Spelt Bread gets Ridiculous - Dinkelbrot
You've heard, I hope (maybe even from this blog), of the almost absurdly good no-knead bread popularized by Mark Bittman's NYT column, from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery. The delightful absurdity of this bread is the inverse relationship between effort and result - it is better than almost anything else you'll make, but requires much less work.
Well - a challenger has arisen for the title of the most ridiculously easy but delicious bread - and it's actually to do with spelt. I have been baking with spelt for some time - my more general reflections are here. I have also used spelt successfully for the Bittman/Leahy no-knead recipe - the photo on my piece about no-knead is actually a spelt loaf. Commentators often suggest that the structure of spelt doesn't respond well to the amount of kneading you would otherwise give bread (I remain uncertain whether the long process of development in that recipe is an ideal alternative for treating spelt, or whether I should leave it less time).
I had already come across an unlikely but intriguing recipe for Dinkelbrot, which is German for "spelt bread" but actually a much more specific kind of loaf than would result from just baking bread from spelt flour. It includes an appetizing variety of seeds for one thing.
But the thing I could not quite get my head around was that this bread not only didn't involve kneading, it didn't involve anything except mixing and baking. No proving. No stretch-and-fold. No windowpane test. Nichts. Mix and bake.
I wasn't convinced.
I left this alone for a while as I continued (as I still do) playing with other spelt recipes, but then I found another version of Dinkelbrot, similar to the first both in the cooking method and the mixture of seeds added for flavour and texture. This is from the London Daily Telegraph and had apparently become popular in Britain - but interestingly, despite the purported universality of the 'net, it wasn't circulating in the more US-focussed sites I knew. The recipe given below is close to that one.
Now I have taken the plunge and baked Dinkelbrot twice. It is great stuff, but ciabatta it ain't. A dense, rich bread with a fine texture, the naturally nutty taste of spelt brought out further by the seeds. A bread to have with cheese or cold meat perhaps, relatively thinly sliced, as Germans might for breakfast or lunch. Not like a dense German rye in taste, but you can imagine having it in the same times and places.
This bread is so easy that you might well feel vaguely uneasy about eating it. Surely more effort or know-how is required to get something as good as this? Or maybe I am working out what Mark Bittman means calling himself "The Minimalist". Minimalist bread? No-knead stand aside: this is it.
Dinkelbrot
500 g spelt flour
50g sesame seeds
50g sunflower seeds (or substitute pumpkin seeds, as you wish)
50g linseed (flax seed), or substitute one tsp of caraway, anise or fennel seed for part of the sesame or flax, as you feel moved.
2 tsps active dry yeast
500 ml warm water
Mix everything together. Bake it.(*)
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(*)OK, combine dry ingredients, add water and mix well. Tip into a greased loaf tin, smooth the top with the back of a wet spoon and slash the top (the top will burst out all over if you don't, and probably will anyway), and bake at 180C/350F for one hour, then remove from tin and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack.
I still prefer "Mix everything together. Bake it."
Well - a challenger has arisen for the title of the most ridiculously easy but delicious bread - and it's actually to do with spelt. I have been baking with spelt for some time - my more general reflections are here. I have also used spelt successfully for the Bittman/Leahy no-knead recipe - the photo on my piece about no-knead is actually a spelt loaf. Commentators often suggest that the structure of spelt doesn't respond well to the amount of kneading you would otherwise give bread (I remain uncertain whether the long process of development in that recipe is an ideal alternative for treating spelt, or whether I should leave it less time).
I had already come across an unlikely but intriguing recipe for Dinkelbrot, which is German for "spelt bread" but actually a much more specific kind of loaf than would result from just baking bread from spelt flour. It includes an appetizing variety of seeds for one thing.
But the thing I could not quite get my head around was that this bread not only didn't involve kneading, it didn't involve anything except mixing and baking. No proving. No stretch-and-fold. No windowpane test. Nichts. Mix and bake.
I wasn't convinced.
I left this alone for a while as I continued (as I still do) playing with other spelt recipes, but then I found another version of Dinkelbrot, similar to the first both in the cooking method and the mixture of seeds added for flavour and texture. This is from the London Daily Telegraph and had apparently become popular in Britain - but interestingly, despite the purported universality of the 'net, it wasn't circulating in the more US-focussed sites I knew. The recipe given below is close to that one.
Now I have taken the plunge and baked Dinkelbrot twice. It is great stuff, but ciabatta it ain't. A dense, rich bread with a fine texture, the naturally nutty taste of spelt brought out further by the seeds. A bread to have with cheese or cold meat perhaps, relatively thinly sliced, as Germans might for breakfast or lunch. Not like a dense German rye in taste, but you can imagine having it in the same times and places.
This bread is so easy that you might well feel vaguely uneasy about eating it. Surely more effort or know-how is required to get something as good as this? Or maybe I am working out what Mark Bittman means calling himself "The Minimalist". Minimalist bread? No-knead stand aside: this is it.
Dinkelbrot
500 g spelt flour
50g sesame seeds
50g sunflower seeds (or substitute pumpkin seeds, as you wish)
50g linseed (flax seed), or substitute one tsp of caraway, anise or fennel seed for part of the sesame or flax, as you feel moved.
2 tsps active dry yeast
500 ml warm water
Mix everything together. Bake it.(*)
-----------
(*)OK, combine dry ingredients, add water and mix well. Tip into a greased loaf tin, smooth the top with the back of a wet spoon and slash the top (the top will burst out all over if you don't, and probably will anyway), and bake at 180C/350F for one hour, then remove from tin and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack.
I still prefer "Mix everything together. Bake it."
Comments
Happy cooking :)