H.C.T.P. #3: He Who Spelt It, Dealt It

Welcome back, friends and neighbors, for this week’s edition of Here Comes the Pain. This is episode three, for those that are counting. After two weeks of delightful bread successes, I decided to ever-so-slightly up the difficulty this week.

The bread that I tried this time is a spelt loaf. Spelt is an old variety of grain, an ancient grain, as it were. Related to wheat, it’s a good farming alternative because it uses less fertilizer. It’s come back in to fashion in the last five to ten years, being a bit healthier than GMO wheat, although it still does contain gluten. Sorry celiacs!

I’ll get this out of the way right now: this wasn’t as roaring a success as my previous two bakes. I’m not saying it was bad – far from it. I actually produced a very tasty loaf, that’s lending itself VERY well to toast and sandwich bread. It’s just that I tend to be hyper-critical of my loaves.

I baked the loaf inside a pre-heated Dutch oven, which sat inside my pre-heated non-Dutch oven. This gave me a lot of rise, which I liked. The flavour of the spelt was also very pronounced in the bread, which I also really liked. However, the crust got very dark, which can easily be remedied by me turning down the oven next time at the stage I uncover the bread.

Also, I found the crumb to be a little dense. The bubbles are very small. Like I said earlier, this lends itself very well to being sandwich bread or toast, but I would have preferred a lighter, airier crumb. I’m not sure if this has to do with the higher concentration of spelt or just my own bumbling. But that’s why we’re doing this series in the first place. It’s a learning experience, right?

I used my stand mixer, as usual, but this bread doesn’t really require it. Just mix the dough enough so that everything comes together and leave to rise.

The recipe itself comes from Bread Bread Bread by Martin Johansson. It’s a really fabulous book, good for the fledgling baker like myself. There’s quite a long rising time, so you may want to start this one late in the evening and let it rise overnight.

Spelt Loaf

Ingredients:

Scalded Mixture

• 45g spelt flour
• 90g boiling water

Dough

• Scalded mixture, above
• 1.5g active dry yeast
• 250g cold water
• 125g spelt flour
• 315g all-purpose flour
• 31g honey
• 12g kosher salt

Method:

1. For the scalded mixture, mix the spelt flour and boiling water in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.
2. To the bowl with the scalded mixture add the yeast, cold water, both remaining flours, the honey and salt. Mix on medium speed with the dough hook for 3-4 minutes or by hand until it all comes together. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 10 hours.
3. Gently scrape the dough out onto a clean, well-floured kitchen towel. Fold the four compass points of the dough (north, south, east and west) gently into the centre, flipping the dough over so the seam side is down on the last fold. Wrap the towel over the dough and let rise at room temperature for 45 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, position the oven racks so that a Dutch oven with the lid on can fit inside. Preheat the oven, with the Dutch oven inside, to 475°F.
5. Carefully remove the Dutch oven and put the loaf into it, seam side up. Cover the Dutch oven, place it back into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450°F (I didn’t, but you should), carefully remove the lid and bake uncovered for 25 minutes more.
6. Carefully transfer the loaf to a wire rack and let cool fully before tearing into it.

This bread has great flavour and can stand up well to whatever you want to top it with. Perhaps I was being too harsh on myself earlier. It definitely was a success, but for me, it’s just not as big of one as my first two loaves. I’ll surely revisit this recipe in the future, after I’ve learned some more, to see if I can improve upon my results.

Liz is really pushing for pizza dough to be the next experiment, and who am I to refuse? Is there anything you’d like me to try baking? What should I top the pizza with? If you have any suggestions, don’t forget to send an email or leave a comment down below! Oh, and check out my latest article over at Apt613, all about chef Adam Vettorel and his team at North & Navy!