Spelt Cardamom Bread (two ways)
This spelt cardamom bread offers your run of the mill bread a unique little twist.
You can prepare your dough in a bread machine or stand mixer, and you have the option to use spelt or regular flour. The choices don’t stop there: you can decide on a large plaited (braided) bread, slathered with sweet vanilla drizzle, or go for smaller buns covered with pearl sugar and sliced almonds. In fact, why not go for a mixture of the two?
What is cardamom?
Cardamom is native to South East Asia and belongs to the ginger family. The cardamom plant produces pods, which can be black, white or green (the most common), and each pod has tiny black seeds inside. It’s these seeds that contain the powerful, unmissable taste of cardamom. Although the pod and whole seeds can both be used to enhance the flavour of dishes such as curry, most of us are more familiar with cardamom in its powdered form, which is achieved by grinding the seeds.
What is cardamom used for?
Cardamom has a distinct, unique and aromatic flavour that is easily recognized, and is often found in Indian cuisine, such as curries. However, cardamom is very popular in baked goods here in Sweden. Although it is fairly strong spice, a small pinch allows an exotic depth to bread.
Although a cold, nordic country, Sweden is a lover of spices, and cardamom (or kardemumma) is no exception. Mainly used to give bread a slight hint of spice, cardamom is a common addition in seasonal or festive food. A great example is semlor, a cardamom infused bun stuffed with whipped cream and almond paste, eaten on Shrove Tuesday. The Swedes have a fairly strict (if unspoken) rule about when to eat semlor, but I find it hysterical that it was once illegal to eat semlor out of season!
As well as bread, cardamom is used in pepparkakar, kanelbullar, and cakes. I made a beautiful cardamom and blueberry cake for my book, Baking with Spelt (in fact, it took pride of place on the cover).
Adaptations for this cardamom bread
I decided to make two kinds of spelt cardamom bread: one larger loaf and five mini versions. Both were plaited, but the large one had a vanilla drizzle frosting and a sprinkling of sliced almonds. The smaller ones had almonds and pearl sugar. Both were awesome, but I particularly enjoyed the heavy dollop of vanilla frosting and soft bread on the larger version.
If you like sweet bread as much as I do, check these out:
- Cinnamon Bun Monkey Bread
- Nutella Babka
- Chocolate Cinnamon Buns
- Blackberry Iced Fingers
- Sticky Caramel Buns
Spelt Cardamom Bread (made two ways)
Ingredients
Dough (see note 1)
- 250ml (1 cup) milk
- 50g (3½ tbs) butter
- 1 egg
- 400-450g (3⅓ - 3¾ cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
- 50g (¼ cup) sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 7g (2 tsp) dried yeast (see note 3)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 beaten egg (for an egg-wash before baking)
Additional Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- icing sugar (enough to make a very thick paste)
- sliced almonds
- pearl sugar
Instructions
DOUGH
Bread Machine:
- Add the milk, butter, and egg to your bread machine pan. Then add 400g (3⅓ cups) of flour, and the remaining ingredients. Take care to keep the yeast and salt separate as much as possible. Set your machine to make dough.
- On a very well-floured surface (the dough will be very sticky) work in just as much flour as you need to make a soft, pliable, but still a little tacky, dough.
Stand Mixer:
- Add the milk, butter, and egg to your stand mixer bowl, and give it a quick mix. If the butter is straight out of the fridge, it won't combine with the other wet ingredients too much, but that's okay.
- Then add 450g (3¾ cups) of flour, and the remaining ingredients. The dough should be sticky, but if you need more flour, just add a little at a time. Be careful: too much flour will result in dry bread.
- Switch to a dough hook (if you have one) and allow the mixer to knead the dough for around 10 minutes, just until soft. The dough will still feel a little tacky to the touch, but will be able to slowly drop off the hook.
- Cover the dough and leave to proof (until it has doubled in size - usually about an hour).
- When the dough is ready, knock it back, and on a floured surface, form into a rough ball.
Small Cardamom Breads
- Using half of the dough (see note 4), divide into 5 equal parts.
- Take each part and divide into three.
- Roll each bit out until it is a thin rope of around 15cm / 6" in length.
- Take the three parts, pinch them together at the top and plait together. Tuck both ends under.
- Continue with the remaining 4 bits of dough so that you are left with ten small plaited buns.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175℃ / 350℉ and line a large baking tray with paper.
- Place the dough shapes on the tray (allowing space in between).
- Cover with a tea-towel and leave to rest for around 30 minutes.
- When ready, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with sliced almonds and pearl sugar.
- Bake for around 12 minutes, just until they are golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve warm.
Large Cardamom Plait (Braid)
- Using half of the dough (see note 4), divide into 3 equal parts.
- Roll each bit out until it is a thick rope of around 25cm / 9¾" in length.
- Take the three ropes, pinch them together at the top and plait together. Tuck both ends under.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175℃ / 350℉ and line a large baking tray with paper.
- Place the plaited dough on the tray and cover with a tea-towel. Leave to rest for around 30 minutes.
- When ready, brush with egg wash.
- Bake for around 15-20 minutes, just until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Drizzle (see note 5)
- Mix the milk and vanilla together and add just as much icing sugar to make a thick (slow dripping) paste.
- Drizzle along the lines of the plaited loaf. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and slice. Enjoy!
Notes
- I have made the dough using both a stand mixer and bread machine with identical results. I have not made the dough by hand, but I see no reason why you couldn't do so!
- You can use spelt or regular flour for this recipe (just use the same amount).
- In Sweden we have something called dried yeast. It is used both in warm liquid to proof and also added directly to flour. I am aware that the US has two options for dried yeast, and I believe dry active yeast is the most similar to our dried yeast.
- The dough will make 5 small buns and one larger one. However, you could use the dough any way you like, perhaps making 10 small buns or just one large loaf.
- I used an icing drizzle only on the large loaf. Of course you can use it on the smaller ones, too!