Spelt Flour | Research Level

SPELT

The soft flavours of spelt lend themselves to honey, sunflower seeds and yogurt. Making 100% sourdough boules with spelt flour can be challenging.  I don’t even try it.  It feels wrong.  It’s like trying to get a classic car to go 100mph; it shows a total lack of understanding about how to coax the best out of an ancient grain. To understand the charm of spelt is to increase the flavour, openness of your crumb structure, and increase the flavour of your bread.  I use this flour in all my bakes to blend with.

Spelt is the mother of all bread wheat. In biological terms its grandmother is Einkorn and its mother is Emmer, and so this is the moment at which things changed because until this point the flours made with these ancient grains were not “strong.” Just remember though that Neolithic man wasn’t celebrating big holes! We will discuss more about spelt and explain more about the nuances of the protein.

You can, if you want, change your starter to spelt this week.  Please see the video below. To convert just change your flour in your existing starter, but be warned it is faster and you need to change the timings and temperature of your refreshment process!

 

	Lesson	Lesson Type	Time (mins)	What you will learn
1	Spelt	Feature		Feature on spelt
2	Change your starter to Spelt	Task		Spelt is trickier...but amazing to use
3	The differences in the composition of flours	Background Knowledge		Examine the differences in the composition of flours
4	TASK: Honey & Spelt Tin Loaf	Task		How different brands behave differently.
5	A Spelt Focaccia	Classic Recipe		A large family size Spelt Focaccia
6	Spelt dog biscuits	Classic Recipe		Dog biscuits use up the discard
7	A recipe for Spelt Waffles	Classic Recipe		Use up your discard
8	A podcast with John Letts	Background Knowledge		A wonderful podcast from 2012 full of great information
9	A study on the nutritional Values of Spelt	Research		The nutritional analysis of spelt