Today we are going to make a homemade
spelt and black treacle yeasted bread
Great thing with this one we are working with some wholemeal spelt flour
And we are just going to give it a little bit of sweetness to it
using a little bit of black treacle
So with this recipe we are going to be using some fresh yeast
Don't get too hung up over fresh versus dried
A lot of it comes down to what you have access to and tradition
First time I ever made bread
I used fresh yeast
Dried yeast is much more concentrated so you use less of it
So if you use about 25 grams of fresh it would be 7 grams of dried
Fresh yeast will only keep
for about 2-3 weeks when you keep it in the fridge
Unlike dried weeks which will keep for 7 months
much more in line with the home baker who might only bake every now and again
So most recipes will always suggest that you must
dissolve the yeast in some water with a spoonful of sugar
That's an absolute myth
Because refined sugar is too complex for yeast to feed off
It does not need it. Sugar is generally
is added to the bread for flavour and for colour to help caramelise the crust
So with people being quite health conscious with their sugar levels
if you don't want to add simply don't add it
In an ideal world we simply just dissolve our yeast in the liquid
But if you are ever making bread and you have added in all the wet ingredients
and you realise you haven't added your yeast yet don't worry just crumble it in it will
work absolutely fine. So as always
when it comes to bread making always mix your salt
through your flour
So we've got 700 grams of wholemeal spelt flour
and we are adding 2 teaspoons of salt
which is about 10 grams
If you cook without salt your food is generally pretty bland
a little bit of salt heightens the flavour in everything else
same applies to bread it heightens the flavour within our flour
As I say we are going to use some black treacle
a generous tablespoon, if you don't have black treacle you
could quite happily use a little bit of honey or molasses
It just adds a lovely bit of lovely malted sweetness to our bread
which goes great with the wholemeal flour
Or alternatively if you don't want to add it depending on your own
flavour profile, don't add it at all
And then we are going to add 510 millilitres of water
And again you can can pour that straight in
And just to show you that you don't have
to dissolve the yeast in the water we are adding 15 grams of fresh yeast
and we are simply just going to crumble it straight in
Once are ingredients are all in very very simply
start bringing everything together
This is going to be a softer, wetter, dough
So if you kind of find your dough quite wet quite sticky don't
worry that's exactly what we are looking for
So once your ingredients roughly come together
Simply just turn it straight out on the table
Gluten is basic protein
gluten forms in flour once it becomes hydrated
At the moment the gluten is quite weak and you can build up the elasticity
and the strength in our dough and we do so by kneading
And the idea of kneading is you simply just stretch
and work the dough
So again you can see that the dough is a little bit wet
a little bit sticky
Generally everyones reaction at home is to immediately to reach for more flour
The thing is if you keep adding flour the dough will quite happily soak it up
and then the dough just becomes heavier and heavier
and the result the heavier your bread will be
So just stick with it you need to be persistent
So when it comes to kneading
I am simply just using the palm of my hand, a little short stretch
and pinning the dough between here and here
Just stretching and hooking it back
The great thing about working with spelt say versus
our common wheat, spelt actually requires less work
to come together so you actually tend to
under work it slightly
Where kind of generally your kneading time is about 8-10 minutes
You generally find with spelt
it needs less time to come together
So already you can see the dough changing
It's not going to dry out but it's certainly going to become much more elastic much
stretchier and that's exactly what we are looking for. Now if you do
have a mixer a Kitchen Aid or Kenwood
feel free to use it, the dough hook is going to do
exactly the same thing that your hands are doing
So with this dough because it is a little bit wet
and because spelt does have a tendency to kind of flow
and spread a little bit out
particularly as it proves and as it bakes we are going to adopt a slightly
different technique with this dough. So once it's
roughly come together it's not perfectly smooth yet
But it's kind of where we want it to be
we are just going to pop it back into my bowl
And we are going to leave it rest for about 20-30 minutes
So then after 20-30 minutes we are simply going to
take the dough
drop it straight out onto the table and we are going to incorporate a
stretch
and a fold
A bit like an enevelope
Just fold it from the top into the middle fold the bottom bit over
and left to right
Simply pop that back into our bowl and again let it prove again for
for about 30 minutes
So just for those of you who might not be familiar
with spelt
you've heard the name or you might have tasted it or you might have tried it
Spelt is wheat
It's packed full of gluten, you get a lot of misconceptions that it is
gluten free and it's not wheat
if people have wheat intolerances they can have spelt
yeah which is often the case they can
but it is wheat, it's a much more primitive grain
it's one of the ancient grains. You generally find people who do
tend to struggle with a little bit of wheat and gluten
particularly with the over processed flours
you find spelt much easier to digest
The chemical structures is a little bit simpler but you're going to find
that your going to treat it the exact same way
as you would your regular strong flour or your wholemeal flour
It works absolutely great
It's really packed full of flavour so really lovely flour to work with
Our dough has been resting for the last 30 minutes
So we didn't work it a huge amount to begin with
The idea is we are working with a softer dough
so we want to stretch it out and by letting it rest
allows the gluten to relax
your dough then is much more elastic, all we are simply doing
is folding it straight over
top to bottom, left to right
And simple going straight back into your bowl again
And now your going to let it prove for about an hour
At which time
we are looking at we feel our dough
you can see it it's lovely and lively nice little strength to it
So it's perfectly ready to be knocked back
Because as the dough is proving the internal temperatures is much higher
than the external temperatures so by knocking it back
we simply knock the air from it we equalise the temperature so we
stop the cycle and we start a new one
Because as much as we say the longer we prove bread the better
you can over prove it. So we are knocking it back, again
all you are doing is
trying to flatten the air from it
Bring in all the little edges bring it back together
So once our dough has been knocked back it's ready to be portioned
and to be shaped
So this amount of dough is going to give you 2 loaves so your looking at around
600-650 grams each, so if you are not used to portioning
dough feel free to use a weighing scales for a little bit more
accuracy. And you know exactly how much each dough is going to weigh
We are going to do one straight in a tin
and then we are going pop one into our little proving baskets
Just with the tin I've just brushed it with a little bit of melted butter
and then I am simply going to dust it with some flour
which is just to stop the dough from sticking
Feel free to line it with a little bit of parchment paper
depending on what condition your tin is in, this old tin
has been around for awhile, a bit like myself and still works great
We've got our little proving baskets and then just to stop the dough from sticking
we are just dusting with a little bit of flour so now we need to
shape one loaf round, simply just turn this straight over
get all your little edges
each one overlapping the last
round and round you go, you can see it's starting to curve around
Again I am not using too much flour
because the idea is I need the dough to grip the table
If you find your dough a little bit soft a little bit sticky feel free to use just a little
bit of flour on your hands
So simply then with your fingers pointing out
you drag them both towards you
It will try to rise up turn it 90 degrees keep the seam to the base
And repeat and each time you will feel the surface of the dough tightening
The idea of having the dough nice and tight
It means then it will rise with much more control. A little roll around
Then flour a little basket and simply going
straight in
upside down
A little dusting of flour on top
let it prove
Then for our little loaf tin
same thing again everything begins
from a round base and from there we can manipulate
change it, shape it anyway you like
So once we get to a rough round
Turn over take either edge. You are not ripping it
Just stretch out slowly, fold it
One into the centre
Pin it down a bit like an envelope fold it from the bottom
in towards the centre, just seal it down. You are not digging your fingers in, just seal it down
You keep continuing to roll over tucking it up
back in on itself
And roll it straight up
And that simply goes into our tin
Sealed side to the bottom
A little dusting of flour on top of each
And again we will leave them to prove
So just depending on the conditions on how warm your dough is
or how warm your kitchen is you are looking at about maybe 50 minutes to an hour
If you find that your dough is a little bit colder and proving a little bit slower
don't be afraid to give it an extra 15-20 minutes
So you can see that the dough is growing nicely
The idea of generally all your breads is you ever want to prove them 80%, the idea is
the last 20 will come in the oven it's called the oven spring
So the idea is your dough should have a nice little bounce
There is no fear of it touching it and it's going to collapse
If you kind of touched and you felt that the whole thing is going to sink you have over proved it
So the idea is you should kind of catch it on the rise
It hits the heat and it jumps
Most professional ovens are fitted with steam
The idea being
For the first 8-10 minutes of your bake your dough is still rising
If you were to bake this in a really dry heat there is a good chance
the crust will form before the dough has finished rising
And what can often happen is the dough forms crust it gets trapped in
and then the dough simply can't break through
or else you get this big bulge out the side so by having
steam in the oven allows it to continue to rise and to open up within the oven
So a great way in which to create steam at home
you simply get a roasting tray pre heated
Basically just been in the oven since I turned it on so it's red hot
Pop my dough in now I've got a boiling kettle of hot water
Which is going to help that blast of steam I want in the oven
And that bread is going to bake for 35 minutes
So another great way in which to bake bread at home
no matter
how kind of crappy your oven is
is to actually use like a casserole dish
Just simply all it is pretty sure everyone has one kicking around
at home
This one is just made out of pyrex glass
But you could use anything a wrought iron one
It's just something that is going to maintain the heat
A little bit of dusting of flour just so it doesn't stick
to the lid. So I take the lid of the casserole dish
And pop it literally on
the top of our bread and turn upside down
So with this one we are actually going to score it so when we are scoring
we use a razor blade please remember it's not a bread knife
you need to actually make a slash
It can be a little bit daunting to use a blade
but just be nice and confident don't be afraid to cut into your dough
And with this case all I am doing is taking the dome
or casserole dish and popping it straight on top
I don't actually have to steam my oven this time
It creates its own little chamber within the dish
And kid of self steams the dough
So our baking time will be a little bit longer
just because it takes a little bit longer to get the heat through
But again 230 degrees
Ok so our bread has been baking for the last 35 minutes
So you can see it's got that lovely little jump to it
A lovely dome finish
so before it started down here so it hits the heat and it jumps
So that's what gives it that lovely dome finish
So that is our beautiful 100% wholemeal spelt and black treacle yeasted bread
And then this one we are just going to give an extra 5-10 minutes
just without the dish
just help bake in that crust
And it's in the crust we have all that beautiful flavour
And straight out
You can see we have our two beautiful wholemeal spelt loaves
with black treacle, light as a feather
Because you get a lot of wholemeal breads that are quite dense quite heavy
But that is the whole of idea of working with those lighter wetter softer doughs
And despite the fact they are the exact same weight
Exact same dough they look like two different breads completely
So it's just a few different ways in which we can shape it
So we let these cool before we cut them