Making My Own Bread with Organic Spelt Flour.

Baking Healthy Bread.

In a odd way, making your own bread is in some ways similar to growing your own food.  You learn by experience and often that can be a case of building up knowledge by series of trial and error attempts, until you get a good result more often.  Hopefully when making bread there are not as many 'wild cards' and uncontrollable variants and conditions as there are with growing fruit and vegetables.

I make my bread with spelt flour, so when I am baking I have to adapt and make adjustments to the basic formula/recipe,  but the way I make it does not vary greatly. In the beginning, I tried different recipes and techniques, now  though I know what works best for me and the loaves I am baking. This saves time as I can just measure out the same quantities of the ingredients without looking at a recipe. I can also go to do other tasks while the mix has to be left to prove instead of standing in the kitchen (like some anxious mother hen watching over its chicks).

About Spelt.
Spelt is a type of wheat  that some people find it easier to digest than the more modern wheat varieties.
Spelt does contain gluten so is not suitable for anyone on a diet that needs to exclude foods that contain gluten.

For me the difference between eating shop bought bread and my own home baked spelt bread is immense, the taste and texture is far superior and for me it has the added benefit of not causing the digestion problems that most of the shop bought breads cause.

How I Got to Make a Good Loaf of Bread with Spelt Flour.

Getting to the stage where I could make a good quality home baked spelt loaf was a journey of learning by attempting to improve each loaf I made. The first loaves where edible but had things about them that made me make adaptions to the recipe or baking technique. I thought about what was not right, each time I tasted the loaf of bread I had made. My early baking attempts included not enough salt, not enough sugar/honey, not leaving it in the oven for long enough, incorrect oven temperature and not leaving it to prove for long enough.

Now, after following various different spelt loaf recipes I have found the one that works best for me.

I arrived at this by knowing my early attempts needed improvements and then I started by reading chapters of bread making books, talking to people who had made bread. I also  and made minor adjustments to the ingredients, cooking times/temperatures and adjusting the methods used to mix, knead, prove and bake a loaf.

I do not always buy the same brand of spelt flour but I do prefer to use the organic flour if I can get it. Making my own spelt bread is not a money saving option, it costs more than buying a loaf of bread form the supermarket. Quality rather than quantity is what makes baking my own bread worth the time spent and cost of the ingredients I use.