Hello my dear readers,
How about a deliciously crispy spelt bread for breakfast, made only with sourdough, without any yeast or other ingredients? With a great crust and unique taste? This easy recipe for a pure spelt sourdough bread will surely please you. It takes a little time - but almost all of it is spent on rising.
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About this recipe
I have noticed it myself in recent months. Once you have baked spelt bread without yeast - that is, with your own sourdough - you don't want to go back. In the meantime, I have my own sourdough starter (here are the instructions). Home-baked bread tastes so much better than store-bought. That moment when you take the bread out of the oven, the crust is wildly cracked, the crumb is moist and soft, and the smell of freshly baked is wafting through the kitchen is unique!
Taste and Occasion
Almost every child in Germany grows up with sourdough bread. You can buy a variety of sourdough breads at any bakery. A classic German dinner, for example, is sourdough bread with various toppings, such as cheese, sausage or other vegetarian / vegan spreads. Add some sour pickles 😉 But sourdough bread can also be great to take along for hiking or other excursions. Sourdough breads beat those that are baked with industrial yeast, taste by lengths and are also longer shelf life.
Ingredients
The star of the recipe is of course spelt flour, the bread is baked 100% from this flour. Sourdough is used as the leavening agent. If you want to know how to make sourdough, read my sourdough recipe.
How to make the Spelt Sourdough Bread
You start with good timing: the bread will take a total of 1 day and 3 hours, On the baking day itself you will need about 2 hours plus the cooling time.
Preparing the dough
The first day before baking you first prepare the dough: to do this, dissolve the salt in the water and knead all the ingredients in a food processor with a kneading function or by hand to a uniform dough. The dough is ready when you can easily remove it from the edge of the bowl or when it separates by itself.
Then put the dough in a bowl, and cover it with a damp cloth.
Resting time begins
Now you are done for the first day. Let the dough rest for 24 hours at room temperature. Look in every 6-8 and stretch and fold the dough. After 24 hours fold the dough one last time, take it out of the bowl and carefully form it into a ball. Make sure as little air as possible escapes from the risen dough.
Then, with the side you folded facing down, let rise for another hour at room temperature in a well-floured proofing basket. You do not need to cover the dough with a cloth. If you don't have a proofing basket, a bowl lined with a floured cloth will do.
Now it's time to bake
Heat the oven, including the Roman pot or Dutch oven, to 250°C / 480°F.
Once the oven is well preheated, you can put the bread into the pot with the end facing up. Put the lid on and bake at 250°C / 480°F for 10 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 230°C and bake the bread for another 30 minutes. Finally, bake for another 10 minutes without the lid. During this time the crust will be best thing brown and crispy.
Now the bread is as good as done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool on a rack before cutting it. The bread should be able to breathe all around.
Top Tips
There are a few things to keep in mind when making spelt sourdough bread:
Why is Steam so important?
Steam is essential in bread baking. This results in your spelt bread developing a best thing crust. You can achieve this either by having an oven with a steam function or by placing a heat-resistant bowl of hot water in the oven. In this case, I advise you to also use a pizza stone, as it will continuously give off heat to the bread as it bakes.
The problem is that most ovens without a steam function are too leaky to hold the steam from the peel for long. It works better if you bake your spelt bread in a solid, closed pot. There, the spelt bread can bake in its own steam. In addition, the walls of the pot give constant baking heat to the dough.
I use a Dutch Oven (a heavy cast iron pot) for baking. You can also use a classic ceramic Roman pot or a metal roaster. In a pinch, a heatproof saucepan with a lid will also work. Basically, the more solid the part, the better.
How accurate are the rising times in this recipe?
The times given are only guidelines, since the actual rising time depends on various factors that are never the same (room temperature, moisture content of the flour, etc.) Therefore, it is best to follow the finger test. It's easy to press a finger about 1-2 cm deep into the dough. Within 10 seconds, the dough should shrink so much that only a small indentation of a few millimeters remains. Then the bread is just ready to bake. If the indentation does not form (almost) at all, the bread is already overproof. If the dimple springs back almost immediately, it still needs to rise a bit.
And how accurate is the baking time?
The baking time can vary depending on the oven, the temperature of the dough and other factors. The easiest way to check if your bread is ready is to use an oven thermometer. Simply insert it into the bread when you remove the lid. Thermometers are heat resistant and can stay in the oven until the bread is done. When the core of the bread is between 96°C and 98°C, it's perfect.
And now I wish you good appetite and lots of fun with your homemade spelt sourdough bread without yeast!
Recipe Card
Pure spelt bread with sourdough
Ingredients
- 700 grams spelt flour, type 630
- 465 milliliters water
- 20 grams salt
- 14 grams sourdough starter
Instructions
Preparation
- Dissolve the salt in the water and knead all the ingredients in a food processor with a kneading function or by hand to form a uniform dough. The dough is ready when it can be easily separated from the edge of the bowl, or when it separates by itself during mixing.
- Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Then let it rest for 24 hours at room temperature. Stretch and fold every 6-8 hours. After 24 hours, fold the dough one last time, take it out of the bowl and carefully shape it into a ball. Make sure that as little as possible escapes from the gas.
- Then let rise, end (the side you folded on) down, for 1 more hour at room temperature in a well-floured proofing basket. You do not need to cover the dough with a cloth. If you don't have a proofing basket, a bowl lined with a floured cloth will do.
The baking
- Heat the oven together with the Roman pot or Dutch oven to 250°C / 480°F.
- When the oven is well preheated, put the bread into the pot with the end facing up. Put the lid on and bake at 250°C for 10 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 230°C / 450°F and bake for another 30 minutes. Then bake for another 10 minutes without the lid. During this time the crust will be ideally brown and crispy.
- Remove the bread from the oven and let it cool on a rack before cutting it. The bread should be able to breathe all around.
Notes
Ingredient substitutions
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About Kathrin & Jan
It's like a little miracle to me every time. Seemingly simple ingredients are made into something that can brighten up your life. Butter, sugar, eggs, and flour melt into an airy biscuit, a fine tart, a juicy cake, or a crispy biscuit. Baking simply makes you happy. Welcome and enjoy our blog!
Kathrin & Jan
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