Nut Bread: Homemade. Artisan. Fast. Easy. Yummy.

It’s the darkest, rainiest day in August humanity has ever seen. This is how  the Deluge must have started. A perfect day to stay at home, think about if it’s insane to put on the fireplace in August and: To bake!
For my non-baking friend Ju, I’ll spread here and now publicly the secret of my fathers fast, easy, super yummy, not to mention healthy, homemade artisan bread:

Peter’s Nut Bread

In a sentimental homage to my very much only German-speaking  father, who tought me all my cooking skills and is a divine chef, I added the German terms in italic. Whoever is bored by that might see it as challenge to pick up a few words in a foreign language before holidays.

Put in a large bowl

• 300g / 2 ¹/2 Cups wholemeal wheat (triticum aestivum – Weizen)
• 300g / 2 ¹/2 Cups wholemeal spelt (triticum speltum – Dinkel)

Make a little depression in the middle, take from fridge and tap

• 1 pack of fresh yeast (Baker’s Yeast. 42g / one cube / 0.6o ounce – Hefe)
• 600ml / 2 ¹/2 Cups lukewarm water (Wasser)

Crumble the yeast in the middle of the depression. Pour the lukewarm water slowly on the yeast. Stir yeast and water to dissolve the yeast. I use for stirring the end of a wooden cooking spoon. It’s easiest to clean later I found. Try to only stir in the middle and let some flour sit around your well untouched. The yeast dissolves easier this way and stirring in water is less work than stirring in heavy dough.
Add to the lot

• 1 teaspoon sugar (Zucker)
• 2 teaspoons salt (Salz)
• 3 tablespoons vinegar (3 Eßlöffel Essig)

Now, stir everything in your bowl together. It will be a quite heavy goo – certainly not a bread dough suitable for hand kneading. Take

• 1 cup of nuts or seeds (1 grosse Tasse Nüsse oder Kerne – ca. 2 Hand voll)

And stir it under the bread dough. Fill all in a 28cm Kastenform (11 inches long cake tin for a loaf). Do NOT pre-heat the oven. Set the box type loaf pan in the COLD oven at 220°C / 430°F. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

• You can use instead of nuts raisins, fried onions, olives, dried herbs etc.
• If you replace wholemeal with standard flour (Type 405) the bread will be a bit lighter in color and a tiny bit more fluffy and high. but believe me: we are totally not the organic and/or health food consumers and all family loves this bread as is.

The measurements given make a loaf for a family. The bread does not dry out to quickly and stays fresh for a couple of days. But usually, after one day, it looks like that:

All cups are given in US cups. Should you use a smaller baking dish than 28cm/11 inches please recalculate the measurements according to your dish size.
For conversion gram/cup of flour I used this site. It has volume/weight conversions, metric and US cups and takes in account that different types of flour have a different volume. Temperature, length and volume measurements I converted with this site.
Different types of yeast and US measurements of fresh yeast are explained really well on this site. Scroll down to the middle to see the block I am talking about. You’ll find it in the supermarket with refrigerated goods.