Following the call of the ladies from Panissimo, who are organizing yet another great round of bread baking event, I am today using spelt flour to bake my newest creation of bread. This bread has been calculated with my bread calculator, which is getting better. I think I can release the final version soon.They asked us bread baking bloggers to use “ancient cereals” to bake our newest bread. I think what they meant is tradition cereals, flour or grains, which have been used over the centuries to bake bread. I am hoping that we are not asked to bake something with ancient flour that has surpassed its shelf life.
Immediately I thought about the only ancient flour that I can get in China, which is the spelt flour. Spelt flour is very aromatic and has this kind of a nutty flavor for which I like to use it in my breads. The spelt grain has been grown, cultivated and used for baking bread for many centuries. It’s a grain that belongs to the wheat family. Like wheat it contains gluten so in any recipe that contains wheat flour, it can be easily used as a substitute, the results should be similar, also concerning the texture of your baked goods.
So I wanted to make artisan sourdough bread that is a sure winner. As we love moist self-made sourdough breads, I was going up with the dough yield and baking my home-made bread in a bread baking form as the dough was too wet that to shape it free hand. I used milk as liquid in this bread and here goes the recipe, enjoy baking it.
Sourdough
Mix everything together to smooth dough without any clumps inside and let it rest in a covered bowl at 24-28°C for 14 – 20 hours. After your sourdough is ready, don't forget to take some starter away and keep it in the fridge for your next bread.
Swollen piece
Immerse everything in the lukewarm water, cover it up and let them swell for 12 to 14 hours at room temperature.
Main dough
Yield | |
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Source | http://foodzeit.blogspot.com/2013/09/sourdough-spelt-mustard-milch-bread.html#more |
Prep time | 11 hours, 40 minutes |
Cooking time | 55 minutes |
Total time | 12 hours, 35 minutes |
Everything well together, cover the bowl up, put it in a warm place and let it rest for 45 minutes. After that, fold the dough 3 times in the bowl. Shape the dough into the shape of the inside of the bread baking form so it looks a bit like a big sausage. In the meantime butter a bread baking form with butter and pop the dough in the form. Cover it up and let the form rest in a warm place for another 60 minutes. At the end of those 60 minutes the yeast of the sourdough was working and increasing the volume of the bread but maximum two times. Before popping it in the oven, I am using the finger probing technique to see if the bread is ready to be baked now. Then I am taking water spraying to spray some water on top of the bread dough. Then I add black sesame seeds on the loafs and I cut both breads once in the middle.
In the meantime preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Then pop the bread form in the oven and pour a cup of water in the bottom of the oven. Actually, you can put a baking tray in the oven when you preheat it. This way you can pour the water in the tray instead of the bottom of the oven, it’s less messy. Anyhow the effect is the same, what you want is the hot steam. Now you bake the bread in the hot steam for 10 - 15 minutes. Then you open the oven, let the steam out (eventually take the baking tray out) and reduce the heat of the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Continue baking the bread for another 35 – 40 minutes. Then pop the bread out of the form and spray some water on the bottom and the side of the bread. It the bottom and the top of the bread are still too pale, you can put the bread back in the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.