Saint Ronan's Bread

My serious bread making efforts have been going for a few years now, emphasizing sourdough and use of spelt and sometimes rye. These commitments have tended to be in tension with each other and with some of what artisan bakers want, like those gorgeous holes in a good French country bread - the spelt, with its lower and lesser gluten, doesn't want to do this quite so much. Still, with inspiration from Andrew Whitley in particular, I learned quite a bit and was producing bread with good flavor and crust at least. Along the way I also enjoyed making the no-knead bread from Jim Lahey, popularized by Mark Bittman a few years back.

Recently I put some elements of these methods together and have been pleased - almost astounded - by the success. The basis - and the first part, mostly - of this recipe is Whitley's "Cromarty Cob," a country-style wheat bread with quite high hydration (water content) begun with a rye starter, progressed with stretch-and-fold over a few hours, and proved in a basket. In the middle of the recipe, I changed the ingredients to 50% spelt. The last element, that has proven crucial, is borrowing Leahy's technique of baking the dough in a cast iron pot or similar, at high temperature. I've adapted the size of the loaf - it's slightly larger than either Whitley's or Lahey's - along with a few other tweaks.

1. Build the leaven
This assumes a stage 0., which is your rye sourdough starter. Combine:

150g starter
100g wholemeal spelt flour
100g all-purpose (plain) flour
100 g water

Mix this to form a very wet dough and leave until visibly active, but before it collapses. Under my present conditions I have made the leaven in the afternoon, refrigerated overnight and continued in the morning.

2. Make the dough and prove.

Leaven
1 Tbsp barley malt
350g water (or a little more, depending on humidity etc.)
250g spelt flour
250g all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

Dissolve malt in warm water, and add the mixture to the leave, stirring to disperse. Add the sifted flours and salt, mix well then turn out onto a wet surface and cover with the wet bowl. Leave for an hour (or a few), then stretch and fold the dough, rotating 90 degrees each time, until the dough is tight. Replace bowl, and leave to relax again. Repeat this process a few times, an hour or so apart. After the third or fourth time, dip or dust the dough in flour and place in a prepared proving basket or wooden bowl for final proof - an hour or three, depending. Try to keep the surface the same one onto which you brought the folds of dough earlier - the bottom of the dough will ultimately be the top of the loaf. The test of readiness for baking is when the dough is slow to spring back to your touch.

3. Bake
Pre-heat oven to 500F, 260C. Place a cast-iron dutch oven, or a ceramic or glass dish with a lid, inside to heat. When it is ready, working carefully, tip the dough from the basket or bowl into the dish, slash top and cover and bake for 30 mins. Remove the lid, reduce heat to 400/200 and bake another 30 minutes.