Bread party, spelt loaves and a dino cake
I had a bread party in the office a few days ago and brought three breads:
The 60% spelt-emmer was the unanimous winner, which struck me by surprise. It was flavourful, complex, but I had assumed a little "heavy" for people who were not so much into wholegrain. The bread was based on the 30/30 levain/autolyse method I used for the spelt bread experiment conducted a few days ago, which I will now describe.
My father-in-law recently read that our Olympic marathon winner consumes only spelt bread, that everything else gives him a bad stomach while running. He asked me to make some wholegrain spelt breads for him to try, but to keep the % around 50 so that my mother-in-law, too, could eat (too much fibre is a problem).
I made two 60% wholegrain spelt loaves. One had all 60% pre-fermented using a double-build levain. The other had 30% pre-fermented using a single-build levain, and the other 30% autolysed for 12 hours in the fridge.
This is the one made with the double-build levain:
And this one is the 30/30:
As predicted the double-build levain loaf was more sour and had a significantly more complex flavour profile (my sister-in-law cut a slice thinking it was the family's everyday wholewheat bread from the bakery and commented "wow what is this bread??"). It was also harder to shape, and as you can tell, had a somewhat weaker structure due to the overall longer fermentation duration of the spelt. Both loaves were around 72% hydration and very fun to make.
Moving forward, I might play around pairing spelt with other ancient grains and see how the flavour profile changes. I find spelt such a complementary grain, and such fun to work with.
And finally we needed a birthday cake last weekend, and I was given the prompt "chocolate" and "marzipan". Not feeling particularly inspired, I therefore made a chocolate marzipan cake. Such fun rolling out the marzipan and making the dinosaurs. The cake is a basic dark chocolate fudge cake.
So there we have it. Final weekend of leisurely baking before the teaching semester starts next week. Might work on an oat bread.
Comments
Wow Lin, such lovely breads and a cake too! Think you're going to miss the baking when you're back at work.
When I first saw the pic I thought your rye would be the hit bread, since I've seen what you can do with rye.
For pairing spelt I can't help but think of Trevor J Wilson's comment that he likes to have a spelt:rye ratio of 2:1, like he discusses for his Champlain bread recipe. Even though your spelt looks grand!
-Jon
It was indeed a baking feast. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes - I'm surely going to miss the baking come next week, though I might still be able to sneak in an experiment every other week!
I, too, thought the rye would shine, but I was myself pleasantly surprised by how well the emmer worked with the spelt. It's funny. I've always seen emmer as a somewhat neutral-tasting easy-to-work-with grain, something I would sneak into the kid's soft pullman loaf for nutritional benefit. But when combined with the spelt it seemed to really shine (or maybe it really helped the spelt shine?). Perhaps it's time to add in the third farro grain, einkorn?
Thanks for the Trevor Wilson ref - the 2:1 spelt:rye ratio is definitely worth trying. All this calls for a grand speltathon bake - perhaps fitting before work rolls in.
-Lin
My own personal experience is that I've had a better time with einkorn than emmer! So, I'm excited to learn what you'll cook up when you try einkorn.
-Jon
Lin, I have had sneak previews already on the biga thread, so can only repeat the praise I have already heaped on the bakes there. But a cake too?! Looks amazing!
I am carrying on the speltathon. BF my 50% white spelt SD biga loaf, with an added 10% of wholemeal spelt with the bran sifted out and used for a hot soaker. Fingers crossed.
Will be keeping an eye to see how you (and Jon?) get on with Einkorn and Emmer additions.
It's great to experiment with ancient grains, despite (or because of?!) their challenges. I had found a flour when on holiday in Greece from a grain locally called Zea, which was very interesting to use. It is apparently often confused with spelt as it is similar to Italian farro, but it is apparently more closely related to Emmer. Managed to get up to a 30% with SD in freeform, but beyond that had to revert to tins, but the flavor was very nice. Some similarities but definitely different from spelt.
Thanks for your very nice words, Rene, and my fingers are firmly crossed for your spelt SD biga loaf. Please post the results soon!
Yes, I'm now quite eager to try the Einkorn given what Jon said; I do have an unopened bag waiting to be used. And how interesting to read about Zea. It seems to go by the same scientific name as Emmer, but wow - seems even harder to work with than spelt. I shall be careful with increasing the Emmer % in combination with spelt if not I will surely end up with bread soup (this loaf had 20% emmer and 40% spelt)!
-Lin
The spelt loaf (50% white, 10% wholemeal) has come out great. Lovely crumb, crust, oven lift, flavor, and dough handling. Super nutty and very little sourness, which made me think that maybe sometimes too much SD sourness can cover the very subtle flavors of the grains, which is one of the aims of baking with these ancient grain flours.
I'll report more fully on the biga thread with photos., but my next step in the experiment will be to see how much more wholemeal spelt I can add to this recipe.
What good news! And now I can un-cross my fingers.
I'll wait to read your updates on the thread. Fully agree that too much SD sourness can cover the flavours of these grains - they are extremely delicate. And if a stiff levain - or a biga, in your case - makes for less sourness and easier spelt handling, why not?
-Lin