Bread Baking Day #22

bbd #22 is hosted by Stefanie of   Hefe und mehr and she wants us to bake Sweet Breads.

If you also want to join in your deadline is August 1st, 2009. For more details please go to Stefanie’s announcement post.

We love sweet breads for breakfast so I digged into my bookmarks and found one I’d always wanted to bake but somehow never had time so far:
Rosa’s Buttermilk Honey Bread

I had to tweak the recipe a bit and my bread did not turn put as beautiful as Rosa’s but still it tasted very very good. And it was very good even after a few days.

So here are my tweaks:

Then I mostly followed Rosa’s instructions:

1. Pour warm water into a small bowl.  Sprinkle yeast and sugar over the surface of the water.  Stir to combine and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Cover with a dish towel.

2. In a large bowl, add creme fraiche (mine was very creamy and quite runny, if yours is rather thick combine with a little milk until lightly creamy like buttermilk), butter, honey and yeast mixture, and stir to combine. Add salt and flour. Beat hard to combine. Beat with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a shaggy dough is formed.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead about 5 minutes, until dough is smooth and satiny.  Place dough in a greased bowl. Turn dough once to grease the top and cover with plastic wrap.

4. Let rise at room temperature until double in bulk, 60-75 minutes. Gently deflate dough with your fist. Turn dough out on a lightly floured work surface.

5. Grease  a baking sheet. Braid the dough and then coiled it – or at least I tried to.  Cover lightly with plastic wrap or a towel and let rise until fully doubled in bulk – be carful not to overproof the dough, since you are working with spelt flour here!

6. Twenty minutes before you put the bread in the oven, preheat oven to 190° C (375° F).

7. Brush top of loaves with egg glaze. Put baking sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake about 45 minutes.

8. Remove loaves immediately to a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing.

See! My loaf isn’t as pretty as Rosa’s but it smelled heavenly when it came out of the oven.

I experienced that the suface of the dough never gets as smooth when using spelt than it would be with wheat flour, so my loafe had a more rustic surface.
Additionally spelt floured breads do not hold their free forms as good as wheat breads. Therefore it turned out a little more flat too.

Thanks Rosa! We loved the idea of your bread! :)

bbdbreadbakingday

I am also submitting this bread to “YeastSpotting” initiated by Susan of Wild Yeast.