Tag Archives: wheat free

August 2nd, 2015

Spelt Rolls with Sweet Starter

Category Rolls Tags: Spelt, Sweet starter, wheat free 11 Responses

Some weeks ago a reader asked me if it is possible to bake pure spelt rolls with sourdough. The reason for this question is a histamine intolerance and so I thought directly of using my sweet starter, as the sweet starter fits well in the “shortly riped” scheme. I feeded a part of my starter four times with spelt flour which reduces the wheat in the starter to 0,26%. If you want a pure spelt starter, you can start a starter from a spelt sourdough and some spelt flour as well.

To avoid a dry crumb (what can happen with spelt so easily) I added once again a hot soaker. Some egg yolk and fat makes the crumb more fluffy and the malt helps to deepen the flavour. But using egg yolk and malt is not necessary, if you can’t eat one or the other. Just replace the egg yolk with water. The crumb will be a little bit more dense but the rolls will be still fine. And if you are looking for wheat free recipes, there is a new tag for you: wheat free 🙂

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April 26th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners X: Spelt Rye Bread

Category Bread, Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Poolish, Rye, Spelt, wheat free 64 Responses

So here is now the promised Spelt bread. I know that many of the readers of this blog like to bake with spelt, but baking with spelt flour is a little bit more challenging then baking with wheat flour, so the recipe comes relatively late in my bread baking course.

Spelt is closely realted to wheat. But there are two thing to keep in mind when working with spelt. Flour made from spelt contains a different composition of gluten proteins which finally results in a more fragile gluten network. This makes it easy to “over knead” spelt dough, meaning that the dough is kneaded longer then it takes to obtain full gluten development which ends in breaking down the gluten network once again. Due to this fact I prefer to knead spelt dough by hand which gives me a better control then kneading with the kitchen machine. If kneading with the machine it is important to keep a close eye on the dough and testing the gluten development by the window pane test. Intervall kneading (kneading shortly with breaks in between) can be handy as well. Continue reading →

January 31st, 2015

Whole Grain Country Loaf

Category Bread, Overnight Tags: only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Rye, Spelt, Über-Nacht, wheat free, whole grain 41 Responses

Breads with spelt are still highly requested. There was for example the question if the Country Loaf could maybe be baked without wheat and with only whole grain flour. I thought a little bit and changed some details and sent my first draft to the reader. It took some time until I could test the recipe in practice. Here I had to realize that the hot soaker would be better with more water, and so I changed the recipe accordingly. But the rest of the recipe worked as planned.

And the bread is very delicious. Because it is whole grain the oven spring is a bit weaker, and the crumb is denser, but due to the soaker it stays fresh the whole week! The Pâte fermentée makes the flavour mild but complex and the long cold proof in the fridge even improves the aroma. It is really could when there are recipe questions to recipe question :-D!

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January 18th, 2015

Pure Spelt

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Brühstück, Cold Autolyse, Hand kneaded, Poolish, Spelt, wheat free 48 Responses

A reader asked for pure spelt recipe here on the blog and I realized that there a only few and that recipes without sourdough are even fewer. And so I baked a pure spelt bread last weekend. It is a light bread with a little bit whole spelt flour, a poolish and a long rise to enhance the flavour. I put the whole spelt floor into the poolish, so it had enough time to soak properly. Another part of the flour I mixed with water and placed it overnight in the fridge. The next morning I mixed the autolysed dough together with the poolish and a hot soaker. The hot soaker prevents the dough from baking dry, an often occurring problem with pure spelt bread.

The bread turned out to be a highlight: Great oven spring, crisp crust, soft crumb and a fantastic flavour.

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June 27th, 2014

Light Spelt Bread

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Hand kneaded, Poolish, Sourdough, Spelt, wheat free 43 Responses

With the new oven I had to bake a bread immediately. I didn’t have a pure spelt bread for some time and so I decided that spelt bread should be the first bread baked in the new oven! With some sourdough and poolish for a good, complex flavour and a hot soaker to keep it moist.

But really existing was the moment when I placed the bread in the oven. I turned the oven to “Hydrobake”, which is the oven programm that traps the steam inside and throw some ice cubes inside to create some more steam. And then I sat in front of the oven and watch the bread rise the same way like other people would watch a thriller. The oven spring was indeed nicer then in my old oven. But the most impressing thing is the great colour and shine of the crumb which shows the importance of steam for a the maillard reaction.

I’m really happy with the new oven. And I’m happy with the bread as well. It tastes great, has a nice open crumb and a very crisp crust! It tastes so good, that I had no change to freeze one loaf because we it so fastly!

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January 23rd, 2014

Spelt Poppy Seed Cookies

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Poppy seeds, Spelt, wheat free, whole grain 13 Responses

Sometimes I need a little bit of sweet in the afternoon to refill my energy reserve. Especially on long workdays I have the longing for a cookie to accompany my cup of coffee to overcome my afternoon slump. And I like it most when the little treat in my lunchbox is then a homemade sweet, preferable made with whole grain.

This week I bake cookies with whole spelt flour and grounded poppy seeds, an idea I had in my mind since I baked the Mohnkipferln. Using whole cane sugar adds a delicious caramel note to the cookies while pinch of salt make the taste nicely round. A great cookie for a little break!

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October 4th, 2013

Spelt Pretzel Rolls

Category Rolls Tags: lye pretzels, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, wheat free 26 Responses

Annette asked at the recipe for Ulmer Spatzen if she could use spelt flour instead of wheat flour for the rolls. I told her that it should be fine to bake the rolls with spelt. Parallel my brain started to work. I was dreaming about pretzels already for quite some time, so baking a spelt pretzel roll sounds great for me.

At the end I made a new recipe, because I decided that I would rather use a pâte fermentée and hot soaker to prevent the pretzel rolls from getting dry, something that can happen easily when baking with spelt flour.

Due to the soaker the rolls has the perfect crumb, dense but soft and not dry at all. A perfect pretzel roll!

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September 14th, 2013

SpeWaBu

Category Bread Tags: Buttermilch, Honey, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, Walnuss, wheat free 22 Responses

As soon as the temperature drops below 20°C, I feel the urge to bake whole grain breads. And a bread with nuts seems to fit perfectly to the season. I picked whole spelt flour, walnuts and buttermilk – a favourite combination for bread. And while I was thinking about a Name I suddenly hat to think about the story of Robbi, Tobbi and the FlieWaTüüt. The FlieWaTüüt in the book was called so, because it could fly (german: FLIEgen), it could swim on the Water, and drive like a car (the Tüüt was the sound of its horn). And with this story in mind I called the bread SpeWaBu (Spelt, Walnut, Buttermilk).

It is a bread that can convince even people who do not like spelt or whole grain so much. It stays moist due to a hot soaker and the buttermilk helps to form a soft and surprisingly fluffy crumb. It has a mild aromatic taste which pairs well with cheese or honey.

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June 20th, 2013

Spelt Baguettes

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Spelt, Über-Nacht, wheat free 34 Responses

For me summertime is Baguette time. Or Wurzelbrot– and Ciabatta-Time. I just love to have a light bread together with a big bowl of salat for supper on hot days.

After I baked the delicious Baguettes a la Ridha Khadher I thought about trying a similar recipe with spelt. The gentle folding of the dough is perfect for the fragile gluten network of spelt dough. And so I kneaded the dough really short and then started to fold the dough repeatedly. When the gluten network was nicely developed,I put the dough in the fridge for a long and cold fermentation.

This long and cold rise created a deep and complex flavour which I liked even more then the Kadher-Baguettes, because the spelt flavour adds another layer of complexity to the taste. It was a baguette with a lot of character. Or as my beloved partner (who’s normal praise for homemade bread is eating it rapidly but silent) said: “It is so delicious!”

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May 19th, 2013

Spelt crowns

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Buttermilch, Hand kneaded, Honey, only with yeast, Spelt, Über-Nacht, wheat free 10 Responses

I got the Idea to bake this little Spelt crowns, when Lena asked me if she could bake the Yoghurt Honey Whole Wheat Bread as rolls instead of a loaf. Of course you can do this, was my answer and I started to think that I could bake something like that, too! But I decided to change the recipe a little bit, using spelt instead of wheat and buttermilk instead of yoghurt. To improve the dough handling, I cut down the amount of liquid a little bit and decided to let the dough rise overnight. As form for the rolls I tried something I was thinking about now for some time. I used my kitchen scissors to cut small tips on top of the roll which form a little crown during the oven spring. Just take care to keep the cuts short enough otherwise very long and hart tips will form during baking, and eating a roll with sharp edges is no fun at all. The rolls turn out very well: Soft crumb, crisp crust, a complex aroma due to long fermentation and the combination of spelt and sweet honey harmonize very well. A roll for a royal breakfast…

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