Spelt Pandoro & Limppu Attempt & Ruis Bread from Nordic Breads

Recent bakes:

11/27/13 - 100% Whole Spelt Pandoro-Like Thing

This is a continuation of the 100% spelt brioche that I made last week or so…  I wanted to see what more butter, eggs, and sugar would do using spelt flour...

11/24/13

Rye SD

100g - Water

50g - Organic whole rye flour (Arrowhead MIlls)

48g - Rye SD (100% hydration)

190g - Total SD weight

1:00pm - Mix rye SD, cover and let rest.

11/25/13

11:40pm - Add 100g rye flour to SD, mix, cover and let rest.

11/26/13

Decide to attempt making pandoro with 100% spelt flour (Arrowhead mills).

Sweet SD Starter

200g - Whole spelt flour

100g  - Rye SD from above

58g - Egg (1 xl egg)

17g - Water

38g - Sucanat

396g - Total sweet starter weight

8:30pm - Mix sweet starter, place in covered container, let rest…

11:45pm - Place starter in refrigerator.

11/27/13

8:01am - Take starter out of fridge.

9:30am - Place starter in microwave with a cup of hot water, just to keep starter warm.  My kitchen was cold.

6:50pm - Place starter back in refrigerator…

Final Dough

250g - Whole spelt flour

292g - Eggs (5 xl eggs)

188g - Unsalted butter

150g - Sucanat

10g - Honey

6g - Salt

2g - Instant dry yeast (½ tsp)

396g - Sweet SD starter

1306g - Total dough weight

10:00pm - Weigh out all ingredients.  When butter is slightly softened at room temp, whip with whisk with a little of the succanat, set aside.  Cut up sweet SD starter into small pieces.  In large mixing bowl, place eggs, honey, salt, yeast, sweet SD starter, and spelt flour.  Mix well with wooden spoon until smooth and lump free.  When you can feel some resistance and gluten development, then start adding the succanat.  When all the sucanat is is combined, then mix in the whipped butter.  This process takes about 1 hour by hand…

11:00pm - Place dough in lightly oiled covered container, place in fridge.

12:00pm - Lightly spray 5 ¼” diameter x 3 ¾” tall paper pannetone molds with spray olive oil or you can butter lightly if you like.  Divide dough into 2 equal portions, and place into molds.  Spray lightly the top of the dough with olive oils spray, place on pan and cover with saran wrap and proof overnight…  The dough is very wet and I think I overhydrated so I was unable to shape the dough into a ball…

11/28/13

10:40am - Preheat oven to 380F.

11:30am - When dough reaches approx ¾” from top of mold, bake in oven for 40 minutes or until internal temp reaches 190F…

Ugh…  This recipe was inspired by the Bruno Bakery’s Pandoro recipe from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking Across America…  This was a lot of work especially when you don’t have an electric mixer, and a lot of time.  Not sure if it was worth it, but at least it didn’t taste bad.  The texture wasn’t what I was after, the shreddy crumb of a pandoro made from high gluten wheat flour…  It was more cakey…  It tastes quite good toasted…

At the same time, I made another spelt bread using a spelt/rye starter, and all spelt for the final dough…  I’ll just say that it didn’t turn out well probably due to not bulk fermenting long enough…  I think I’ll wait awhile before I try a 100% spelt bread using only spelt flour, water, sourdough and salt…  I just didn’t like the taste…

Now on to the next thing…  Limppu and Ruisreikäleipä from Nordic Breads in NYC…  So I have been baking a lot with rye flour lately and remember an article from New York Magazine: Rye’s Rise: Loaves That are More Than a Vehicle for Pastrami: http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/09/new-rye-breads.html

I am fortunate enough to live in NYC and was able to find Nordic Bread’s rye bread Ruisreikäleipä at Dean & Deluca.  I got it just to try and see what it was like.  It’s 100% locally grown organic rye flour.  It’s quite soft, light textured, and sour.

So here is my attempt at Limppu, which simply means loaf in Finnish…  

The recipes that I referenced are as follows. more so the 2nd one:

http://flourandleaven.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/limpuu/

http://tofufortwo.net/2009/06/08/finnish-rye-bread-2/

For technique, I saw this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thaVEPbcT_w

I just think the word “limppu” sounds funny…  On a more serious note, I think that limppu is basically a 100% rye bread that is 75% hydration.  The sourdough starter is a rather liquidy batter in which approx 35% of the total flour is pre-fermented in in most of the total liquid...  Anyway, here’s what happened:

11/28/13

Rye SD - Freshening

50g - Rye flour

50g - Water

Whatever rye SD I had leftover, probably about 50g.

6:30pm - Mix SD, cover and let rest.

11/29/13

Rye SD

364g - Rye flour

700g - Water

50g - Rye SD from above

16g - Toasted spelt bread crumbs from the failed loaf…

1130g - Total SD weight

9:45pm - Mix, cover and let rest.

Final Dough

636g - Rye flour

50g - Water

20g - Salt

1130g - Rye SD from above

1836g - Total dough weight

6:30pm - Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon, place in covered container and let ferment for 3 hours.

10:00pm - Flour work surface well with rye flour, shape dough into a cone, place on parchment paper, cover with towel, let rest for 2 hours, or until surface is cracked.

11:00pm - Place baking stone on middle rack in oven along with steaming device, preheat oven to 500F.

12:00am - Bake for 10 minutes at 500F, then 80 minutes at 400F, then 10 minutes in off oven.  Internal temp should be approx 210F, and loaf should weigh approximately 15% less than pre-baked weight.  Cover in aluminum foil, then in kitchen towels and let rest for at least 24 hours.  I let mine rest for 2 days before cutting.

Notes:  I think it turned out well, but it was not as sour as I had heard that this type of bread could be.  The rye bread from Nordic Breads is more sour than my limppu…  Also, maybe I left the loaf in foil for too long as there were some strange spots on the loaf that I ended up just cutting out with a knife…  

I think the texture is good, but I think I could have let the loaf proof for longer so it flattened out more and developed more cracks and possible had a lighter crumb…  Anyway, I am relatively pleased with this attempt…

Until the next loaf…

Tim