Dedicated to my sister, who gave me the recipe for my first bread, which I still make often, and think of us both making it when I prepare the dough.
Adjusted olive spelt recipe from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. Photographs of this bread are below.
Purchases
The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast $20
Barnes and Noble membership $25 - purchased as held onto a list of about 10 bread books that could well be purchased over the next year.
(Do not wish to have bread books on a tablet or other device because sometimes open a few at a time when contemplating recipes.)
Ingredients
2 cups spelt flour
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 tsp yeast
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (prefer with the fat)
1 cup water
Note: Left out from the recipe the 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten and the 1 cup olives. Also adjusted yeast and baking instructions.
Instructions
1. Mix dry ingredients well.
2. Mix in yogurt. Prefer whole milk rather than nonfat.
3. Mix well to get all of the flour. Mixing is easy as the dough is wet.
4. Cover loosely with plastic. Leave out for 12 to 18 hours. See if dough has risen and has some small bubble-like holes formed. Left mine out for 15 hours in a cool kitchen. Warmer the kitchen, the less time the dough will need.
5. Next day the dough was still wet and added a little whole wheat flour.
6. Spread flour onto a board or countertop and cover dough with a thin layer of flour. Put dough on board and flatten gently. Fold in three parts as if putting a large piece piece of paper in an envelope. Fold in half. Let sit for 15 minutes.
7. Though recipes say to cover loosely with plastic to prevent drying out, this dough needed some dehydrating, so left it uncovered.
8. In large bowl. spray non-cook spray and cover with nice layer of flour. Place dough in bowl and let sit for 60 to 90 minutes. Will not rise much. Again, skipped the loose plastic or kitchen towel to cover. Wanted the dough to dry out as much as possible as it remained quite wet.
9. At one half to one hour before baking, put top of la cloche in oven on top of baking stone (my baking stone remains in the oven 95 percent of the time). Let them stay in oven as it gets hot. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
10. With still wet dough, added a little more whole wheat and shaped into a boule. Cut slashes into dough with bread knife. No movement is necessary. Just cut into dough about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in one motion. Do not slide knife as if cutting a slice of bread. This is literally a single motion of putting the knife sufficiently into the dough. (If this does not work, eat a tasty bread and try this again with another one.)
11. Put dough onto parchment paper (instead of directly onto baking stone) because it was wet and had little confidence it would fall onto baking stone without great mess. Placed dough-on-parchment-paper onto baking stone and covered with la cloche top. Left in at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.
12. Reduced heat to 450 degrees and left dough - with la cloche top on - for 15 minutes.
13. Removed la cloche top and left dough in oven for another 10 minutes.
14. Take that beautiful bread out of the oven. Mine was crackling, a lovely sound in a quiet and warm kitchen. Immediately ran out to farmer's market with a smile.
Christmas music playing
Maybe it's the cheesey Christmas music playing or the fact that family will be visiting soon, but there is confidence building with each bread.
And how does this spelt beauty taste? Very nice indeed. My husband and Brad enjoyed it. It crackled when first cut. Ate so much, need to make another bread dough for the week. Here's how the spelt beauty looks inside and out.
Look at those wonderful holes. And the crust? Marvelous.
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