Spelt Challah – 2, Angie – 0

I just tried to make the Challah with spelt again, and it didn’t turn out like I had hoped. Currently, I have no reliable camera, so I cannot share the experience. It is more dense than the wheat, and it doesn’t hold it’s shape. But it was delicious. I will try again. I have cooked a bit, I made the mole sauce and potato/kale enchiladas from Veganomicon, which was amazing; as well as the chickpea cutlets, which I baked too long on accident. They were good, just tooo chewy. I have almost been going page by page in that book, I want to make everything in it! I just bought some Frangelica to make the Notella. Once I get a camera, which I hope to be in a month or so, I will take pictures and bake like crazy.

Chocolate Boysenberry Cookies

Chocolate Boysenberry Cookies

Originally uploaded by angiepee

The recipe is from Veganomicon, it called for raspberry jam, but all I had was Boysenberry Jam, so I used that instead. I also used white spelt flour instead of the all purpose wheat. They turned out amazing, I doubted for a few minutes as I patted them into shape. “I don’t doubt these will taste good, but how will they look?” Like a dream, that’s how they looked. They spread out nicely, not to big or thin, and they had that cracked surface look. The texture is a balance between chewy and crunchy. I thought they would be crumbly, but they hold together superbly.

Vegan Challah

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.