Spelt and Formosa Oolong Bread

This is a very simple bread to make.  I mentioned before that bread is a great medium to try out flavour combinations in.  This is because once you have the basic recipe for bread (800g loaf) which is:

·         500g bread flour

·         5g fast action dried yeast (1 tsp)

·         10g salt

·         300ml water

You can experiment to your heart’s content.  As long as the basic percentage (known as the baker’s percentage) is stuck to you can begin to infuse all kinds of flavours and ingredients.

For instance the 300ml of water I used in this recipe was brewed with Formosa Oolong tea leaves and left to cool until it was lukewarm before being added to the recipe. The 300ml of water required is basically 300ml of any liquid (except oils or fats) so you can add in tea, coffee, juice, milk, yoghurt etc.  As long as the quantity is for the most part kept to the recipe should work (although some bakers increase the liquid amount ever so slightly for a stickier dough and therefore softer crumb).

For the flour I used 300g wholegrain spelt and 200g strong white flour to make up the 500g of flour required.  Again you can use most bread flours, as long as the quantity is made up.  However, not all flours will act in the same manner, such as rye, which doesn’t really rise up in the proving stage the way strong bread flour does and gives a denser, but still very tasty, bread.

The more I work with bread the more and more I’m enjoying it immensely.  I say this because I’ve been in the routine for a while now producing bread weekly for family consumption.  I’ve even started my own sourdough starter which is something I had been thinking of doing for a very long time but was afraid of the commitment.  Because it is a big commitment.  At least it is from what I’ve read about cultivating one anyway.

I decided in investing in Bread (River Cottage Handbook No.3) by Daniel Stevens.  Actually I bought the whole River Cottage Handbook set (there’s ten books altogether) which I managed to get my hands on at a bargain price.  The first book I went for was Bread (I’ve not gone through the others yet) and it’s highly recommended.

The author’s writing style is very easy to follow, he doesn’t use any confusing or unfamiliar jargon and any he does use is fully introduced to the reader first.  His explanations on mixing, kneading, shaping etc is excellent and for someone like me, who has made bread before but is basically self-taught, so much fell into place and things just made a lot more sense.  Much of the information I’ve reiterated above is from this book.  You do feel like you are getting a personal tutorial from Stevens as he calmly walks you through how to bake good bread.

It is because of this book that I took the plunge to start my sourdough starter.  He didn’t make it seem as daunting as having a child to look after although he didn’t gloss over the fact that it is still a commitment to start as once it has begun then it will need to be ‘fed’ regularly.  He did mention ways of slowing the fermentation so that the feedings don’t have to be so often.  This is done by increasing the flour ratio until it becomes a dough (this type of pre-ferment is called a levain) and also keeping it in the fridge or even doing both.  If you have to go away for a while or you can’t keep up with the feedings for whatever reason, you can always freeze it for a while.

All this information was very useful to know and the encouragement I needed to get started.  At the time of writing it’s been about 20 hours with no signs of activity from my starter although this isn’t unusual.  It’s silly but I’m so excited about my new starter.  I really do feel like it’s something that is my own and I will need to care for and nurture, although I will draw the line at talking to it.  In public that is.

The one thing that I have stuck to from the very start of my baking bread is starting the dough at night.  I just find it easier to make the dough at night-time and leave it in the fridge to prove slowly overnight.  I’m pretty sure I watched that on a TV programme once and have done it ever since for convenience sake.  It means that when you get up in the morning you can knock-back the dough, shape it, leave it to prove for an hour, and then place it in the oven.  Although you won’t get your bread first thing in the morning, you will get it in the morning rather than the afternoon.

The flavour of spelt in bread is really showcased unlike in cake where it is masked to some extent by the amount of sugar and other ingredients.  This bread had a beautiful rounded nutty flavour that was infused with a mellow smokiness.  I thought the mild smokiness must have come from the oolong tea although it doesn’t quite taste like that when brewed, more between a black tea and a green tea but not as harsh as the former nor as ‘green’ as the latter.  However, I wasn’t sure if it was coming from the tea or the spelt or a combination of both.  So I set out to make this again replacing the spelt with wholemeal flour and leaving the oolong tea in the recipe.

Wholemeal Version

I used fresh yeast for the first time in the wholemeal version (made with 200g strong wholemeal and 300g strong white flour), and except for the crust, which was slightly thicker and chewier than I prefer, the crumb was incredibly soft and tasty.   

Wholemeal Version

The smoky taste was there but more muted in the wholemeal version, although this too worked very well with the oolong tea. 

The combination of the spelt flour and oolong brings almost dusky-smoky-nutty notes to the bread.  The complexity, such few and simple ingredients can achieve in bread baking, is simply fascinating.  I have been making this, in variations of spelt flour and strong wholemeal, constantly for the past few weeks as the perfect morning bread for toast.

Spelt and Formosa Oolong Bread

·         300g spelt flour

·         200g strong white bread flour

·         5g fast action dried yeast

·         10g salt

·         300ml Formosa oolong tea

Begin to make your dough at night.  In a large bowl, mix the ingredients together into a dough form.  Tip the dough out onto a floured or oiled (either/or not both) work surface and knead for at least 10 minutes until the dough is elastic and smooth.  You will feel the texture changing and the dough becoming easier (and more pleasurable) to work with.

Knead the dough into a round shape and place it into an oiled bowl (just scrape clean the one you mixed the ingredients in).  Cover it with a damp tea towel or with loose clingfilm (Stevens recommends covering it with a black bin liner) and leave it in the fridge to rise slowly overnight.

In the morning, take it out of the bowl and knock back the dough to diffuse it slightly.  Knead into your desired shape by bringing the outer edges into the middle and always placing the bread to prove seam side down.  Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for its final proving, about an hour (it should rise to, almost but not quite, double its size).  Wet the top of the dough with some water (use a pastry brush or your fingers) and sprinkle or push on some sunflower seeds.  Slash the top of the dough with a very sharp serrated knife (I always forget to do this!).

Preheat the oven to 250C with a baking sheet inside.  When you are ready to place the dough into the oven, take the baking sheet from the oven and close the oven immediately to retain heat inside.  Generously sprinkle some flour (plain flour will do) on the baking sheet and place the dough on top of this.  Sprinkle some flour on top of the dough (and/or seeds of choice - I used some sunflower seeds on the spelt and some sesame on the wholemeal) and place it into the oven.  Bake for about 20 minutes at the high temperature then lower the heat to about 200C and bake for another 30 minutes.  In total my bread took about 55 minutes in the oven.  Err on the side of over baking rather than under baking with bread.