fluffy spelt bread!

I've made this bread several times lately--it's really good when you want some sandwich bread in a relative hurry (i.e. you've no time to wait for your levain to resuscitate itself from its dormant state in the fridge). With this amount of yeast it will still take ten hours or so, but if you were in a super hurry you could speed it up by tripling the yeast. The disadvantage of making your bread this way versus with a levain is that it will stale much more quickly: you'll want to eat it up within three days, or make two smaller loaves and freeze the second one.

Quick and Fluffy Spelt Bread

750g whole spelt flour
525ml water
2T chickpea flour
2T oil (walnut oil's nice, if you have it)
1t yeast
2t salt
1t-1T honey (less if you're making savory sandwiches, more if you're eating it plain or making sweet sandwiches like the almond butter and bread and butter pickle one pictured below)

Start this before you go to bed if you want to have bread in the morning, or when you get up if you want to have it for dinner.

Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl. Stretch and fold two or three times over the next hour, and then let the dough rest, covered, for about eight hours.

Shape into one big or two small loaves (for one 9"x5" pan or two 8 1/2"x4" pans), put into greased loaf pans, cover with a tea towel, and let rise till a little more than doubled.

Bake for 40-45 minutes in a 425° oven.

canning fun

My friend Jennie came over for a day of canning--we made lavender peach jam (we cooked it till it was 224ºF this time, and it set nicely) and Yummy Banana Chutney. The chutney has to rest for six weeks before it will be truly ready, but it's already pretty yummy. The chutney had to cook for quite a while, so while we waited we had okara oaty bread and tomato eggplant salad for a treat.





The okara oaty bread was a regular soda bread incorporating the sludge I had left after making almond-hemp milk yesterday. I'm sure any similar stuff would work--genuine soy okara, or ground-up oats from oat milk....



Oaty Bread

makes 1 small loaf

160g coarse, wholemeal flour
100g all-purpose flour
1/2t each salt, baking soda
25g oleo
1 batch of okara
100g rolled oats
200ml soy yogurt, about--the amount needed will depend on how thoroughly you squeezed your okara

Heat your oven to 425ºF and grease a smallish bread pan (my 8-1/2" x 4-1/2" one is a little too big). Whisk together the flours, salt, and soda, and rub in the oleo. Rub in the okara, stir in the oats, then mix in the yogurt till everything's wet. Add more yogurt if necessary to get a nice wet dough. Spread it into the greased pan, cut a deep slash down the middle, the pop it into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes. It won't darken much, but should smell nice and sound hollow when you thump its bottom.

olive bread

My usual olive bread is a sourdough with a little bit of rye flour as its base, but I recently had a request for an olive ciabatta recipe so I decided to branch out. I made a couple of loaves of this--one for me and Rachael to sneak in to the movies, and another to take in for a work treat. Rachael didn't really like it (she's not a big olive bread fan in general), but it was a great success at work.

I usually measure my bread ingredients with a scale--as well as being more accurate, it's easier and less messy and makes for fewer dishes to wash--but have converted to volume measures for any scaleless readers.

Olive Ciabatta
makes 2 loaves

poolish:
180g bread flour (1 1/2C)
180g water (3/4C)
1/8t instant yeast

dough:
400g bread flour (3 1/4C)
25g toasted wheat germ (1/4C)
260ml water (1C +2T)
12g salt (2t)
1t yeast
2t fresh thyme, or 1t dry
225g unpitted olives (1 1/2C)--I used kalamatas because that's what I had, but use any olives you like.
all of the poolish

The night before you bake, mix the poolish ingredients together in a little bowl and let rise, covered, overnight till it's very bubbly.



In the morning, thoroughly mix together all of the dough ingredients except the olives. This dough will be very sticky, so if you don't want to use your mixer to knead it do as I did and stretch and fold* it three times in the first hour of its rising. Let the dough rise for about three hours altogether, till about tripled.

Meanwhile, smash the olives with the side of a big knife, then tear them in half and get the pits out. Let them drain on a towel while the dough rises.



Dump the dough out onto a well-floured counter and stretch out into a big rectangle (about 10"x14"), and scatter 2/3 of the olives over it. Fold the rectangle into thirds (like a letter), stretch a little more, scatter with the remaining olives, and fold into thirds again. Cut it in half and shape each half into a round, tucking in any exposed olives.



Let the dough rest for ten minutes, then stretch out into ciabatta shapes on a piece of parchment paper on a peel or back of a cookie sheet.



Veil the shaped loaves with flour, cover with a cloth, then let rise till very light, one to one-and-a-half hours.



At least 45 minutes before you bake, preheat your oven with its baking stone in it to 475°. When the loaves are risen, squirt them with water and then slide them onto the stone. After ten minutes, turn the oven down to 425°. Bake for about 25 minutes total, till well-browned and until the loaves' internal temperature is at least 205° (mine got up to 211° and weren't overdone).




*I just do this in the bowl, not laying it out on parchment paper, and stretch mostly lengthwise instead of making nice rectangles. It works just as well.

squash bread

I worked on Christmas, so had to bring something for our potluck. As I planned to spend most of Xmas eve day at Annie's, I needed to bring a dish that didn't take much time or advance preparation. I actually ended up taking two things--a pie made of leftover applesauce and cranberries from the previous week's latkes, and this very successful bread.



Squash Bread à la New York Times

makes one big loaf

800g all-purpose flour
300g pumpkin purée (I had it frozen, but canned would also be good)
400ml water
1t instant yeast (2g)
2t salt (15g)
200g raisins
150g chopped pecans
2t cumin seed
wheat bran

On the morning of the day before you plan to bake, mix everything but the bran together till there are no visible streaks of flour or squash remaining. Do a couple of stretch and folds over the next hour, then let it rise in a not-too-warm place till just before bedtime.

That night, scrape the dough onto a lightly floured counter and roughly shape it into either a round or oblong loaf, depending on what pan you plan to use to bake it. Generously cloak with bran, and set into an appropriately shaped dish (round bowl or oblong pan) sufficient to contain it when it's risen one and a half times and lined with a well-floured linen cloth. Rye flour, if you have some, has better non-stick properties than wheat. Put everything into a big plastic bag to prevent a skin forming prematurely on the loaf. If your house is warm at night, put in the refrigerator; otherwise, leave out on the counter.

When you get up preheat the oven to 425° with a 7 liter heavy, lidded casserole in it (I use this). If the dough's in the fridge, get it out and let it warm up. After an hour, carefully turn the loaf out into the hot pan, put the lid on, and bake for 25 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for another 25 minutes, or until its internal temperature is over 200° or it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.