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SandWitch · 26-30, F
@popmol
Spelt is usually used alone when baking pastry to keep the pastry light and airy. If you use all-purpose flour as well, you should mix spelt with the all-purpose flour at a ratio of 1:1 which gives the pastry a sweet nutty flavor. Without spelt, the pastry becomes more like the taste and texture of baked bread.
Spelt is usually used alone when baking pastry to keep the pastry light and airy. If you use all-purpose flour as well, you should mix spelt with the all-purpose flour at a ratio of 1:1 which gives the pastry a sweet nutty flavor. Without spelt, the pastry becomes more like the taste and texture of baked bread.
OogieBoogie · F
@SandWitch I have found the opposite . When I changed from wheat flour to spelt flour - everything I baked became heavier, denser...drier.
I'm still playing around with different liquid levels in my recipes to try and alleviate this.
The only recipe transition it didn't affect too much was biscuits, (cookies).
I have since learnt that there are different spelt flours with different milled properties ;
Finer milled with no husk creates a denser flour.
Whole grain and slightly courser ground is lighter but has less structure.(falls apart easy)
In short - spelt has less gluten fibres or something, which translates to less structure, esp when baking. And that's what I found. My pastries crumbled easier, my loaves kinda crumbled when cut - and they weren't as 'light and fluffy'.
Personally - I don't find it easy to bake with .
But then - I really shouldnt be baking breads and cookies anyway 😂
I'm still playing around with different liquid levels in my recipes to try and alleviate this.
The only recipe transition it didn't affect too much was biscuits, (cookies).
I have since learnt that there are different spelt flours with different milled properties ;
Finer milled with no husk creates a denser flour.
Whole grain and slightly courser ground is lighter but has less structure.(falls apart easy)
In short - spelt has less gluten fibres or something, which translates to less structure, esp when baking. And that's what I found. My pastries crumbled easier, my loaves kinda crumbled when cut - and they weren't as 'light and fluffy'.
Personally - I don't find it easy to bake with .
But then - I really shouldnt be baking breads and cookies anyway 😂
popmol · 22-25, M
@OogieBoogie well i mean after baking a cake several times that was very thick and not airy at all i added way more yeast and tried more every time but at thrice the amount you taste it so at max 2.5 times. but this is in big amounts not sure if you make one or 2 small cupcakes its smart to do that.
SandWitch · 26-30, F
@OogieBoogie
[quote]I have found the opposite . When I changed from wheat flour to spelt flour - everything I baked became heavier, denser...drier.[/quote]
I don't know what you could have done wrong, other than not have enough water in the mixture, because heavier wheat flour is normally never used for baking. If you use heavy wheat flour in baking, cookies will become hard as rock and just as difficult to chew.
When you're mixing the spelt flour with water when making pastry, do you add an egg to the mixture?
If your baking is crumbly, it's because of one of two things: you either don't have enough water in the mixture, or you don't have a strong enough binding agent in the mixture which is what egg yoke is for.
Heavy wheat flour used for bread doesn't need a binding agent like egg to stop the bread from crumbling because the wheat flour contains so much gluten that everything sticks together anyway as soon as water hits it.
Household glue is made from the 'gluten' that is extracted from heavy wheat flour that is otherwise used to make bread, not pastry. The name 'glue' is therefore derived from it's main ingredient which is 'gluten'.
[quote]I have found the opposite . When I changed from wheat flour to spelt flour - everything I baked became heavier, denser...drier.[/quote]
I don't know what you could have done wrong, other than not have enough water in the mixture, because heavier wheat flour is normally never used for baking. If you use heavy wheat flour in baking, cookies will become hard as rock and just as difficult to chew.
When you're mixing the spelt flour with water when making pastry, do you add an egg to the mixture?
If your baking is crumbly, it's because of one of two things: you either don't have enough water in the mixture, or you don't have a strong enough binding agent in the mixture which is what egg yoke is for.
Heavy wheat flour used for bread doesn't need a binding agent like egg to stop the bread from crumbling because the wheat flour contains so much gluten that everything sticks together anyway as soon as water hits it.
Household glue is made from the 'gluten' that is extracted from heavy wheat flour that is otherwise used to make bread, not pastry. The name 'glue' is therefore derived from it's main ingredient which is 'gluten'.
OogieBoogie · F
@SandWitch I don't know what you mean by 'heavy wheat flour '. I googled it and found nothing .
Theres lots of types.of wheat flour :
White
Baking
Durum
Self raising
Wholemeal ....and others , but no 'heavy'.
Do you mean baking flour ?
Plus , it wasn't the wheat flour I had problems with - it was the spelt .
I dont eat white flour products any more 🤷
Also - adding eggs isnt the solution you think it is . Yes they help with structure and binding of ingredients as they are an emulsifier - but they arent the 'glue' you think they are.
More eggs will help a cake rise, and make the texture smoother and more homogenous, but they aren't as strong as gluten is.
I've done a lot of baking in my time - I've cooked many a successful cake that has no eggs in it .
It really is the spelt . It's different to wheat flour.
Heavier ...it even feels different when you pour it out of the packet than wheat flour does .
I did find adding more water helped a lot ....it seems to suck up it more (absorb) than wheat flour does.
Theres lots of types.of wheat flour :
White
Baking
Durum
Self raising
Wholemeal ....and others , but no 'heavy'.
Do you mean baking flour ?
Plus , it wasn't the wheat flour I had problems with - it was the spelt .
I dont eat white flour products any more 🤷
Also - adding eggs isnt the solution you think it is . Yes they help with structure and binding of ingredients as they are an emulsifier - but they arent the 'glue' you think they are.
More eggs will help a cake rise, and make the texture smoother and more homogenous, but they aren't as strong as gluten is.
I've done a lot of baking in my time - I've cooked many a successful cake that has no eggs in it .
It really is the spelt . It's different to wheat flour.
Heavier ...it even feels different when you pour it out of the packet than wheat flour does .
I did find adding more water helped a lot ....it seems to suck up it more (absorb) than wheat flour does.
SandWitch · 26-30, F
@OogieBoogie
Spelt is a type of wheat ...and spelt four is a type of whole wheat flour that uses the entire kernel of wheat in the manufacture of spelt flour. That's why it's called 'whole wheat flour' because the entire kernel of wheat is used, which is what gives whole wheat flour it's brown color.
Whole wheat bread however, comes from red wheat, not spelt wheat.
Whole wheat spelt is only typically used for baking and gives a much lighter textured brown flour than red wheat brown flour.
Heavy wheat doesn't actually exist, though I used the term 'heavy wheat' to differentiate red wheat from spelt wheat, the latter being much lighter and typically used for baking while red wheat is much heavier in texture and is only ever used for bread and sometimes beer making where wheat is used instead of barley.
What I mean by heavy wheat, is 'hard red wheat' which is a type of hearty winter wheat that is only grown in northern climates, just like spelt is also a type of wheat but it is not specifically grown for the bread market because of it's lighter texture.
Hard red wheat however, is what is typically used to make WHITE bread that you'd buy in a store. Hard red wheat flour which is used to make white bread, only uses one component of an entire kernel of red wheat, but not the whole kernel itself. The rest of that kernel is further broken down into bran for example, which is sold separately as it's own product name.
If the whole kernel of red wheat was used to make white bread, the bread would actually turn brown, just like 'whole wheat bread' looks brown! The brown color comes from the bran and other dark colored portions of the wheat kernel.
This is why 'white bread' is so unhealthy to eat because it does not contain the nutritious part of the wheat kernel and it is also bleached to a whiter white at the flour mill to give a more uniform white appearance to slices of white bread.
Spelt is a type of wheat ...and spelt four is a type of whole wheat flour that uses the entire kernel of wheat in the manufacture of spelt flour. That's why it's called 'whole wheat flour' because the entire kernel of wheat is used, which is what gives whole wheat flour it's brown color.
Whole wheat bread however, comes from red wheat, not spelt wheat.
Whole wheat spelt is only typically used for baking and gives a much lighter textured brown flour than red wheat brown flour.
Heavy wheat doesn't actually exist, though I used the term 'heavy wheat' to differentiate red wheat from spelt wheat, the latter being much lighter and typically used for baking while red wheat is much heavier in texture and is only ever used for bread and sometimes beer making where wheat is used instead of barley.
What I mean by heavy wheat, is 'hard red wheat' which is a type of hearty winter wheat that is only grown in northern climates, just like spelt is also a type of wheat but it is not specifically grown for the bread market because of it's lighter texture.
Hard red wheat however, is what is typically used to make WHITE bread that you'd buy in a store. Hard red wheat flour which is used to make white bread, only uses one component of an entire kernel of red wheat, but not the whole kernel itself. The rest of that kernel is further broken down into bran for example, which is sold separately as it's own product name.
If the whole kernel of red wheat was used to make white bread, the bread would actually turn brown, just like 'whole wheat bread' looks brown! The brown color comes from the bran and other dark colored portions of the wheat kernel.
This is why 'white bread' is so unhealthy to eat because it does not contain the nutritious part of the wheat kernel and it is also bleached to a whiter white at the flour mill to give a more uniform white appearance to slices of white bread.
OogieBoogie · F
@SandWitch yeah, I've done so much research on nutrition these past two years , and frankly - I'm horrified at what we are encouraged to eat .
No wonder nearly everyone is sick or allergic or got some form of epigenetic disease or gut disbiosis.
A few years back I had this epiphany.
Id just got home from another doctor visit, opened my packet of medications - and saw that the doctor had given me an even stronger does of a medication I had stopped 6 months before - because it hasld made my blood pressure so high it made my eyes go pink and have multiple nose bleeds a day .
I'll was furious! 😡
My doctor was so lazy she was basically medicating me poison .
I flung my meds across the kitchen, and said flippantly to the air " food has to be better medication than this "
....and I instantlygot a shiver down my spine !
I went and googled " food as medicine " - and I haven't looked back since .
2 years later and I'm still in this huge discovery stage of finding out just how much we are being poisoned by what we eat .
And more horrifyingly - even the good food sources we have, are being processed so much - all the goodness they had ....is processed out !
And we now have a young generation growing up on totally processed food .
It's SO wrong .
No wonder nearly everyone is sick or allergic or got some form of epigenetic disease or gut disbiosis.
A few years back I had this epiphany.
Id just got home from another doctor visit, opened my packet of medications - and saw that the doctor had given me an even stronger does of a medication I had stopped 6 months before - because it hasld made my blood pressure so high it made my eyes go pink and have multiple nose bleeds a day .
I'll was furious! 😡
My doctor was so lazy she was basically medicating me poison .
I flung my meds across the kitchen, and said flippantly to the air " food has to be better medication than this "
....and I instantlygot a shiver down my spine !
I went and googled " food as medicine " - and I haven't looked back since .
2 years later and I'm still in this huge discovery stage of finding out just how much we are being poisoned by what we eat .
And more horrifyingly - even the good food sources we have, are being processed so much - all the goodness they had ....is processed out !
And we now have a young generation growing up on totally processed food .
It's SO wrong .
Subsumedpat · 36-40, M
@OogieBoogie I know the wheat flour is better for you but if I am going to eat something I should not like these sweet buttery rolls might as well use the white.
OogieBoogie · F
@Subsumedpat oh sir get me wrong - I haveny forgone beautiful pastries or delicious hand made breads. I love them still.
But they are a rare treat these days.
And I don't bake much anymore, as much as I love baking ... and I do....it'd just not good for me .
I've gone through quite a health breakthrough by bringing my diet back to natural less processed foods.... meat, veggies , and some dairy .
The most processed things I have are cheese, dark chocolate and coffee.
I feel better
I sleep better
I'm on no medications any more.
And when I do have something sweet or a yummy pastry or pasta ....I actually eat it slower now. Sometimes even divide it up into two serves. And somethings are just too sweet for me to eat now !
- Which is something I never thought was something I'd ever say in my life 😂
But they are a rare treat these days.
And I don't bake much anymore, as much as I love baking ... and I do....it'd just not good for me .
I've gone through quite a health breakthrough by bringing my diet back to natural less processed foods.... meat, veggies , and some dairy .
The most processed things I have are cheese, dark chocolate and coffee.
I feel better
I sleep better
I'm on no medications any more.
And when I do have something sweet or a yummy pastry or pasta ....I actually eat it slower now. Sometimes even divide it up into two serves. And somethings are just too sweet for me to eat now !
- Which is something I never thought was something I'd ever say in my life 😂
Subsumedpat · 36-40, M
@OogieBoogie Good for you then, I try but too often fall prey to the convience of some of the junk.
OogieBoogie · F
@Subsumedpat oh I hear ya😅
It's taken me 2 years to slowly adapt how I eat .
Lots of failures and giving up along the way.
It's also changed how I cook .
I finish work at 6pm, wanna eat by 7 pm at the latest .
Too many nights I just gave up and bought something easy...too tired to cook.
And I'm not perfect.
I don't know your age, but I'm at an age where nutrition is apparently exceedingly important - I've physically felt the difference .
I eat crap for a week and my past injuries start to hurt again 🤷
So eating well isn't just about convenience to me - it's also about being pain free, mobile, mentally active and emotionally balanced.
It's amazing how food can effect all these things - food IS medicine 🤗
It's taken me 2 years to slowly adapt how I eat .
Lots of failures and giving up along the way.
It's also changed how I cook .
I finish work at 6pm, wanna eat by 7 pm at the latest .
Too many nights I just gave up and bought something easy...too tired to cook.
And I'm not perfect.
I don't know your age, but I'm at an age where nutrition is apparently exceedingly important - I've physically felt the difference .
I eat crap for a week and my past injuries start to hurt again 🤷
So eating well isn't just about convenience to me - it's also about being pain free, mobile, mentally active and emotionally balanced.
It's amazing how food can effect all these things - food IS medicine 🤗
