Tag Archives: Spelt

November 27th, 2016

Marzipan Almond Stollen

Category Christmas Cookies, Special Occasions Tags: Almonds, Butter, Candid lemon peel, Candid Orange peel, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Korinthen, Macis, only with yeast, Orange, Spelt, Tonkabohne, Vanilla, wheat free 13 Responses

Spelt is a favourite and so I was regulary asked if my Stollen can be baked with spelt flour, too. I answered “theoretically yes” and decided to bake a Stollen with spelt flour instead of wheat, too. I like to have a practical background for those answers.

The dough contains only minimal changes to the regular recipe: I used a mixture of sultanas and currants instead of raisins and I reduced the amount of yeast, too. And I replaced the wheat flour with spelt flour, of course.

After three long weeks of resting time we cut the spelt stollen for the first Advent. And it was as moist and mellow as a good stollen has to be. Maybe it is a bit more mellow then the normal recipe, but that was the only difference I recognize. The different spices are stronger then the slight spelt flavour and I doubt that I could tell the spelt and wheat stollen apart when blind testing. And so I can tell now with own experience: Yes, you can bake a spelt stollen!

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November 22nd, 2016

Emmerich

Category Bread Tags: Emmer, Spelt, Sweet starter, wheat free 23 Responses

I call this Bread Emmerich. The name says it all: Emmer rich. And so is the bread: 50% freshly milled whole emmer flour in combination with spelt flour makes this bread so delicious. The name “Emmerich” has a second meaning, too. It is the name of a city in north Rhine Westphalia. And I often thought that this city needs its own Emmer bread when I read its name.

After the last rye breads I needed a mild bread for my stomach and so I choose as spelt variant of the Sweet Starter as preferment. The forgotten bag with emmer I found in the storage seemed perfect for me. And the bread turned out as delicious as I hope it would. It taste especially good in combination with honey or with a mild goat cheese.

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September 10th, 2016

Regensburger Kipferl

Category regional breads, Rolls Tags: [:de]Kümmel[:en]Caraway seeds[:], Öl, Pâte fermentée, regionale Brotsorten, Rye, Sourdough, Spelt, Wheat 13 Responses

Finally I can post the first recipe in the upcoming post series of “regional breads” and can tell you how I came to this idea.

It all started with an email from the Magazine “Ö”, asking if I could develop some recipes form different German regions for their September issue. Of course I could and shortly after I was whirlwinding in the kitchen, baking Eastfrisian Blackbread, Schrippen from Berlin, Cologne Röggelchen, Göppinger Briegel, Swabian Spelt bread and Bavarian Farmers Bread. At the end of the week the bread was stacking in my kitchen and some colleagues and family members would find anonymous gifts of bread or rolls 🙂 I sent the recipe together with some Gerstl to the photographer who bake the bread, too and took the pictures.

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August 24th, 2016

Spelt Mice

Category Rolls Tags: Biga, Butter, Egg, Milk, Nougat, only with yeast, Sahne, Spelt, wheat free 20 Responses

A reader told me about “Schulmäusen” (School mice), a small sweet roll filled with hazelnut praline. She tried to bake similar rolls in a spelt variant but struggled with them getting to dry. My brain worked a while on this idea in the background and came up with a recipe at the end – just in time for school start. As the name “Schulmaus” is a brand name, I decided to call my rolls Spelt mice and formed most of them like a mouse, too. But if you do not roll one end into a long tail, then you get the original form, too.

They are not a healthy snack, but a treat for small and big ones with a sweet tooth. The crumb is fluffy and the filling creamy – a good way to make school start a bit sweeter!

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August 10th, 2016

Vegan Spelt Hörnchen

Category Rolls Tags: egg free, lactose free, milchfrei, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, vegan, wheat free 9 Responses

I love “Hörnchen” the halfmoon shaped pastry made of sweet challah or brioche dough since my childhood. And since I made the delicious Kifle I catched the “Hörnchen” fever once again. And so it was out of question what the third recipe for my vegan “one for all” sweet spelt dough had to be. They can be baked with reduced or no sugar, too. Then they are great with hearty spreads as well.

To achieve the form of this soft, fluffy breakfast pastry it is important to roll the dough out into a long and very thin oval and then roll it up again with some tension. To prevent them from touching each other while baking I worked the dough in two batches.

For a shiny brown crust I used a glaze made from roasted starch and water and applied before and after baking. The shine of this glaze is nearly as strong as the traditional egg glaze. Optional sprinkled with poppy seeds, this “Hörnchen” are the perfect breakfast treat fitting not only for those with dietary restrictions!

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August 2nd, 2016

Malty Spelt-Emmer

Category Bread Tags: Emmer, Malz, Spelt, Sweet starter, wheat free 7 Responses

Since several weeks I have two packages of Emmer and Einkorn sitting in my pantry, waiting for me to create a recipe with them. But I was always to short in time as I had to do a lot of recipe testing for the upcoming bread baking courses and for a magazine article. And so they where pushed deeper and deeper into the depth of the shelf. Sorting my baking supplies brought them back to my mind, as well as a package of dark roasted malt. And so I decided to combine Emmer and malt in one bread.

As I did not want to use a hot soaker or water roux, I decided to use a hydration of about 70% and a long period of stretch and fold in combination of a cold fermentation. With the stretch and fold the dough gains enough strength and the long fermentation give the flour enough time to soak up the moisture. But nevertheless is this a dough on the rather soft side and so it is needed to flour the proofing basket very well!

Due to the dark malt, the bread develops are dark crust and crumb with a malty flavour followed by nutty notes of the Emmer. The sweet Starter which is the only leavening agent develops a deep complexity without any acidity. This is a bread which I love!

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July 23rd, 2016

Vegan Spelt Braid (One for All)

Category Bread Tags: egg free, lactose free, milchfrei, Öl, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, vegan, wheat free 12 Responses

I get the question for a sweet yeast dough without egg, milk or wheat regularly. Depending on the dietary restrictions I sent the readers to this, this or that recipe. A dough “without everything” was missing until now. And so I promised to fill this gap.

The recipe I designed is a aromatic vegan spelt dough. Similar to my favourite braid I used here a mixture of firm and liquid fat: vegan margarine and oil. And while in a butter braid the butter flavour is very prominent, in this recipe a oil made of roasted walnuts takes over this role.

The dough recipe is a basic recipe which can be used in many different recipes. I used it to bake this braid, vegan spelt Hörnchen and nut pastry. The other recipes will follow in the next weeks.

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July 10th, 2016

Spelt & Seed Sandwich Bread

Category Bread Tags: Biga, flaxseeds, Leserwunsch, only with yeast, Seeds, Semmelbrösel, Sesame, Spelt, wheat free, whole grain 24 Responses

This Sandwich bread is a readers wish. But I needed two rounds, until I was really satisfied. In the first Variant I had a boiled soaker with whole spelt flour and seeds, but this added to much liquid to the dough. This resulted in a very instable crumb. The recipe needed adjustments!

The bread (in both tries) is a pure spelt flour with 30 percent whole grain flour and amixture of flax seeds, sesame and sun flower seeds for an extra nuttiness. The preferment is a biga made from whole spelt flour. This has many advantages: the whole grain flour has enough time to soak up the liquid, a biga helps to strength the gluten network and it adds complex flavour nuances, too. As every sandwich bread this bread needs a fully developed gluten network, and spelt is a sensible. So it is needed to keep a close eye on the dough to find the perfect spot.

At the rerun of the recipe I used a bit mashed potato for fluffiness and a soaker with an only moderate amount of water. This makes the dough recognizable firmer, the dough is easier to handle and the fluffy crumb gets enough stability. So what was my lecture of this day? Sometimes less (water) is more!

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June 12th, 2016

Kekkis Everyday Bread

Category Bread Tags: Buttermilch, Kefir, Rye, Sourdough, Spelt, Sweet starter, Wheat 11 Responses

I like recipe tweaking – especially when this happens so spontaneously like here. Duríng a nice exchange about sweet starter the questions occurred how to add the starter in a existing and trusted everyday bread recipe. I offered help and Kekki posted her formula and the wishes for the new versions. The recipe sounded very good, made with Kefir or Buttermilk, 20% rye and 80% wheat. I exchanged the wheat sourdough with sweet starter and added a long, cold autolysis for the whole grain flour. And I baked the recipe directly, as it sounded so tempting. And I was not disappointed: The bread is very flavourful, with a hearty tangy note, good crust and soft crump. A true everyday bread!

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May 1st, 2016

Honigreingerl

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Biga, Butter, Cinnamon, Honey, only with yeast, Spelt, Wheat 13 Responses

I met Honigreingerl some time ago and they trigger my “Have to bake” reflex of immediately. They are small Austrian pastries which are filled with a honey and cinnamon mixture. In their crumb you can find many small openings filled with the flavour of honey and cinnamon.

Original the Honigreingerl are baked in a slightly higher form, but using a muffin tin and brioche forms work good as well. The dough is made with ten percent spelt flour like I used it in the Butterzopf recipe, as this makes rolling the dough easier. The other components of the dough are the “usual suspects”: Biga, some egg and butter – a guaranty for a fluffy crumb and good flavour. And so are my homemade Honigreingerl: a golden crust and a very fluffy crumb filled with the flavours of honey and cinnamon – a divine treat!

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