Baking with spelt can be trickier than baking with ordinary flour. One issue can be crumbling. 

1. Crumbling can be overcome by using a more refined white spelt flour but obviously, whole wheat spelt has more fibre. Unless avoiding wheat, try mixing spelt 50/50 with wheat as wheat flour makes less crumbly baked goods.  *(Some say no more than 10-20 % of spelt).

2. Spelt does not absorb as much liquid as wheat flour, so when replacing wheat with spelt , hold back about 1/3 of the liquid. Add more if needed.

3. Spelt does not rise as high as wheat as it has less gluten. You may need to increase the leavening to compensate for it being heavier than wheat. Spelt  however, has more protein.

4. Muffins made with spelt do not hold their shape as well as when made with wheat flour.

5. S pelt is more expensive than wheat flour but it is good to incorporate a variety of grains in your diet, depending of course, on any sensitivities you may have. Spelt is often safe for those requiring a wheat-free diet but is not gluten-free so should never be used in diet for people with celiac disease.

6. Spelt has fragile gluten, therefore requires 1/3 the kneading time that wheat flour does.

Have any tips re baking with spelt? I’d love to hear from you!

When using a non-stick pan, I find that sometimes you still need to add a little oil to keep the food from sticking. When cooking vegetables  eg. onion and garlic, sprinkle a little salt in the pan before adding the vegetables.  The salt helps bring the moisture out of the vegetables as they cook thus preventing sticking as well as the need to add oil. Using this trick, you can add vegetables that are not high in moisture content eg. coarsely chopped carrot without adding oil.

Usually, we are trying to cut back on salt but now The World Health Organization has put out new guidelines for our daily consumption of sugar. The organization says no more that 10 percent of our total energy should come from added sugar. (Sugar used in cooking, baking or in the manufacturing process as opposed to natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables.)

To figure out how much sugar is in a serving, check the nutritional label for sugar ( listed in grams) and divide that number by 4. For example, if the label says 8 grams, you are getting 2 teaspoons of sugar per serving.   

Good job those Christmas goodies are almost gone!

Don’t forget to check out my web site at www.edible-options.com

May you have a happy, healthy New Year.

Shirley Hartung