Don’t Try This At Home, Well No Please Do But Not Like I Did

Jump to Comments

Yesterday the fitters arrived to install laminate wood flooring throughout the downstairs of our house with the exception of the kitchen. They were due at midday so I thought I’d have loads of time to bake a couple of loaves of bread, a khorosan (kamut) loaf and an oaty spelt bread to be precise, before having to move all the furniture into the kitchen and out of the fitters way – no easy task I can tell you, especially when you want to perfect your photography skills for entry on to such places as TasteSpotting and YeastSpotting.

Only the fitters arrived early but at least the dough was ready and just sitting rising; so we moved all the furniture (it was like something out of the Generation Game) but that somehow involved blocking the oven doors so when it came to baking the bread another move round had to occur, eek, and all this with wee Murphy dashing about trying to find somewhere quiet to rest or play. Anyhow we got there and other than the fact that the breads were slightly more ‘golden’ than I wished nothing major went wrong.

For the spelt loaf I used my basic recipe and just replaced 20g of the flour with oats and scattered more oats over the bread before baking, I also put the dough in a loaf tin rather than making a freeform loaf for a change.

The oats added a nice texture to the loaf, which had a pleasing softness and despite being quite a dense loaf it wasn’t overly heavy.

Kamut is an ancient form of wheat believed to have either originated in Egypt or Iran (hence the alternative name of Khorosan as that is the province of Iran the wheat is from). It is very fine and almost grainy in texture.

Compared to common wheat, kamut is richer in protein (by between 15% and 40%), minerals such as magnesium and zinc, Vitamin Bs and Vitamin E and unsaturated fatty acids, but contains a little less dietary fibre, making it occasionally tolerable by people with a wheat intolerance.

The bread had a lovely soft texture and slightly sweet but earthy flavour, a great bread for eating with cheese. The bread wasn’t at all heavy or stodgy on eating, just pleasantly filling.

The recipe I used was a potato bread recipe which can be found here, but I changed half the flour for kamut instead. Adding potatoes to bread dough makes for a more tender and light bread – perhaps that helped counteract the heaviness that kamut flour can bring if used as the only flour. 

Let this be a lesson learned, never think it possible to have laminate flooring fitted throughout the lounge, hallway and porch area, look after a very energetic dog in enclosed area and bake bread at the same time, really nightmarish springs to mind, the fact the bread isn’t completely black has to be a miracle. 

Ah well I’m sure all the hassle will be worth it by the end of today and I don’t suppose 48 hours is too bad considering it took over two weeks to fit the kitchen. Maybe I’ll even post some pics

18 Comments

Filed under Bread, My Recipes, Vegetarian