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After reading blogs of Dabrownman, Ian & Khalid in last few months, I was waiting to get my hands on whole spelt flour. Some time back, I found Bob's Red Mill's whole spelt flour in a supermarket and jumped to buy it. As it is not cheap, I wanted to make sure that every bread made from it was worth the price. So the flour had been lying in my freezer for quite some time now. Finally in the last week, I managed to make 3 breads from the whole spelt flour.

First one I tried was Hamelman's Honey Spelt Bread, with Pate Fermentee. It has 75% whole spelt flour. The changes I made from original formula were using agave nectar instead of honey and making pate fermentee with RYW instead of instant yeast. I don't really bother about results while making Hamelman's breads as there is hardly any chance of bad outcome. This one also remained true to form. A perfect bread to intoduce my household to whole spelt. Light, airy & tasty, the bread gave all the flavour of wholegrain flour, without the denseness. Here are the crust & crumb. The crumb shot is grainy, but it still shows the character of the bread.

Now that I knew we all liked spelt, the next step was to make it part of my children's daily bread. So once again I turned to Hamelman and the bread much loved by my kids - Pain De Mei. Changes I made to the PDM - Used 60% whole spelt flour & 40% bread flour, made tangzhong with 8% flour (used bread flour) and used levain made from my SD & RYW instead of instant yeast. Hydration had also to be increased from 60% to 68% to get the right dough consistency. My son ate half of this bread without anything on it. So another winner on hand. 

Bread out of oven :

I was too impatient to wait, so cut the first slice within 20 minutes while still warm :

This is thelast slice after 4 days. I hid it to see how long it stays soft. Still pretty soft, with an added slight (pleasant) tang from sourdough.

After 2 very nice results from spelt, I was contemplating the next one yesterday, when I read Floyd's post about Ken Forkish's FWSY winning the James Beard Award. My choice was obvious - Harvest bread with poolish. This one uses minimum whole spelt (10%), but it still comes through. I changed whole wheat flour to whole spelt flour and used Apple Yeast Water levain instead of poolish  & skipped instant yeast in final dough. I also toasted the wheat germ (5%) and oat bran (2.5%) , thanks to dabrownman's toadies. It came out of my claypot DO with a great oven spring and have just cut one slice to taste and for crumb shot.

The crumb

A bite of this bread is a testimony to the well deserved award!

A video short of my bread just as it comes out of the oven.

A better crumb on this batch of Baguettes.....

Cheers,

Wingnut

PS...  Makes a nice toastie with Pulled Pork, Dijon and aged Cheddar.

Hi bakers everywhere,

this is my first bake in my temporary kitchen here in Perugia, Italy. I saw the recipe on Paul Hollywood's Bread on the BBC and, as he had stuffed it with Italian flavours, it seemed a suitable thing to try. I was dubious of the little oven I have here, which looks to be older than I am (and my oven therometer is still in transit) but, on the whole, I was happy with the result. It's pretty easy to make, and as light as a feather, dripping in melted cheese and salty prosciutto. Well done Paul Hollywood!

I slightly scaled down the recipe as his seemed to produce something far larger than I wanted. All measurements in grams.

strong white flour 300 (I used farina manitoba, which is like a very strong white in UK) 

salt 6

fresh yeast 12 (fresh yeast is easy to find here in supermarkets, but instant yeast almost impossible - the reverse of UK! I'd use 6 of instant if that's what you have)

whole milk at room temp 102

whole eggs 120 (this worked out luckily as exactly 2)

unsalted butter at room temp 150 (83% fat)

parma ham 6 - 8 slices

buffalo mozzarella 250 - 300

a bit of fresh basil

grated parmesan 

egg for glazing

Dissolve the fresh yeast in the milk and leave until it becomes bubbly (or use instant yeast and skip this step). Add the flour, eggs and salt. This is a soft dough so it's best done in a machine. I wouldn't want to try this one by hand! Work it until the dough is formed and then slowly add the butter. The dough is ready when it starts to come away from the side of the bowl and has a shiny surface. It's important to add the butter quite slowly. I think in total it took my about 10 minutes, but I had left the dough to autolyse for 15 minutes or so before I began working it. Leave in a warm place (I put it next to a lamp) until it has at least doubled in size - tripled is better. For me this took about 4 hours. 

When it's ready, dump it out onto some clingfilm, flatten it (careful, it's quite soft!) and put in the freezer, well wrapped. I found after about half an hour it was ready to be rolled. It ought to be firm to the touch. Roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle twice as wide as it is long, to a thickness of about 5mm. Keep moving it because it warms quickly and becomes sticky!

Place the parma ham across the surface and then rip the mozzarella and cover, like you were making a pizza. Then some basil and a healthy handful of grated parmesan. Roll it up (starting from the long axis) until you have a good long tube, with the filling tight inside. Trim the ends. Then take a good sharp knife and cut it down the middle, along the length of the long axis. Don't simply cut it in half!!! This done, turn the long pieces cut-side up, next to each other, and twist, one hand moving one way, the other in the other. This braids them. Stick the ends together to form a circle. This sounds more complicated than it is... it ought to look something like this when done:

You can see the filling where the dough has been cut. This melts wonderfully in the oven.

Leave that to rise, well covered to stop it forming a skin, for about 2 hours. It needs to double in size. Brush with eggwash, add more grated parmesan, and then put in the oven at 200C (without fan according to Hollywood - I couldn't turn the fan off, so I settled for somewhere in the region of 185 if the dial is to be trusted) for 25 minutes. It's best eaten warm or cold, but not oven hot.

A really tasty brioche recipe this, and I'd happily make it again now that I know the oven isn't as terrible as it looks :)

David