Recipe Spelt Flatbread made with Orange Juice

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Well in theory in it meant to be orange juice, but my OH came home with Orange, Mandarin and Grapefruit juice, so I had to make it with that!

So I have taken the recipe directly from here (http://www.myfoodandhappiness.com/thyme-olive-oil-protein-spelt-bread/) - but I will say I will make modifications to it in future and the first will be to half the amount of oil used and use either extra water/orange juice or even almond milk as a binding agent because I did find the dough very greasy and felt it wasn't really needed. I hope to try again later in the week.

You will want a 10 inch tin to cook it in (if you want a round flatbread) otherwise it goes to about 4-5mm thick.

Ingredients
400g Spelt flour
150ml unsweetened orange juice
150ml olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt (this is needed)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (roughly), this is 325F I think or gas
2. Mix the flour, salt and dried thyme together.
3. Add the oil and orange juice to the dried ingredients and form a dough.
4. Need until smooth (not long).
5. Flatten out on to the greased baking tray (or springform tin in my case) and sprinkle with additional dried thyme if wanted.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or so. The or so depends on the thickness you have made your flatbread and how golden you want it. It won't rise, so don't expect it to.
7. Serve hot.

It can be made with any dried herbs really, and to I can't see why you couldn't make it using fresh chopped herbs either, but you would need roughly 3-5tbsp of fresh chopped herbs and some dried to sprinkle on the top if you wanted to sprinkle them on the top.

So my photos. I will try to get one of it cut up this evening when we eat the remainder.

Prior to cooking

Cooked - just not browned. My oven and I have issues and I am still learning it. Plus it was one of those evenings where I was being helped in the kitchen and I would have known to look at the oven temperature (160C not 180C) and increase it...

So what was it like - well it was actually very nice. A touch 'short' for our liking and with no taste of orange, mandarin or grapefruit... . It was nice and nutty and had a good spelt taste and also was well seasoned with a good thyme flavouring. The volume of dried herbs was spot on for the recipe despite my initial reservations about there being too much. It would be very nice to try it with a number of other herbs (or spices, I can think of a few dishes it would work with) and I think it would easily make a thinner flatbread using less oil and adding water/milk as a binding agent. Will I make it again - certainly. It has the thumbs up for me, but the calorific content worries me a touch! I shall go off and work it all out and post the results...

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

OK. An analysis of the contents, I am assuming 6 servings here. Bread or anything with flour always has a lot of calories, add oil and you make matters worse (or any fat for that matter)...

I ran it through a number of nutritional content analysers and using 6 servings, they all came back with roughly the same analysis. A single serving has around 440 calories in it and around the 9g mark for protein. It is also a good source of potassium and dietary fibre. Hlaving the olive oil and replacing it with something like water or unsweetened almond milk will remove around 100 calories per serving.

 

[Morning Glory]

I don't understand how you made it 440 Kcal for a single serving - are you saying that 400g of spelt flour makes one flatbread and that it is one portion? That can't be right.... perhaps I'm misunderstang.

 

[Morning Glory]

Oh...I suppose it can be right. It just seemed ridiculously high for one flatbread. I don't know why it needs oil. I make flatbreads with just flour, water and salt. I'll have a go at a simple spelt flatbread since I have some spelt flour to hand. Here are some spelt and rye crisp breads I made a few months ago - I didn't write down the recipe!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Flour has roughly 360 calories per 100g. Oil has roughly 120 calories per tablespoon (15ml). Think about it. Ignoring the calories even from the orange juice...

4* 360 plus 10 * 120... divided by 6 is 2,640 calories. More than an entire days serving for a man!
Even without the oil it would still have roughly 225 calories per slice. 1 serving out of 6 from 1 flatbread. All bread has loads of calories. the trick is to make them actually count (which is why I usually add things like sunflower seeds and flaxseeds to my sourdoughs so that there are useful nutrients in the bread at the same time.

As I said, I won't be adding anywhere near that amount of oil next time around. 225 calories per slice I could deal with for an evening meal (my soups rarely have even 200 calories per portion, so that would be OK.

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There is usually around the 100 calories mark per slice of wholemeal bread (usually that is). So even before my OH has added the hummus to his sandwiches (the rest is usually salad), he has around 400 calories in the 4 slices he has just taken to work. Plus the banana (usually 2). Luckily the hummus I purchase only has 22 calories per 15g serving, but I can guarantee you he has had at least 6 servings minimum, but normal hummus has a lot more calories in it also because of the oil.

The calories in flour in particular (any flour, it is all roughly the same) is one of the reasons it makes excellent food when being very active, but when people go on about avoiding carbohydrates when on a diet.

 

[Morning Glory]

I had a go at simple spelt flatbread - no frill! But herbs or spices could easily be added. Simple Spelt Flatbread
The mix made 4 x 7inch flatbreads and I think one would be quite enough for me if it accompanied a curry or something.