Bread: Number 58 - Spelt/Rye on Okay Combination

I tried this recipe three times and three times it never got beyond mediocre. More than the rising and other issues I worked out, the taste combination just did not work. It was as if the heartiness of the rye and the natural almost sweetness of the spelt cancelled each other out. Perhaps also this continues my sub-par experience with the book the recipe comes from. Though there are nice grain and seed combinations in Wild Sourdough and I do like some of her baking wisdom and grain information, it's not working for me as a source of inspiration or great breads. [Note that the link is to my book review page and this review is toward the bottom. Here's a link to the book.] 

What I did like about the recipe and the one good aspect of the taste was the sourness. The dough includes 300 grams of rye starter, which comes to approximately 20 percent of the total flour. It is a 3:2 starter - three parts water to two parts flour. It took about a week to build it up to 300 grams, so in addition to the effort and attention to making the bread, I spent time all week making sure to have the right amount of starter. No matter, I used the leftover rye starter in my starter hibernation-rejuvenation experiment. Not a loss.

And truth be told, it was not a bad bread, just not really good or great. Still, after three tries, not worth another one. I'll quickly relate the ingredients and instructions. I'm also collapsing the three tries into one narrative because who wants to read or write the details of three mediocre breads of the same ilk.

Ingredients
300 g starter - 3:2 ratio of water to flour 
250g water 
500g spelt flour 
(on the third try, I ran out of spelt flour at 405g and added 50g bread flour and 45g whole wheat flour)
15g salt

Instructions
Mix all ingredients at once. Let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. The Wild Sourdough author recommends a kind of air-and-slap kneading, but I did a combination of kneading and stretch and fold, very little because rye is fragile and does not tends to be best when left alone. Perhaps that was part of the problem here. 

You are supposed to check the dough after another 30-minutes rest, but the recipe fails to provide advice for what to do if the dough is in any way inadequate. Rise for four to six hours. Well, mine in a 65-to-70 degree kitchen was clocking in at nine hours when I finally said - enough, I want this bread made before I go to sleep. I even filled a bowl one-third way with hot water (not terribly hot) and put the dough bowl inside the water bowl so that the dough would get some warmth. It worked and the dough rose and prospered. 

Turn on the oven
At a random time beyond six hours I wasted energy (mea culpa) by turning on the oven and keeping it on - way above 400 degrees - just because I did not know when the dough would be ready. When your kitchen is not at an absurdly cold or hot condition, shouldn't the dough be ready within the range of times given in a recipe? Just got cranky about the whole method recommended and came down to earth because rising times can vary considerably. Many recipes afford six hours of variation in a long rising time and I don't get snitty about that, after all.

Shape and bake - or not
I tried this recipe following and not following the instruction to shape and then bake. No joke, just an instant thought of shake-and-bake 70s bad food that my mother refused to buy and I was curious about, even desiring, at the time in a nine-to-14-year-old way. Shape and bake did not work. I tried stretch and fold, leave for 15 minutes, shape and rest for an hour. No difference. And the results either way were none too impressive upon doing the finger dent test.

Bake and taste
Preheated the oven to the recommended initial heat of 455 degrees, but also tried 500 for the initial phase, though that was not a trial run but rather a mistake. After 10 minutes decrease to 410 degrees. About 45 minutes total. None of the various methods or mistakes produced a wonderful bread. 

Alas, who wants 108 great breads? The choice when deciding what to make would be overwhelming. It's preferable to have some lousy ones so one can remain humble, not consider oneself a bread-head genius and not be deer in the headlights with possible selection overload. Really, it's like being thankful for a bad haircut, but not one where you've had the beautiful tresses shorn off only to decide that a pixie is not for you. That is a disaster. 

Update: Defrosted the half of the bread I had put away and on a second try (or maybe that's a fourth try), it actually tasted pretty good. Nice whole grains and a good sour from the large percentage of starter in the dough. Really enjoyed it.





 

Bread - Number 34: Falling in Love with Spelt

Bread #34: Long fermentation = amazing depth of flavor

In the arbitrary determination of a do over, I made a 100 percent spelt bread from the Wild Sourdough book twice and drastically changed everything but the ingredients the second time. Though called a wholemeal sourdough sandwich bread, neither the recipe nor the final product struck me as particularly connected to sandwiches.

I cut the recommended starter amount from 250 grams to 10 - no kidding - because I wanted a long overnight rise during a Washington, DC, October heatwave in which the house stayed at 80 degrees all night (26.7 degrees for the Celsius folks). Than I added 125 grams each of flour and water to substitute for the reduced starter amount. Also, it takes me four days to a week to build up so much starter and I did not have anything near the requisite amount on hand.

The next departure from the recipe was to autolyse all of the spelt flour and water before mixing the dough. The second time around, I did not even knead. I used stretch and folds. The result was perhaps the best bread I have ever made.

Ingredients
295g water - 67 percent
445g spelt flour - 100 percent
10g starter (mine is a rye right now) - 2 percent
1.5 tsp salt (I never weigh it) (probably 2 percent) (I have to admit it was the bottom of the salt box with much smaller crystals, which resulted in a somewhat saltier bread, though not too salty. I should start weighing the salt as well.)
[Later note: I generally now add about 2 percent salt, so for this nine or 10g of salt.]

Instructions

Autolyse
Mix the water and flour thoroughly. Let stand for 20 minutes. Cover with plastic.

Dough
Mix into the water/dough mixture the starter and salt. Cover with plastic. Let stand for 15 minutes. Do the first stretch and fold. Do another stretch and fold, 15 to 20 minutes later. Cover in the interim.

Shape and leave to rise overnight. This was a warm kitchen - 80 degrees all night. I left the dough out for 11.25 hours. Cover with plastic.

Baking preparation

When the dough is at or just past peak, ready for baking preparation, there is still about an hour and fifteen minutes before the dough goes in the oven. 

Take the dough out of the bowl. Do a stretch and fold on a well-floured board. Leave for 15 minutes to rest. Make sure the dough is covered so that it does not get dry or at all crusty.

At 15 minutes, shape the dough and put it in a well-floured towel or on parchment paper in something that will hold the shape. This is not a big issue because the hydration percentage is 67 percent, which is not too wet. Cover the dough and let sit for an hour. Some say 90 minutes.

In this situation, I generally bake my doughs after letting the shaped dough sit for an hour. Somehow I have never mastered the finger dent test, which is supposed to indicate when the dough is ready to bake. Some say doughs need 60 to 90 minutes, but I always get wonderful oven spring with just 60 minutes. My kitchen is warm because of the warm climate for six months and, even in the winter, when I have the oven blasting at 450 to 500 degrees, heating up, this makes for a toasty kitchen - a nice, comfy place for a dough to have that final rise before baking.

Baking
An hour before baking, preheat the oven to 455 degrees. I heat the top of the la cloche or the whole oblong la cloche in the oven as well so that it is hot when the dough is placed in the oven.

Place dough on baking peel in the hot oven. Best if cover with top of la cloche. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 420 degrees. Total oven time of 45 minutes. There is not much lovelier than the sight of a good oven spring and the excitement and anticipation of the couple of hours while the bread cools.

Breakfast of fresh bread
Maybe it was the nice, leisurely morning of hot water, butter and bread. Maybe it was the look of the pretty bread. Maybe I am a secret spelt lover. Maybe it was just that trusting my instincts resulted in a beautiful loaf. This bread was OMG incredible. With my husband away, over the course of a few days I ate this loaf all by myself and I was glad not to have to share it. Absolutely loved it and will have to make this again soon.

I did not slash the dough or put brush the top with water and it still came out so well. Maybe I don't need the cross on top.