The second bread in the HBinFive April 1st Bread Braid, is Olive Spelt Bread. I don’t particularly like olives so I omitted them.
I made a free-form artisan loaf. However, once I tasted it, I realized this dough would make great sandwich bread. The addition of yogurt makes it very moist and delicious! I also like that it’s made with mostly spelt flour.
Spelt Bread with Yogurt
Adapted from: Healthy Bread In Five Minutes Olive Spelt Bread by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois
This recipe is easily doubled or halved.
I used a mixture of KAF all-purpose flour and spelt flour that I got from the farmer’s market. I couldn’t find plain yogurt the day I went shopping so I ended up using low-fat vanilla yogurt. It added a little sweetness. I liked it!
Ingredients:
- 4 cups spelt flour
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast, or 2 packets
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
- 2 cups lukewarm water
- 2 cups plain whole milk yogurt (or nonfat)
Directions:
- To make the dough, whisk together the flours, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a large bowl.
- Combine the water and yogurt and mix them with the dry ingredients without kneading, using a spoon or Danish Dough Whisk.
- Cover and allow the dough to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses, approximately 2 hours.
- Refrigerate in a lidded container and use over the next 7 days.
- On baking day, dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1-pound piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.
- Allow the dough to rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap, on a pizza peel prepared with cornmeal or lined with parchment paper for 90 minutes.
- Thirty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone on the middle rack and an empty steam pan underneath.
- Just before baking, dust the top with flour and slash the loaf diagonally with 1/4-inch-deep parallel cuts, using a serrated knife or lame.
- Slide the loaf directly onto the baking stone. Pour 1 cup of hot water into the steam pan, and quickly close the oven door. Bake the loaf for about 35 minutes, until richly browned and firm. Remove the parchment paper about two-thirds of the way through the bake to ensure the bottom is browned evenly.
- Allow the bread to cool on a rack before slicing or serving.
I really liked the flavor of this loaf. I tested it with my trusty peanut butter test and it passed with flying colors. I didn’t take a photo of the slice with peanut butter on it. I just ate it!
This bread also tastes good toasted and spread with Carrot Marmalade.
Great shape. I wonder what I did different that my bread spread so much. Did you let it rise at all or place it right away in the oven? Mine was haped nicely and than spread sideways during it’s 45 min. rise.
Hi Petra! I used the fold over method to shape the bread so it made it a little bit tighter. I did let it rise. I shaped the bread first, then made and baked the pizza so the bread was rising while I worked on (and ate) the pizza.
Plus, I didn’t add any olives in the bread. It might not have been as wet as your dough.
So funny because I considered adding Vanilla Yogurt too and wondered how it would taste! We so enjoyed the Olive Spelt Bread and I will be using more Spelt Flour in the future.
I think the Spelt bread is a keeper! That pizza looks delicious and I like the idea of adding some chicken to it.
I love that you used the vanilla yogurt. Would you do this again. This was a very wet dough, but I loved the texture and crumb.
Your bread looks so good! I have yet to make a free-form loaf that doesn’t spread and flatten so I love to see examples that prove it can be done. 🙂 Your pizza looks terrific as well. Great idea to parbake it first.
Yes, I will most likely use vanilla yogurt when I make this bread again. It’s really good! I loved the texture as well.
I’m beginning to really like Spelt Flour as well. Hope to be doing more with it.
Mama Peck, I’ve had trouble with free-form loaves spreading as well. I learned some techniques in the BBA Challenge to help prevent that. I’ll try to document that process with photos in one of my future HBinFive posts.
I’m liking the spelt flour breads, too. The olive loaf looks pretty. And pesto pizza sounds so good right now!
Your loaf looks great. Cathy, what else have you used spelt in? I wish I could love this bread, but it hasn’t hit me with the same overwhelming enjoyment that most of the group has expressed. I’m wondering if my flour isn’t up to snuff . . . any thoughts for me?
Cristie,
Is it the flavor or the texture that you don’t like about the spelt bread? It could be your flour or it could be that you just don’t like spelt. Or, maybe you haven’t found the right bread formula yet.
I just recently started experimenting with spelt. My first attempt was the 100% sourdough rye bread from the BBA Challenge. I made it with a mixture of spelt and rye flours, and it was a flop. Yuck!
My next bread was the HBinFive Pesto & Pine Nut Bread Bread which, as you know, is made with a mixture of white whole wheat flour, spelt flour and all-purpose flour. That bread tasted great and so did this one.
I used Arrowhead Mills Organic Spelt for the first couple of breads. This time, I used some spelt I got from the farmer’s market. I want to grind my own flour, but haven’t done that yet.
My plan is to keep experimenting with spelt to see what works and what doesn’t.
You might want to keep experimenting with it as well, but there are a lot of other breads/flours out there to love. No one says you have to like them all. 🙂
Your pizza looked great. I loved all the shaved parm on it.
WOW looks great all of it!!!
That pizza is TOTALLY making my mouth water! Love the parmesan topping. so perfect!
I thought the yogurt bread made it much more sandwich-y as well!
Cathy, Thanks for the lesson on spelt. I used Arrowhead Mills Organic Spelt as well. I’m just not sure what it was that went wrong with this bread. I used Greek yogurt, it is a great product, the same yeast I always use and quality olives. Go figure? I will not give up on spelt. Thanks for your wonderful words.
The pizza looks yummy. Love pesto! I made a more traditional pizza with the olive spelt dough and it turned out pretty tasty.
~Jenny~