2. Mix dry ingredients:
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and mixed spice. Set aside.
3. Blend wet ingredients:
In a separate large bowl, blend the mashed banana, oil, honey, brown sugar and vanilla.
4. Add eggs:
Add the eggs one at a time to the wet ingredients, ensuring each egg is fully whisked in before mixing in the next
5. Combine wet and dry ingredients:
On low speed or with a spatula, add the flour to the wet mixture in three additions. Mix until just combined—do not overmix.
6. Fill and bake:
Divide the batter evenly among the two tins, filling each about 2/3 full, about 450g each. Bake for 35–45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Cool:
Allow the banana bread to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
9. Enjoy
The banana bread can be eaten warm or cold and will benefit from storage in an airtight container for a day before eating.
🍊 Rye Biscuits with Orange & Cinnamon
With crisp edges, chewy middles, and the warmth of cinnamon lifted by fresh orange zest, these biscuits are packed with flavour. Rye flour gives them depth and richness, transforming a simple bake into a cosy winter delight.
Rye Biscuits with Orange & Cinnamon Recipe.
Ingredients
170g Unsalted butter (room temperature)
65g dark brown sugar
250g (2 cups) Nelstrop Dark Rye Flour
2 tsp of cinnamon
Zest of 2 oranges
For the icing
200g Royal icing sugar (Sieved)
45ml orange juice
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 200°C (392°F). Prepare 2 baking trays with, baking paper.
2. Using a wooden spoon or hand mixer cream the butter and sugar together ensure there are no lumps, then mix in the orange zest.
3. In 3 stages add the rye flour and the cinnamon to the mix until fully combined into a smooth dough, don’t mix any more than required.
4. Rest the dough in the fridge or a cool place for 30 minutes.
5. Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out to approximately 8mm thick. Try to avoid the dough sticking to the bench by using dusting flour as required, and moving the dough piece regularly while pinning it out
6. When the dough is at the required thickness, use a biscuit cutter and cut out the biscuits. Place them on the tray ensuring they are evenly spaced apart and not touching.
7. Bake for about 10 minutes, check they can move freely on the tray, this indicates they are baked.
8. Allow to cool before icing.
9. To decorate use a piping bag and pipe the icing neatly onto the biscuit. Finally, lightly dust iced biscuits with cinnamon using a sieve.
For the icing
1. Mix the royal icing sugar with the orange juice until the icing is at the right consistency.
2. The consistency of the icing is important to get right; you want it to be runny enough, so it settles on the product smooth, but not too runny so that it runs off the biscuit.
If it is too thick add a few more drops of juice and stir, repeat until you have the right consistency. Alternatively add in some more royal icing sugar to make the icing thicker.
