Dairy- Free Organic Spelt-Bread
Part of my stable diet is a good slice of my homemade organic spelt-bread which I always make with Hildegaard flour, a trusted organic German spelt as I haven’t been able to source organic spelt in Ireland yet. I got the recipe from a lovely lady Susan who had experimented a lot with baking spelt without yeast. I love this recipe because it is made with baking powder and aluminium free bread-soda so it is just a matter of throwing it together and into the oven.
I have to admit though that I have added a lot of different seeds and other little goodies over the years. I discovered that flaxseeds don’t lose their nutritious content when cooked due to that oily surface that repels water within the bread, as oil does. But I do soak the flax seeds for 20-25 min in filtered water before using them as I find the bread rises more when the seeds are soaked. So here is my recipe for 2 big breads – I make them and freeze them down in 1/3s and I usually toast the bread as it is a little bit heavy otherwise.
Spelt is a much more nutritious ancient grain but heavier as it as less gluten in it. Therefore it is also easier to digest. It is slightly sweet and seemingly makes you happy so if you have a tendency like myself to not feel great in the morning, this is a great pick-me-upper for the 11 o clock break after the obligatory green juice which I love first thing. I’ll write about that next week.
So the recipe is (see also pdf) Organic Spelt-bread has a lot less gluten in it so it shouldn’t be stirred too much.
500g Hildegaard Health organic brown flour sifted.
500g Hildegaard Health organic white flour sifted mixed with 2 teaspoons of organic (gluten-free) baking powder.
2 teaspoons of organic aluminum-free bread-soda then add 400g soaked for 25min in water organic flax seeds (also called linseeds) and options:
Two handfuls of organic sunflower seeds.
Two handfuls of organic chia seeds.
Three handfuls of organic desiccated coconut.
Three handfuls of raisins then add around 600ml of filtered water.
Water really depends on how wet your flaxseeds are, it should end up like a very thick but stirable porridge which you then put into 2 baking tins, I have some big bread tins but sometimes I use the round baking tins where you can loosen the sides Sometimes I add a few organic pumpkin seeds underneath and on top Bake at 200 C for 1hr- 1.20min.