Tuesday 24 January 2017

Spelt -acular!

Spelt!

Last week I wrote an article about a local Aberdeenshire farmer growing a field of Spelt, a forerunner of wheat.(post of 15th January 2017). Yesterday, my husband acquired some of the Spelt stoneground flour from the Green Grocer's shop in Inverurie, our local county town.

The packet states: "Spelt...An ancient relative of modern wheat. A true 'Wholegrain' high in nutrients, protein, and vitamin B, our Spelt is grown on our Family Farm in Aberdeenshire and Stoneground at Golspie Mill (Sutherland), the only remaining traditional water powered mill in mainland Scotland.

Today, along with my little helper- as in my not quite 3 year old grandson - we made our first attempts to bake with it. Rather than plunging in immediately to make bread, I decided to make scones. I googled for a recipe but didn't have exactly the same ingredients so I invented/ adapted from a basic scone recipe..

The recipe I used-

Ingredients:
280g spelt flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
100g soft butter (room temperature)
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp raw honey
150 ml milk
120g raisins (could be dates  or other dried fruit)
30 g extra flour (this could be oatmeal)

Method:
preheat oven to 200 deg centigrade
combine flour, baking powder ad cinnamon
rub in the soft butter
add the dried fruit
combine the vanilla, honey and milk and to dry ingredients to form a soft sticky dough
use half of the extra flour and heap on board
top this flour with the dough
add the remaining flour to the top of the dough and press down gently until dough is about 2.5 cm thick
cut into rounds (I managed 8)
place onto lined baking tray
bake for approx 20 mins till golden
ENJOY!


And how did they do?
My scones didn't rise much and I added too much extra flour at the flattening stage. Next time I'll try it with oatmeal. However, they were very soft inside and very tasty with less of the dryness of some flours.

Since I had flour left on the board I decided to use it and not waste it: the easiest recipe being pancakes of the crepes type.

Total flour used was 125g; 4 fluid oz milk and 1 egg.

They looked a bit like chapattis when just cooked but tasted delicious when they were served warm with some butter (jam or honey), a sprinkling of icing sugar and a dollop of frozen vanilla yoghurt.

My granddaughter demolished them when she came home from school, so I'm guessing they were worth the effort!

They weren't our healthiest snack but just fine for a special occasion.




Slainthe!

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