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Spelt bread

Wcsjohn@aol.com
Sun, 26 Dec 2004 11:02:01 EST
v104.n057.3
I've never managed to make a "rustic" (whatever that means<g>) loaf with 
Spelt, the  only success I've had is with Ficelles, hardly "rustic" but a 
basket of these thin, light, stick breads is a very appetising sight.

This is not a "recipe" in the usual sense of the word, more a report on one 
of my experiments but it will tell you how to make a small Spelt loaf that 
is not a brick.

The following is a concatenation of 3 posts in alt.bread.recipes.

*********************

 >On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Wcsjohn wrote:
 >> I made a batch of Spelt Ficelles today and, for the first time, obtained
 >> an open, light, not big-holed but what I would call a proper bread
 >> structure instead of the previous results which had a few large holes in
 >> a mass of heavy crumb. The crust is much thinner than previous attempts
 >> and the bread is actually a pleasure to eat.

 >> pix at
 >> http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Wcsjohn/images/spelt01.jpg
 >> http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Wcsjohn/images/spelt02.jpg

 >> Is this any better than the results other Spelt experimenters are
 >> obtaining? If so I'll post details and go further down the path
 >> I've started.

 > They look very nice, John! Yes, better than most all-spelt breads I've
 > made. I am surprised at the color, though. Molasses?

 >Dave

Just spelt, water , salt and yeast. The spelt is stoneground, organic, 
wholegrain from a company called Doves Farm - they sell a very fine range 
of flours, at premium prices and, admittedly, premium quality. Details.

I started this experiment because I find a lot of references to spelt 
gluten being fragile and quick to develop but quick to degrade. I dabbled, 
a couple of years ago with minimal mixing methods applied to wheat flour 
but gave it up when I realised that for really fine results, wheat needs a 
lot of input and intensive gluten development. The results of my dabbling 
were encouraging enough to try the technique of minmal mixing with spelt.

So, 250 gm spelt, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp instant yeast and 200 gm warm water, 
mixed until coherent with a wet spoon, total mixing time < 1 minute.

Cover and leave to double. Scrape out with a wet spatula or bowl scraper 
onto a heavily floured counter, sprinkle more flour over the top and roll 
the dough as gently as possible so it's all flour coated. Cut into 2 and 
stretch to fit 15" baguette pans lined with 4" wide strips of parchment - 
you can buy 4" wide parchment on a roll, used for lining the walls of cake 
pans.

Leave, covered, to become very bubbly, in the ones I've posted pics of a 
FEW small bubbles were breaking the surface, and bake at max turned down to 
230C after 5 minutes. After 15 minutes total time, peel the parchment off 
the ficelles and bake for another 5 minutes upside down.

Extremely simple - I would very much like you or anyone to repeat this 
experiment, if it works for someone else I'll pursue the idea further.

Love
John
**********************

Any questions just ask, on or  off list.

John