my heartfelt thanks

Since I am now making a reasonably nice chiabatta and a mean bunch of raisin buns, the only thing we would need to be wholly independent from our (formerly) favourite bakery would be a way to replicate their whole grain bread.
Whole grain in this case not merely as in 'whole grain flour', but as in 'entire grains'. It is a rather heavy, somewhat brick-like loaf, dark and delightfully hearty. If we need some bread to put underneath a couple of fried eggs, that's the one.

You can well imagine my excitement as I found a recipe that's remarkably close to that bread by dear Bäcker Süpke, a German baker and creator of the famous 'Black Hamster' bread.

Of course I had to try it, and it isn't only all we had hoped for, it actually is much better. It is a 100% whole-grain spelt bread that delivers perfect slices, tastes great, has a lovely crust and even that slight sticky crumb that I love so much. Here, have look:



Just ignore the vein of dry rolled spelt that's running across the bread, that's entirely my own fault as I am a clumsy chaot and can't handle a wet dough. But that's the bread when I cut the first loaf about three hours after baking, and its already giving slices as neat as any white bread despite the relatively open crumb. So lovely.

It is Bäcker Süpke's 'whole-grain spelt bread whith whole grains' and you can find the original recipe here, even though it's in German. If anyone needs a translation, please drop me a line, I'll gladly help out.

The only variation I made (apart from the involuntary inclusion of rolled spelt) was that I didn't include the cooked spelt grains until the last five minutes of kneading, as I feared the grains would be reduced to mush if I did. But I don't think I should have worried, as the dough was moist enough to give them room.



So once again, the internet made my day and made us finally independent from that bakery. My heartfelt thanks to Bäker Süpke!