Un-Smoked Spelt Sprouter with Turkish Figs, Seeds, Aromatics & Some Nuts

We have wanted to smoke some flour ever since we saw Evon from Malaysia using it in her breads that seemed always have interesting and unique combinations of ingredients.  Why we haven’t gotten around to it till now is a mystery but it finally got to the top of Lucy’s formula list.

Trying to get our heads around what smoked flour might be like in bread is sort of like trying to understand our normal Wednesday routine.  We always start out early in the morning building the SD levain for our usual Friday bake.

This usually takes about 9-10 hours but, before we get it going, Lucy has to decide what the bake will be so we can get the levain going in the right direction.  We only use whole grains in the levain or the sifted out hard bits from a 78% extraction.

Sometimes, but not this time, these are the only whole grains in the mix so we feel it is best to get them wet for as long as possible.  We usually do 3 progressively larger builds at 100% hydration that will eventually total around 20% of the total flour and water weight of the dough. We let it double after the 2nd build and than let it rise 25% after the 3rd feeding before refrigerating it for 24 hours.

On Wednesday we also grind any other whole grains that might be going into the dough flour, in this case 140 g of equal amounts of whole; spelt, barley and wheat.  We also get any sprouts or scald going that might be in the bake on Friday.  In this case, 100g of whole spelt berries were soaked for 3 hours before being spread out on wet paper towels and covered with more damp paper towels and plastic wrap so that they could chit in 30 hours.

On Thursday the rest of the ingredients are assembled mis en place and the autolyse started - in this case for 4 hours.  We got some frozen prune soaking water out of the freezer for this bake to add to the left over spelt soaker water and water to make up the dough liquid.  At the last minute we decided no to smoke the spelt berries since this bread was too expensive to do experiments that might ruin it.

The salt was sprinkled n top of the autolyse dough ball so we wouldn’t forget it.  Then we got the levain put of the fridge to warm up and we stirred it down to give the wee beasties a little bit more to eat.

Both the autolyse and the levain went onto the heating pad.  We thought that 81% hydration would be OK for this 58% whole grain bread once the wet Turkish figs fruits were folded into the final dough.

 Once everything came together, less the spices, ground seeds, sprouts, nuts and figs we did 3 sets of slap and folds of 5, 2 and 1 minute each  and 15 minutes apart. We followed them up with 3 sets of stretch and folds from the 4 compass points on 15 minute intervals.  All the intervals were done on the heating pad.

Then we let it rest for 30 minutes before pre shaping and then shaping into a boule that was placed seam side up in a rice floured basket, bagged and placed in the fridge for a 12 hour retard.

This morning we checked the bagged boule and saw that it had proofed 84.7% in the fridge so we got it out to warm up as we fired up Big Old Betsy to 550 F.  We readied the large Pyrex pan with lava rocks half full of water along with 1 of Sylvia’s steaming pans for extra mega steam.

Once Betsy beeped she was at temperature, we inserted both steamers and set the timer for 12 minutes which would allow the top and bottom stones to get to temperature and long enough for the steam to be billowing.

We un-mold the bread onto parchment paper on a peel, slash it twice, if you don’t count the first or last one, and slid it onto the bottom stone with the steam burning out face.  To pay Betsy back for the face burn we threw a half cup of water onto her bottom out of spite and for extra immediate steam.

After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 500 F and 2 minutes later we turned it down to 475 F where it stayed until then steaming phase was done - at the 14 minute mark.  We removed the steam and turned the oven down to 425 F with convection heat this time.

We rotated the bread 180 degrees every 8 minutes until it read 203 F on the inside when the oven was turned off and bread left on the stone till it hit 205 F and was removed to the cooling rack.

One is an orange and the other a Minneola but the Minneola is more orange than the orange!

The boule sprang, bloomed and blistered OK under the mega steam and browned well after the steam came out up.  It took on that prune juice inspired beautiful mahogany color we love so much.

How did that smoked beef cheek get in there - unctuous is the word that fits.

We will have to wait on the crumb shots till after lunch.  Well it si after lunch and crumb came out about as open as we suspected for such a high whole grains bread with tons of add ins.  The crumb is soft and moist and the crust stayed a little crunchy.  What we were not ready for was the fine flavor of this bread.  It's nutty for sure, but the whole grains give it a deep flavor too.  The sesame and flax seeds add to the nutrition while the aromatic fennel, anise, caraway and coriander are subtly there adding their fragrance.  Then out of the blue, you get the sudden sweetness of the figs coming to the forefront when you bite into one.  This is one hearty, healthy, nutritious and fine tasting bread.  Lucy is pretty proud of herself even though she doesn't get any of this fine bread.

The winter wheat crop is starting to turn brown as the volunteer spring daisies are starting to bloom.

Formula

 And don.t forget the salad