Paulchens FoodBlog?!

Last year back in May I think, when my dear friend Sher was serving as the Kitchen of the Month I discovered the gorgeous bunch of bread baking ladies who called themselves Bread Baking Babes.
I was stroken by the name and their breads from the very first moment.

I emailed with Sher and she made me promise to step out of my comfort zone and just give it a try. I was not a very convinced and experienced bread baker by then. Tho I recently had discovered the fun of bread baking but thought I could not do the heavenly complicated breads the Babes were making.

She encouraged me and ever since I kept my promise and gave the breads a chance. Not everything went smooth but I also experienced how nice and helpful all of the Babes are. Always there with encouraging comments and helpful tips if needed.

So I made:

Poilane-Style Miche in May 2008
Dark Onion Rye in June 2008
COUNTRY-STYLE WHOLE-WHEAT PITA in August 2008
Sûkerbôlle – Sugarbread in September 2008
Challa in October 2008
Rosendals knäckebröd in November 2008
Yule Wreath in December 2008
Croissants in January 2009

I missed the first 3 ones tho,… maybe I will give them a go some time… Those were:

Royal Crown Tortano in February 2008
Coccodrillo in March 2008
Sullivan Street Potato Pizza in April 2008

Sadly we all lost our good friend Sher last year and still miss her and another Babe left a hole when Glenna decided to opt out…

Now I read that 2 brand new Babes joined the circle to complete the circle of powersome B-12:  Gretchen of CanelaYComino and Natashya of LivingInTheKitchenWithPuppies.

Congratulations Babes to your first Anniversary!

But now back to bread baking, huh?

This month’s Kitchen of the Month Babe is Tanna and she chose a Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts. For the original recipe please read here at her blog.

Here are my tweaks:

27 grams fresh yeast
¼ cup warm water

3 cups water, room temperature
500 grams spelt flour
125 grams oat flour
125 grams rye flour
125 grams whole-spelt flour
125 grams rice flour
1 tablespoon salt

300 gram walnuts and almonds (as I did not have enough walnuts on hand)

I followed the instructions given by Tanna.
Surprisingly the bread was made in no time and turned out to be really really yummy. The slight hint of walnuts and almonds is perfect and I like it best a bit toasted and then only with some butter on top (some fine slices of Cheddar are ok too)… Mmmmmmh delish!

The first rise however was very quick and motivated as you can see in the picture. It took a little less than an hour for the dough to double.
It was incredibly sticky to work with tho.

Maybe this – again - i due to the lack of wheat ’cause I substituted all the Wheat flour to spelt as usual…
I experienced that spelt seems to need more water but lesser rising times. I think although there is rice flour in the original recipe I should try higher amount of rice flour next time. Should make the dough a bit more easy to work with… Need to test this thought *makes note*

Since my parents were here this Saturday I gave them my second loaf to taste test and they liked it too. Half of their loaf was gone after their dinner on Saturday…

Again I am not disappointed by a BBB Bread… this one is a keeper!

Speaking of the Babes, here they are:

Bake My Day (Karen) | CanelaYComino  (Gretchen) | Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn) | Grain Doe (Görel) | I Like to Cook (Sara) | Living In The Kitchen With Puppies  (Natshaya) | Living on Bread and Water (Monique) | Lucullian Delights (Ilva) | Notitie van Lien (Lien) | The Sour Dough (Mary aka Breadchick) | Thyme for Cooking (Katie) | My Kitchen in Half Cups (Tanna)