Spelt Bread

Time to try a spelt bread, since I bought some spelt flour from the Grain Processor outlet shop a while ago. Hunted around for a recipe and decided to adapt one from Lauren Chattman's Bread Making book. Her recipe called for spelt flour and whole wheat, I decided to substitute unbleached bread flour because I wanted to get more of the spelt flavour. I also baked in a pan rather than making it into a batarde, since the dough seemed to be way to soft to hod the batarde shape.

Spelt Bread

Day 1

Biga

2 oz room temperature water
3 grams instant yeast
65 grams whole spelt flour

Combine in bowl using a rubber spatula till rough dough forms, making sure to incorporate all flour.
Cover with plastic and let stand 1 hour, then refrigerate for 16 hours

Day 2

Dough

12 oz water at room temperature
12 oz whole spelt flour
6 oz unbleached bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp crushed vitamin C tablet

Tear biga into pieces and place in bowl of stand mixer. Add all other ingredients and mix with rubber spatual attachment till rough dough forms. Let stand 10 minutes.

Switch to dough hook and knead dough for 8 minutes. Put dough in large bowl sprayed with cooking spray and cover and let sit till doubled, about 1 1.2 hour

Punch down and turn out on flour covered surface and cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Uncover and shape into loaf pans. Cover and let rise till over top of pans.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.

 Here is a picture of the crumb texture. It smelled so good I forgot to take a picture of my loaf before I was tempted to cut off the end and try it! Complex flavour, very soft and yummie.