Friday, May 31, 2013

Spelt Whole Wheat or Dinkelberger Vollkorn


This month I baked bread using the pre-mixed flour given to me by Schmidt from Chiang Mai, Thailand. I choose Dinkelberger Vollkorn.

In this mix you find: spelt and whole wheat. As most of you know spelt is a very old type of grain. The Celts and Ancient Egyptians already cultivated it. Spelt emerged from the early types of wheat called in Germany einkorn or emmer. The spelt kernel is tightly surrounded by a grain hull, protecting it from pollutants, pests and during storage, from the loss of nutrients. Spelt contains the ideal combination of carbohydrates, fats, protein and dietary fiber. It has a nutty flavor and taste.

The original recipe uses baker’s yeast which I changed this for my own sourdough starter. I used the 100% sourdough starter. Normally sourdough gives the bread a slight sour taste, but it seems to me that using spelt this sourness balanced out.

I love to make artisan bread and love the shape made by hand. Normally I don’t use the bread pan but today is an exception. When I mixed all ingredients it became a soggy mass. The recipe said to mix it for 15 minutes, instead of the 5 minutes I’m used to. But, I followed the recipe. After 15 minutes it still was a soggy mass. I left it to ferment but couldn’t help myself and gave it 2 stretch and folds with wet hands. At the end of fermentation it was a well risen dough but still very sticky. At that time I decided to use the bread pan. On the top of the dough, I sprinkled flour. This broke open in the oven and gave the bread a nice appearance.


The crumb looks like a light version of dark rye bread, it’s moist, and smells very nice without sourness. The taste of this bread is mild which makes it bread for every day. 

Next time I will add some seeds such as linseed or sesame. It keeps the originality of spelt bread and gives it a little extra flavor. Such healthy flour doesn't need too much extras. 

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Turkish bread



We’re home again! We were in the Netherlands for 2 weeks to see our family and friends. It was great to be together and hug them all. Every two years we try to visit them. But, since our mothers are getting old (88 and 81) we hope to see them every year now. 
We were lucky, because Prince Willem-Alexander was crowned King during our visit. In Amsterdam there were many festivities organized for the royal couple, Willem-Alexander and Maxima, and their three daughters Amalia, Alexia and Ariane. It was a great celebration and we saw a lot of orange, the color of the Royal Family and the Netherlands, on the street. Off course we ate a lot of orange pastry.

some of the goodies we took home


When we were in the Netherlands we saw a multi-cultural melting pot of delicious food. We enjoyed it. All kinds of ingredients and dishes from around the world are now easy to find. We had delicious Turkish bread with hummus, a delicious Croatian dish of filo pastry filled with shredded pumpkin, homemade strawberry ice cream, white asparagus, fresh pasta with asparagus sauce, rolls with croquette, soft goat cheese and Dutch cheese, salted herring, Belgian fries, and of course other Dutch delicacies. The Netherlands have a long history of immigrants so most dishes are now regarded Dutch regardless of their origin.  

Ninive of Ninivepisces is the lovely host for Bread Baking Day #59. She came up with the theme: Bread for company. There are so many combinations of good food with bread as a company. This was a easy theme because we love Baba Ganoush and Guacamole and both go very well with Turkish bread. This bread was on my long list of breads to bake, so I had a recipe at hand.

It’s easy and delicious!