Spelt Ricotta Cheese Sourdough Rolls

Toast
stephen.c on 29 Jun 2018 at 16:26

Hi There,

I am glad to share with you my latest baking experience.

I have tried to revise a bread recipe from my own country, Sardinia. In particular the Ricotta Cheese Rolls. Spelt is not so popular in Sardinia but I fell in love with this flour hence could not resist to try to make my Spelt Ricotta Cheese Sourdough Rolls :)

The Ricotta Rolls have a delicious ricotta flavor and have a very thin and crunchy crust. They are also very soft. Some people also add Saffron to the dough but I probably prefer to add it when I use normal wheat flour to give it more character and taste indeed.

Here he final result :)

Ingredients:

150gr Semolina flour

350gr White Spelt Flour

50gr Vital Gluten 

500gr Ricotta Cheese (drain it before adding to the dough)

260gr Water + 40gr for the Salt

12gr Salt

200gr Spelt Starter (100% Hydration)

Method:

- Mix together the flour, the semolina and the VWG and 260gr of water and autolyse for 30 min/1hour

- Add the 40gr water with 10gr salt and the starter and the ricotta cheese to the dough and knead for 10/20 min till all the ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be crazy sticky but no worries, keep kneading till the gluten structure builds up and it will be easier to manage ;)

- Bulk Ferment for 2/3 hours depending on the room temperature etc (I BF for 2 hours @25 Celcius)

- Divide your dough into 4 or 6 parts and shape it to form 4/6 nice rolls. Put them to proof on a baking try. You can either cover the try with some cling film or just put it to proof into the oven making sure it is switched off ;)

- After 2/3 hours just before doubling in size or passing the poke test, remove them from the oven and preheat the oven @250 Celcius

- Score the rolls, put a pot of boiling water in the bottom of your oven, bake the rolls for 30/35 minutes @ 220 Celcius till they sound hollow when  tapping at the bottom.

- Let the rolls to cool down and enjoy your Ricotta Cheese Rolls ;)

I hope you like this recipe and please let me know how you get on with it ;)

Happy Baking 

 

Stefano

Great job.  I have made similar rolls in the past.  I love adding ricotta in the dough and yours look perfect.

Regards,
Ian

Spelt is likely my favourite flour in bread, especially when sprouted. It's so sweet which must go very nicely with the ricotta cheese. 

The crumb you achieved in this bread is beautiful! It seems to have a moist porridge-bread-like crumb. 

By the way, the amount of vital wheat gluten you used seems to be quite large. It might not be necessary to include it at over 8% of total flour (inc. leaven) in my opinion.

Hi,

Thanks for your comment and advice.

Wrt VWG quantity, I considered 650gr "flour in total (350gr flour + 150gr semolina + 100gr flour/starter) hence the VWG is less than 8%, it is actually 7.6%.

Am I doing the math right?

Cheers

350g flour+150g semolina+100g flour in starter (200g 100% hydration starter, right?)= 600g flour, not 650g

You have 50g vital wheat gluten, so we divide 50 by 600= 8.3333...%

Did I get anything wrong in the amount of flour or gluten you used?

Either way, it sounds a bit of an over-use to me. Of course it depends on many variables and your personal choice, but 3% of vital wheat gluten is plenty when it comes to improving dough strength. This is also the % I optioned for when I bake. My bread is usually 100% whole multi grain so this % should be more than enough for your white spelt bread even there is some semolina in your formula.

Here are some formulas I have used before:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56640/smoked-chipotle-onion-and-parmesan-sourdough

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56609/finally%E2%80%A6-fair-barley-loaf

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56402/reattempting-half-sprouted-100-whole-spelt-sd

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56282/muchneeded-sunshine-quintuple-golden-sourdough

Hi Elsie,

Many thanks for your reply and for pointing out o my mistake :P

Also great links and great loafs there, well done!

Is there any pros or cons in using a relative high % of VWG? My loafs although probably on the high side of VWG % taste great and they do not have that king of chewy texture most commercial loafs have.

Many thanks and best regards

 

Stefano

In case you don't already know this, there are mainly two types of proteins in gluten: gliadin and glutenin. The former is responsible for elasticity (holding the dough shape) and the later extensibility (stretchiness) in dough. Spelt has a higher glutenin to gliadin ratio than wheat, which is why spelt dough is more stretchy but has less structure than wheat dough. A good balance of the two is required to get open crumb, as you need extensibility for the bubbles to expand without tearing and a strong dough to support them.

I'm not certain about the ratio of gliadin to glutenin in vital wheat gluten but you can surely noticed improved dough strength (i.e increased gliadin) when it's used. Too much gliadin can compromise the extensibility of dough. This would produce bread with lower rise and closer crumb (like it's difficult to blow up a balloon if it springs back all the time).

White spelt dough is very extensible so I think this bread might not have met its maximum potential in terms of crumb openness. The crumb you got is great already but you may get even better result with less vital wheat gluten.

So are you in favour of chewier bread? I don't find commercial bread chewy at all. A bit of added gluten does wonders in producing bread with a bit of chew. Too much and it would cross the boundary, giving rise to sponginess that is often undesired in bread.

Elsie,

Many thanks for providing this information, I am a newbie at baking. You have convinced me :)

I will try to reduce the % of VWG and see whether it gets better or not in which case hopefully I will find the right % which works for me.

Cheers

 

In case you don't already know this, there are mainly two types of proteins in gluten: gliadin and glutenin. The former is responsible for elasticity (holding the dough shape) and the later extensibility (stretchiness) in dough. Spelt has a higher glutenin to gliadin ratio than wheat, which is why spelt dough is more stretchy but has less structure than wheat dough. A good balance of the two is required to get open crumb, as you need extensibility for the bubbles to expand without tearing and a strong dough to support them. I'm not certain about the ratio of gliadin to glutenin in vital wheat gluten but you can surely noticed improved dough strength (i.e increased gliadin) when it's used. Too much gliadin can compromise the extensibility of dough. This would produce bread with lower rise and closer crumb (like it's difficult to blow up a balloon if it springs back all the time). White spelt dough is very extensible so I think this bread might not have met its maximum potential in terms of crumb openness. The crumb you got is great already but you may get even better result with less vital wheat gluten. So are you in favour of chewier bread? I don't find commercial bread chewy at all. A bit of added gluten does wonders in producing bread with a bit of chew. Too much and it would cross the boundary, giving rise to sponginess that is often undesired in bread.

This is all good and informative however you have mixed up gliadin and glutenin.

Gliadin provides extensibility. Glutenin gives strength / resistance / elasticity.

Spelt has a higher gliadin to glutenin ratio.

Simply swap all references of each and it should all be good.

All the best,
Michael

and read through all my Biochemistry notes again. This information came from my memory so I only have myself to blame.

Sorry for the inaccurate information and thank you for your correction.