Spelt-rye malt beer bread

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 250 g wholemeal spelt flour
• 250 g wholemeal rye flour
• ½ cube of fresh yeast
• 600 ml malt beer
• 1 tsp brown sugar, e.g. cane sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 500 g grains, seeds and muesli
• Fat and flour for the mold

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Rest time approx. 2 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 40 minutes; Total time approx. 3 hours

Weigh out the flour and knead it with all the other ingredients until you have a very sticky dough. This is best done with a food processor fitted with a dough hook. A hand mixer will also work, but it’s tiring. Kneading by hand? Not a good idea. Besides the flour, I use whatever grains and seeds I have on hand. This is where you can let your creativity and pantry run wild. For my last loaf, I used 100g whole hazelnuts, 50g walnuts, 50g flaxseeds, 50g chia seeds, 50g buckwheat flour, and 200g muesli. After at least 15 minutes, when everything is well kneaded, cover the dough in the mixing bowl with a damp cloth and let it rest for at least 2 hours. Once the dough has risen nicely (it won’t rise as much as, say, yeast dough for pizza), pour it into a greased and lightly floured loaf pan. The really sticky mass can be easily transferred from the bowl into the pan using a wet spoon or wooden spoon. Then make a deep cut lengthwise with a knife and press the sides apart with a wet spoon. For visual appeal and to satisfy your sweet tooth, add sesame and pumpkin seeds to the top and press them in with a wet spoon. Oatmeal or chia seeds will work too, of course. The pumpkin seeds in particular look nice and invite you to nibble. Then it’s off to the oven. For me, 40 minutes at 200°C (fan oven) is enough. And a hearty spelt-rye-malt beer bread is ready. The smell alone is a delight. The bread will keep in the bread bin for 4-5 days and hardly dries out, although the crust will naturally not be as crispy. Notes: – Yes, fellow baking pros, I’ve tried various methods of preparing yeast dough. I’ve let the grains, seeds, and muesli soak separately for two hours, let the dough rise in several stages, and so on… At some point, convenience won out. I simply threw everything into the mixing bowl and mixed it all together to form dough – and lo and behold, the result was the same. So, why complicate things when you can do it easily? – When I bake bread in the evening, I prepare the dough in the morning, let it rise in the warm kitchen for about two hours, and then put it in a cool place. If I want to bake bread in the morning, I prepare the dough in the evening and let it rest overnight.