Wholemeal and spelt sourdough

Wholemeal and spelt sourdough, a photo by flimbag on Flickr.

Sunday morning: I'd had a couple of loaves proving in the fridge overnight, so I got up early to bake. I should have realized something was amiss when a fuse blew, but everything came back on and the oven felt warm, so when the usual hour was up, I put in my pan of boiling water, spritzed in some mist and slapped in my loaf.

When I came to turn it, ten minutes in, I figured out something was wrong. No malliard reaction. The crust was as pale as when I'd put it in. And when I felt the loaf to turn it, the loaf was barely warm.

Turned out that the element on my oven had blown. They should last at least eight years, but this oven was only about four years old. According to the oven repair guy, Smeg had put in a more powerful element than the oven needed. You could see the bulge on the element where one part had distorted and touched another piece of the element.

So, £88 snots to repair that. Next time, I'll just follow these instructions and do it myself.

But I'm glad to be back in baking action.

Been listening to people on Facebook going on about how good spelt flour is. I know it's pretty low gluten stuff, so I didn't want to use it alone. I've seen a few spelt housebricks and they didn't look very appealing.

So I went with a 50% white flour, 25% wholemeal, 25% spelt mix. You can see the picture above. It's still cooling, so I'll let you know how it tastes tomorrow.