So, I just re-bought the book Easy Bread Making for Special Diets, and I decided to try to make the egg-less Challah. I have never actually had Challah, so I am not sure what it is supposed to taste like, but it is Hanukkah, and was feeling like an adventure. I made my first loaf using unbleached, unbromiated, unenriched white bread flour, because I had some I needed to get rid of. It turned out amazing! Huge, and delicious; I couldn’t believe that I made it. It wasn’t that hard. So, because I don’t eat wheat most of the time, I tried the recipe again with white spelt flour. The dough was sticky and gooey. I should have re-kneaded it and added more flour, but I was in a hurry, and quickly braided it and through it in the oven to rise. When I came back to bake it, it was a big mass of dough, with no evidence that I had braided it. I baked it anyway, and it was a large, flat piece of bread. It was good, my roommate loved it, but I was disappointed. After seeing what I could do with wheat flour, I really want to be able to do that with spelt. I would like to do something similar with a gluten free bread, but we’ll see. I am going to try to make the spelt again, this time, I will make sure each rope is nice and distinct. I will report back.
This morning I tried to make the Raisin bread, but with currents, and half whole spelt instead of all white spelt. I put the bread machine on the wrong setting, and tried to start it over again. It started to smoke when it tried to bake the bread, so I took it out and baked it in the oven. It turned out pretty good, a little undercooked in the middle.
One of the cats that lives here bit me pretty bad on the hand, I believe because I wouldn’t let him into my room, but who knows. He punctured the meaty part of the base of my thumb, it is swollen and hurts to move. I don’t know if I will be making bread by hand for a day or so. I hope it is better by Tuesday, for the cooking class. There is little grosser than a cooking instructor who has a swollen, oozy hand.
Tags: bread, wheat alternatives
