Pain au Levain - using Red Fife Whole-Wheat Flour (for Franko!)
Hello, With many thanks to Franko for sourcing this wonderful Red Fife flour for me (so very kind)!
I've now the luxury of baking with this heritage, organic, stone-ground, 75% sifted whole-wheat from True Grain Mill, and I am very grateful.
These breads were made using Mr. Hamelman's Pain au Levain with Whole-Wheat (Red Fife) Flour, as Franko had done.
Franko really did a beautiful job on his bread; his post is here.
The Red Fife is a lovely, top-notch flour to work with, and my husband and I were very happy with crust, crumb and flavor it produced in this bread.
We cut into the small loaf, trying to wait a decent amount of time to let it cool off!
The dough was retarded in the fridge for 20 hours before baking.
I included a picture of the Red Fife flour below (on left side of plate; my other stone-ground whole-wheat flour on the right side of plate, for comparison).
Happy New Year everyone! from breadsong
Comments
Happy New Year!
Sylvia
I so appreciate your feedback! Looking forward to seeing more of your beautiful baking in 2011! from breadsong
Very nice-looking loaves.
I especially like the scoring and the boldly-baked crust.
Happy New Year.
Glen
Thanks for the nod to Beautiful B.C. and Happy New Year to you too!
The scoring is an homage to Franko's beautiful Red Fife boule. I've been baking on the hot side and enjoying the resulting dark crust; Mr. Hamelman said somewhere in his book, to not underestimate the virtue of a bold bake;
I've taken his words to heart!
from breadsong
For me??
So does this mean I should expect a parcel in the mail any day now? Just kidding, but boy those are some gorgeous loaves you've made with the RF, breadsong. I think the bold bake really favours this particular bread, as well as the RF for bringing it's flavour out to the max.
I'm really happy you're enjoying the flour and making such fine bread with it.
All the best in the New Year!
Franko
Hi Franko,
When I was reading Mr. Hamelman's chapter on Sourdough Rye he talks about breads he baked and shipped ahead (sometimes weeks ahead) for his Long Trail Hike. Maybe one of these ryes would be a good thing to ship over to you!
I need to actually learn how to bake rye first though, so I could be sure to send you a good loaf!
I am glad you liked these first breads using the RF - I was trying to take care with this wonderful flour.
I'm really looking forward to seeing and reading about your baking in the year ahead!!!
From breadsong
Hi breadsong,
I really was kidding about expecting a loaf in my mailbox..really. That's not to say that if one of your lovely breads appeared in the mail one day I'd be marking it 'return to sender' or anything like that. It's a very generous offer that I'd be honored to receive. Many thanks!
Regards,
Franko
Hi Franko, My first impulse whenever someone does something nice for me is to bake something for them. But I've got a ways to go before I'll be able to make a rye that's gift-worthy! But hopefully I will be able to learn and make a rye bread that will taste good and be appealing to the eye - if that happens, I will keep you in mind! :^)
from breadsong
Now thats what i call an oven spring!
Beautiful, breadsong... And Franko!
I really do love seeing ingredients transform into a finished loaf, and seeing a good reaction in the oven is always entertaining for me. Seriously! from breadsong