Couscous bread with bamboo shoots and forest honey

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 420 g spelt flour (wholemeal flour)
• 20 g yeast, fresh
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp honey (forest honey)
• 150 ml water, lukewarm, for the bread dough
• 100 g couscous
• 150 ml boiling water for the couscous
• 125 g bamboo shoot(s), from the jar
• Fat for baking or casserole dish

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Rest time approx. 40 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Total time approx. 2 hours 30 minutes

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Place 100g of couscous in a bowl, add boiling water, and mix well. After 10 minutes, fluff it up with a fork. In the meantime, chop the sprouts and mix them into the couscous. Put the flour in a bowl, mix in the salt, make a well, and add the honey. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and pour it over the honey. Roughly knead the dough, then knead in the couscous and sprout mixture. Knead the dough well until it no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Add a little more flour if necessary. Place a towel over the bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes. Grease a small round or oval baking dish (the dough rose so high that it no longer fit into a normal loaf pan), and add the dough. Place in a cold oven, second rack from the bottom, and bake for 30 minutes at 200°C (400°F) top/bottom heat. Fill a drip tray on the bottom of the oven with water beforehand, or place an ovenproof dish filled with water on the bottom of the oven. After 30 minutes, reduce the heat to 180 degrees Celsius and bake for another 60 minutes. For the last 30 minutes, I placed a piece of aluminum foil over the bread to prevent the crust from getting too dark—but everyone has their own preference. This bread combination came about because I don’t really like couscous, but I had some leftover on hand, and because I was using up some bamboo shoots from a jar, but there was still some left in the jar—so why not bake a loaf with them? Contrary to my expectations, it turned out really delicious!