Spelt yeast loaf, baked in a tin, kneaded gently
An everyday bread from spelt flour: lightly nutty, soft, with a tight even crumb, baked in a loaf tin with no shaping skills required. Spelt gluten is weaker and more fragile than wheat's, so the dough is kneaded briefly and gently, and it rises faster. Twenty minutes of work; the yeast and the oven do the rest.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Kneading 10 min
- Rising 50 min
- Into the tin 10 min
- Rising in the tin 40 min
- Baking 40 min
- Cooling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneStart the yeast
Crumble the yeast into a small bowl, add the honey and 100 ml of the measured lukewarm water. Stir and leave 10 minutes, until foam appears on top: the sign the yeast is alive.
Ingredients: 500 g spelt flour, white or wholemeal · 330 ml water · 12 g fresh yeast · 1 tbsp honey · 2 tsp salt · 2 tbsp oil
Yeast, honey, lukewarm water, foam after 10 minutesKnead briefly and gently
Pour the yeast mixture, the rest of the water and the oil into the flour and salt. Mix with a spoon, then knead by hand only 4–5 minutes, folding the dough rather than stretching it. It should be smooth, soft and slightly tacky; don't add flour.
TipSpelt gluten is more extensible but weaker and brittle: long kneading as for wheat destroys it and the loaf collapses. Five minutes of folding is enough.
Fold, don't stretch; slightly tacky is rightFirst rise
Cover the dough and leave somewhere warm 50 minutes, until nearly doubled. Spelt rises faster than wheat, so check after 40 minutes.
Nearly doubled; spelt is in a hurryInto the tin
Butter the loaf tin. Gently knock back the dough, fold it into a log the length of the tin and place it seam down. Brush the top with water and sprinkle with seeds. Cover and leave 40 minutes, until the dough reaches the rim. Heat the oven to 220 °C with an empty tray on the bottom.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp seed mix: sunflower, linseed, pumpkin · 10 g butter
A log seam down, water, seedsBake with steam, then lower
Put the loaf in, pour about 120 ml of boiling water onto the bottom tray and close the oven. Bake 10 minutes at 220 °C, reduce to 200 °C and bake another 30 minutes. Out of the tin, tapped underneath, a finished loaf sounds hollow.
TipHigh heat at the start gives a quick rise and a thin crust; the lower heat bakes the centre through without scorching the top.
Ten minutes hot, then thirty calmerCool before slicing
Turn out at once and cool on a rack 60 minutes. Warm spelt bread slices gummy; cold, it gives even, springy slices. In a linen cloth it keeps 3 days; freezes in slices.
An hour on the rack, only then the knife
Before you start
Half and half
250 g white and 250 g wholemeal spelt: a compromise between a tall loaf and the full flavour of the grain.
Seeds inside
Soak 50 g of seed mix in 50 ml water for an hour and add at the end of kneading. The loaf turns moister and denser.
It collapsed in the oven
Kneaded too long or over-proofed in the tin. Knead 5 minutes, no more, and bake when the dough just reaches the rim, not when it bulges above it.
