Simple spelt bread with pre-dough

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 500 g spelt flour type 1050
• 400 ml water, lukewarm
• 20 g fresh yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp beet syrup or honey
• 75 g sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or nuts
• Flour for dusting
• Fat and flour for the mold

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest time approx. 10 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 11 hours 15 minutes

Dissolve the yeast in 200 ml of lukewarm water and the sugar beet syrup (or honey). After about five minutes, small bubbles will form. Now add 150 g of flour and the salt and mix everything well. This will form a sticky and relatively liquid dough. Let this pre-dough rise for about eight hours. Knead the pre-dough with the remaining lukewarm water and the remaining flour. The dough should now no longer be too sticky or liquid; you may need to add more flour until the consistency is right. The dough should not be too firm, but also not too liquid. After this, you can add seeds or nuts if desired. Be careful when adding ingredients like oatmeal, as these can absorb water and thus change the consistency of the dough. Pour the dough into a suitable dish. I grease the dish and sprinkle it with flour. I then sprinkle a little more flour on top of the dough, but this is more for aesthetic reasons. The pan shouldn’t be too big; a smaller loaf pan or a round cake pan with a diameter of 20 cm works well for me. Then cover the dough and let it rise for about 1-2 hours, until it has increased in size considerably. This depends, among other things, on the room temperature. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees (top/bottom heat). Now place a bowl of water and the dough in the oven. After 30 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees. Another 15 minutes later, the bread is ready. The finished bread has a firm crumb, but it shouldn’t be too dark. Notes: The water used for yeast shouldn’t be too warm, otherwise the yeast will be destroyed and will no longer have a leavening effect. Fresh yeast can also be replaced with dried yeast. To do this, mix the yeast (about half a sachet) with the flour before mixing it with the water to make the pre-dough. You can also mix the fresh yeast with the honey. This dissolves very well and quickly.