Spelt Cricket Bread

Challenge accepted and well-met! At the last bug-foodie party I went to, a lovely woman named Joy gifted me a sack of Bitty cricket flour and said, “You’re the baker.” She meant for me to invent a bread recipe using cricket flour. Well, here it is, world. Brought it to a dinner party last night and thought about waiting until everyone had already eaten a few pieces to make the “Oh by the way, there are crickets in this bread” public service announcement, but there is a known cross-reactivity allergy in people who cannot have shellfish, so I forewarned the whole group. Everyone took a slice, and several took two! This is the spongiest, yummiest whole grain bread I’ve made in a while. Enjoy.

cricket bread

Spelt Cricket Bread

3 cups spelt flour

1 cup cricket flour

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter

1 tablespoon kosher salt or 2 teaspoons table salt

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt

Mix sourdough and water and yogurt until well combined. You can do this by hand, using a dough whisk or big spoon; or in a stand mixer. Then blend in the flours. Let dough rest 40 minutes, covered, and then add the salt in another 20 mL of water.

Cover the dough, and let it rest at cool room temperature for 2 hours.

At this point, you can cover and refrigerate the dough for up to 7 days. The flavor will gradually become more assertive and tangier, as the yeast continues to grow and create organic acids.

Scoop off a 1-pound piece of dough – about the size of a large grapefruit. You’ll get 3 to 4 loaves out of the entire batch of dough, depending on how big you actually make the loaves.

Shape into a boule or a batard.

Let the bread rise for about 90 minutes.

Towards the end of the rising time, heat the oven to 450°F. If you’re using a pizza stone, put it on a lower-middle shelf. Whether or not you’re using a stone, place a shallow pan – such as a broiler pan, or small rimmed cookie sheet – on the lowest oven shelf.

Have 1 cup of hot water ready; you’re going to pour it into the pan in the oven to create steam.

Make a couple of quick, aggressive cuts in the loaf and put it into the hot oven – either on your stone or, if it’s on a baking sheet, on the oven rack.

Pour the hot water into the pan below, and shut the oven door.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when thumped.

cricket bread1 cricket bread with izzy plotting   My bulldog plotting an ambush. I also made a boule because this recipe makes so much dough. If you don’t want to make all the bread at once (4 1-lb loaves) you can put the remainder in the fridge (covered in saran) and do it over a week.

cricket

8 thoughts on “Spelt Cricket Bread

  1. cricket flour- that’s a new one on me. until i googled it i didn’t believe it would be REAL crickets!! thanks for adding to my food education 🙂

  2. Can I use other kinds of flour other than all-purpose? Like coconut flour or plantain or tiger nut flour?

    1. If you use other flours that have lower gluten content, the bread will not rise because you won’t be forming air-pocket matrices (gluten naturally forms cross-links with itself, and traps air within the balloon webs). So this is not a “gluten-free” recipe. I would say you could easily substitute whole wheat flour for the all-purpose, but then you need to increase the amount of water and also increase the rising time

  3. I have never made bread. The other 1 1/2 cups sourdough starter, I’m confused. Is that actually 1 1/2 cups of powdered starter or is that 1 1/2 cups of the mixed stuff that has sat for 2-3 days? The starter I bought online is a teeny tiny packet of powder lol. I’m so dumb

    1. Hey, no worries! We all start somewhere!! Sourdough starter in my recipes assumes that you have some starter already mixed with flour and water that has sat for at least 2-3 days. So not the powder kind. Where are you located? To grow a sourdough from a packet, know that it will take years for it to taste good…. I have some that is nearly 100 years old. Is there anyone you know who has already been growing a starter for awhile? It is better to take a pinch off of one that has several years of history than to start one from scratch– all climates are different, and will lend different microbrial profiles to your starter, so you might get lucky and be in a really bacteriogenic environment, but if I were you, I would see if I could find a friend who would give me a pinch. If you are in SE Minnesota, I can get some to you easy! Or New Orleans, I’m moving there next month.

      1. Oh my goodness you’re amazing!! Haha! Woah that move is a big change!! I’m in Sioux Falls SD. I’m quickly learning that bread makers are on an entirely different level of impressive. 100 years old?!?!?!??!!!

      2. I got it four years ago from my mother who got it decades before that in Glacier National Park who got it years before in Denali NP… It might have belonged originally to some Alaskan sourdough woman! Sioux Falls isn’t too far… if you have any business in SE MN before June 12, let me know, and I could get some to you..

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