Liz's Spelt Bread
I’ve loved making bread since I was a young adult. I started making this particular bread about four years ago. I make four loaves at the time and store them sliced in my freezer. Every time I make it it is slightly different and I suppose that is what I like about it. I can be creative with it. But I do have a basic recipe.
Total prep time: 80 min
Making of the dough: 15-20 min
Rising: 30 min
Oven 30 min
Ingredients:
100g fresh Yeast (you can often get it in polish food shops) or 35g dried yeast. (The rule of thumb is dividing or multiplying by 3: From fresh yeast to dry – divide amount by 3, eg. instead of 30 grams of fresh yeast use 10 grams of dry)
1/2 tsp of table salt
1L of lukewarm water (a bit warmer if you use dried yeast)
2 tbsp honey or agave syrup. (the yeast needs this to feed off to rise properly)
Spelt flour: A total of 1250g of spelt flour. You can mix any combination of wholemeal spelt and white spelt. I normally take about 900g wholemeal and 350g white.
150 ml seeds of your liking: flax seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds— anything goes. Nuts can also be an alternative.
(Other possibilities: Grate 2 medium carrots and mix into the dough, add different kind of nuts or dried fruit, also possible to add fennel seeds in to the dough)
Method
Preheat the oven to 175 C.
Have 4 loaf tins ready. Line them with greaseproof baking paper -or use pre made paper liner. You can also use silicon loaf tins. No liner needed in that case.
Crumble the fresh yeast (Different action is needed if you use dried yeast. Read instruction on package), into a large bowl - or into the bowl of kitchen machine. (I use an old Kenwood).
Sprinkle the salt over the yeast and let it stand for 5-7min so that the yeast ‘melts’.
Add the lukewarm water and stir.
Weigh up your flour mixture and add slowly half of the flour while you knead the mixture.
Add your seed mixture and honey.
Keep on stirring and kneading in your machine or with a wooden spoon.
Add the rest of the flour. Continue the kneading.
You will now have a loose dough. Spoon the dough into the loaf tins with equally amount spread out into each tin.
Sprinkle seeds or decorate with nuts on top.
Set the dough aside to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Place a clean cloth on top. Keep an eye on it so it does not rise and fall over the side of the tin.
When the bread has almost doubled, carefully move to the preheated oven and close the oven door with care. (A bang will cause the dough to collapse)
Increase the heat to 200C and leave the bread in the oven for 25-30 min.
Take out the bread. Knock on the top of the bread and check that you hear a hollow sound. Flip the bread out on to a wire rack to cool.
When they have totally cooled down, slice the loaves and put them into the freezer. Keep some out for breakfast the next day and perhaps give a loaf away as a gift!