Dinkelbrot

In January 2012 we were fortunate to have Elisabeth Kreutzkamm-Aumueller, Tino Gierig, and Frank Reiser from the Dresdner Backhaus in Dresden, Germany, come bake with us and teach a couple of baking classes at our school. While they were here, they made their version of stollen, as well as teaching us to bake vinschgauer, a type of rye bread, and dinkelbrot, a German spelt bread.

Somehow, the dinkelbrot (funny name and all) is what captured the imagination and palate of our customers. We sell hundreds of loaves every week, with little promotion or education. Who would have thought? We had tried baking spelt bread in the fall of 1992 and decided that we didn’t have the capacity for it, given everything else we had going on. However, we stayed in contact over the years with Don Stinchcomb of Purity Foods in Okemos, Michigan, which specializes in Michigan-grown spelt. Don had helped us many times by milling small runs of wheat that we had local farmers grow for us, and we’re glad to finally be able to buy spelt from him.