Wheat & Yeast Free Oat, Carraway & Raisin Soda Bread Spelt Loaf – Basic Recipe
This Bread works beautifully when toasted to accompany the Scandinavian Home Cured Salmon, or a smoked trout pate. Freezes well.
This variation also makes a nice alternative to toast for breakfast; handy to pre-slice and freeze to take out a slice as needed.
There are plenty of variations from the basic recipe if you omit the caraway and raisins. Alternative suggestions are sun dried tomatoes and olives; walnut and grated gruyere cheese; grated carrot and walnuts; grated parsnip and mustard; sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds; mixed herbs; poppy seeds etc.
If it’s Christmas you can try substituting the raisins with soaked, dried cranberries or use up any left-over dried figs – lovely toasted with a few slices of melted goats cheese and rocket.
These all bring other nutritional benefits and are lovely with soups.
Ingredients:
- 175g wholemeal spelt flour
- 175 white spelt flour
- 100g jumbo oats
- 100g raisins
- 40g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
- 1tsp caraway
- 1tsp salt
- 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1tbsp caster sugar
- 284ml buttermilk
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Soak the raisins in a bowl of water and set aside. Dust a baking sheet with a little plain flour. Put the flours, oats, salt, bicarbonate of soda and butter in a food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs. You can mix by hand by first rubbing the butter into the dry ingredients and this will give a coarser mix as the oats will remain whole.
- Tip the mixture into a bowl, stir through the caraway seeds, sugar and drained raisins. Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk, stirring until you have a soft dough. Knead lightly to bring together into a round. Don’t over handle at this stage because the rising action without yeast, is relying on the bubbles created by the action of the sugar, bicarbonate and buttermilk. Place the dough shape onto the baking sheet. Make a cross across the top of the loaf with a dusted handle of a wooden spoon. Bake for 40 minutes until risen and golden, insert a skewer into the centre to check its cooked through, if not give it a few minutes more. When cooked transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Spelt is an early grain grown before wheat and has a different structure, in that it is very low in gluten, and can be tolerated by some people who are sensitive to gluten.