Karin's Aroma Bread gets Tipsy

When Karin posted her Aroma Bread, I promptly added it to my bucket list. This was one bread that I had to try out. With my family putting an embargo on nuts, seeds & grains in bread, I had to put it on hold. Later dabrownman posted his version1 and version2 of this tantalizing bread, nudging me further. Yesterday marked six months of my starting to bake bread (one attempt in 2006 is not counted). What started on a lark or more out of my love of trying a new gadget (bread machine in this case), has come a long way and become way too much fun & serious. It is no longer about playing with an appliance - I have actually realised that I love the feel of sticky, squishy dough and watching oven spring on bread has become an infinite sense of pleasure and accomplishment. So I decided to make this bread only for myself and what I would love in a bread if only I was to eat (no worries about rest as I have made Leader's Semolina Sandwich Bread for them).

I decided to go with IY as it has been a long time since I have made a bread with commercial yeast, YW being my staple these days. Sorghum was my choice for whole berries, but I cooked them in rice cooker instead of cold soaker in Karin's recipe.

For the aroma spice blend I toasted 2 tablespoons of coriander seeds, 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds & 1 teaspoon on schezwan pepper and used my grinder to powder them.

After putting my berries to cook, I made a short trip to grocery store. While roaming the aisle, I chanced upon Kirin beer from Japan, which is pretty good. I though using Kirin beer in Karin's bread (corny, isn't it?) would be perfect. So that became the liquid. After reaching home, I measured the can contents and they came to around 325 gms. I was thinking of adding a slight sweet note to bread, where you can't taste the sweetness, but will balance the spices and beer. So Coca cola want in to bridge the deficit of 150 gms.

When the berries had cooled down and beer+cola had chilled, I mixed up the dough. I didn't have coarse cornmeal, so went with coarse semolina. I forgot Karin's instructions & put the cooked berries along with dry stuff at the outset. No idea how it affected the bread, but will remember next time.

My dough was ready in around 6-7 hours, but I had time to proceed only after 8 hours. As I am fairly confident of forgiving time lines of no knead bread, it was not an issue. Folded over the dough in 4 folds and kept it to proof in a linen towel in a colander as my round banneton is too small. Pre heated my claypot at 250C. My second proof was 30 minutes as usual. Kept in claypot with lid on for 30 minutes and then without the lid for 25 minutes with oven turned down to 230C. And yes, I once again attempted to score!

Excellent oven spring and nice crispy crust. It has survived my shaping & scoring quite well. Kept it to cool overnight & sliced today morning. The crumb :

I ate it as is, toasted and with EVOO. The spices, the seeds and berries and the nuttiness of spelt is superb. Not sure if beer & cola made any difference as I cannot recognise them, but I have not made this without them so wouldn't know.

If all things on my bucket list are this good, I better start ticking off items soon! Thanks, Karin, for  this one :)