white saturday loaf with spelt flour
photo: white saturday loaf with spelt flour in casserole dish
the ken forkish saturday loaves are the perfect feel good loaves for that drizzly day where you just want to wrap up nice and cosy and not leave the flat. the recipe does have a few hours of downtime, but the bread does keep you busy throughout the day, hence the name ‘saturday loaf’ - its not one to try and fit in between zoom calls at work!
as the dough does not feature any preferment, the flavour isn’t as complex as some of the other recipes in flour water salt yeast, but to make it a bit more interesting there is the option to use a blend of flours - ken suggests substituting in 100g wholemeal flour, and when i was making these loaves i actually used 100g spelt flour. this mini substitution leaves all of the decadence of a crusty white loaf with the flavour of a wholemeal or spelt bread.
the bake
photo: water and flour ready to be mixed for autolysis
the bake is one of the simplest ones in the book, with no preferment to be mixed or special ingredients to be added. the first step is autolysis, where the flour is mixed with the water and left to hydrate. this hydration encourages gluten development to begin. from here, salt and yeast are added to the mixture, and the dough is mixed and folded to combine.
once mixed, the dough requires three folds over the course of the first hour and a half of the bulk fermentation. the fermentation time for this recipe is around 5 hours from the end of the initial mix, which allows for flavour development and gluten development to occur.
photo: shaped loaves in proving baskets
depending on the flour that is used, it is wild how different the consistencies of the final dough can be. i’ve had trouble with this recipe before with the dough being incredibly sticky and loose, and this has proven difficult during the shaping stages, as the dough seems to stick to everything and does not hold its shape well. this is definitely in part due to technique, and i’ve seen a few videos on shaping on youtube that lead me to believe i’m just not very skilled at it, but one thing that does seem to help is using a flour with a higher protein content. the higher the protein content, the more gluten develops and the sturdier the final shaped loaves seem to be. however, this does also lead to a smaller crumb and less visible air pockets in the baked loaf, and ideally i would like to develop my shaping skills enough that i can use a lower protein content and still be able to shape the dough successfully.
photo: baked loaves
the final loaves were so tasty and totally worth the full day spent making them. despite the waiting times, i would recommend this bread to anyone, whether you’re just wanting to dip your toe into the baking pond and haven’t made bread before, or if you’re a seasoned bread baker looking to try a tasty new recipe.