Spelt

I'm back! With a new kitchen, finally, and an oven that has big numbers on it, rather than gas marks. I'm getting used to it and have made a couple of fairly basic loaves, but today I'm using wholegrain spelt flour for the first time, from Sharpham Park.  (Incidentally, how amusing that the blogger spellcheck doesn't recognise "spelt", or "blogger", or "spellcheck".)

The other thing I've acquired is a solid Kenwood hand-held mixer, with dough hooks!

So, for today's bread, here are the basic ingredients:

300g wholegrain spelt flour
pinch of salt
1 glug of rapeseed oil
200g liquid, inc a tsp sugar and a tsp dried yeast

All mixed together at 1245. I used the mixer at first, then hand-kneaded for about 5 minutes. The dough is quite nice to work, somewhat lighter than wholemeal wheat. It's currently proving, and taking its time, presumably because of the weight of the grain.

At 1435 the dough had risen nicely (since my last post, summer has happened) and I've formed it into a kind of bloomer shape for the second rising. I'm intending to bake it on the stone, but without added steam.

Which is what I did, but oh bugger the bread had stotted quite badly, and was disappointing. Also, the taste ain't all that; it's not as interesting as wholemeal wheat or as sweet/nutty as kamut. But I've got most of a kg left of it, so will try again.