Usually on this blog, I stick to strictly gluten-free recipes and will continue to do so in the future. However, I wanted to make an exception today for what I consider to be an exceptional recipe.
First, let me explain that while Gabriel is allergic to wheat – thus our gluten-free diet – he’s not necessarily allergic to spelt. I know there’s a controversy over whether spelt is okay for the person with allergies to other glutenous grains.
We’ve done numerous tests with spelt, in fact, at one point, Gabriel went over a year without eating it, and has never been able to see an allergic reaction to it. Thus, our position at this point is that spelt is fine for him.
With that said, we don’t usually buy spelt because of the price – I think it’s roughly the same as most pre-packaged gluten-free flour mixes – and to be honest, gluten-free sandwich bread is pretty good anyway!
But this past summer we came across a steal of a deal on some spelt berries
So, we’ve been cooking with spelt a little here and there. Our three main uses for it are homemade spelt tortillas (personally, I prefer spelt tortillas over the wheat equivalent), pizza crust, and bread.
This spelt sandwich bread recipe is amazing. For the longest time, I didn’t make spelt bread much because it has a tendency to dry out really quickly and get crumbly.
But then a friend was telling me that she puts guar gum in her to make the perfect Spelt Sandwich Bread Recipe. My reaction at the time was “Whaaaaa!? you don’t put guar gum in spelt!” But after digesting it for a while (no pun intended), I decided it was worth a try.
Oh my goodness, the results were amazing! We devoured that first fluffy loaf of goodness in record time.
I don’t think I’ve ever tasted wheat-based yeast bread that was better, and quickly decided that we better reserve this recipe for special occasions because it’s just too good not to eat it up – which isn’t very good for our health when we’re talking two (maaybbee three if Garrett is lucky enough to not be taking a nap when it comes out of the oven) people consuming an entire loaf in day.
And if we do have leftovers? There isn’t much better than homemade spelt bread with peanut butter and sugar-free strawberry jam!
PrintPerfect Spelt Sandwich Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 cups spelt flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoon yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon Guar Gum
- 3 Tablespoons sugar/honey/sorghum
- 3Tablespoons oil
- 1 cup warm water
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients in bowl (preferebly a mixer with a dough hook).
- Add wet ingredients, and knead for roughly 4 minutes.
- It’s said that spelt doesn’t require as much kneading as wheat, and I’ve found four minutes to work very well.
- let rise in bowl, covered with a light cloth until double. shape into a loaf, and let rise again in a greased loaf pan.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and bake for 30-40 minutes in the center of the oven.
- Let cool on a cooling grid, slice, and enjoy!
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I have been using this recipe for around a year and like it very much. I wanted to see if I could make it in a bread machine. My 1st try was to dense for my liking even though I made the bread machine knead for 5 minutes. I took the water and added 2 TBL of tapioca starch. Once mixed I brought it almost to a boil so the starch was thickened. With this addition I can use it in the bread machine. So far I have only tried the whole wheat bead cycle on my machine. The bread dough does not seem to care if I let go through the whole knead cycle which is much longer than the 4 minutes you mentioned.
I use 2 cups of Vitaspelt white spelt and one cup of Bobs Redmill whole spelt.
★★★★★
I just tried this recipe with Anita’s organic all purpose white spelt flour, doubled the recipe. Used cane sugar, almond milk & olive oil *xanthan gum, baked 40 minutes in good quality bread pans and am highly impressed! I was leery to not be proofing the yeast with sugar/liquid prior but followed the instructions as listed and the 2 loaves turned out beautifully! Not crumbly but instead are dense yet light & fluffy. So good that we’ve already dug in before they’ve completely cooled!! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe – I can now stop looking for the perfect one as I’ve now found it!!
I just bought a bread maker and bought organic non gmo winter spelt berries to make my own flour! I have been having problems eating todays wheat products, and have wondered if it could be because of everything they do to our food! Will the bread maker work with your recipe?
★★★★★
Hi – this sounds (and judging by the picture) looks amazing! I will look forward to trying this! Would you happen to have your recipe for using spelt or the pizza dough?
I haven’t made spelt pizza in years, but if I did I would probably just use the same recipe and roll it out on greased sheet pans, and pre-bake before topping.
Thanks a stack Elise. I want to try it in the not too distant future! Can you make Fruit Loaf with this Spelt Bread Recipe too and have you tried it making the loaf with fruit?
Thank you so much for providing this recipe. I made it today and it turned out amazing! After trying many spelt bread recipe’s this is the one that I can finally say that I am happy with and will be making this as my ‘go to’ loaf of bread for my family.
★★★★★
So glad to help!
I followed this to the letter and the bread was very tasty but just didn’t rise that much. The yeast was in date so not sure what else I could try, any suggestions?
Hmmm, there could be a lot of factors such as temperature and air pressure.
I have tried this recipe three times. Twice with Fast acting yeast and the last with regular acting yeast. I only get a dense like bread as well. I really want to eat a sandwich but the bread is not tall enough to even pretend it is regular bread. I really want this to work. Any suggestions?
Hi there, this recipe sounds great. What type of oil did you use?
I usually use light olive oil.
I love your recipes but would appreciate a calorie/nutritional breakdown on them. Is this possible?
I made this recipe with a bread machine on express bake with the small addition of 1T water it’s came out perfect
★★★★★
Shalom, is there a substitute for the guar gum?