Pain au Levain with wheat germ - shaped into 3Bs, boule, batard and baguette
Inspired by Dmsnyder's SFBI Miche, I made another wheat germ sourdough weeks ago and loved it. This time, I wanted to increase hydration and include rye flour in the dough. Instead of calling them wheat germ sourdough, I’d like to call it Pain au Levain with wheat germs (pain au levain is literally sourdough bread, only with fancier name). Taking the idea from Susan at Wild Yeast Blog, I shaped the dough into 3 Bs, three basic shapes; boule (round), batard (oval) and baguette. The bread had 2% toasted wheat germs, 72% hydration (amount of water comparing to total flour), mixture of bread flour (80%), whole wheat (15%) and rye flour (5%). I used the mixed flour sourdough starter (whole wheat & bread flour at 50/50 ratio) as I wanted pronounced acidity for the bread. 
The bread didn’t disappoint. It was good all-round bread. It was great for toast, soup and sandwiches. I made Croque Madame using the bread and it was delicious. This recipe has now become my go-to plain sourdough bread. 
It was also interesting to see the differences of the same dough into three shapes. Of all three shapes, I like the baguette shape the least. Baguette has high crust to crumb ratio and I am a crumb lover rather than crust. We froze the batard and haven’t got the chance to have it yet but I’m sure it will be as wonderful as the boule. 
Full post and recipe is here. Sue http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com
Comments
Sue, you have some great looking breads there. Ron
Sue
Sue,
Your sandwich is really good (very hungry right now). I love the way you bake a batch of breads into three different kinds of shapes and I think it is very creative way to bake breads. By looking at your bread crumb, I think you can do very tasty pressed sandwich too (my favorite of all time).
Kimmy
Toasted sandwich is my favorite too. I would love to have sandwich press, but the kitchen is full of gadgets and no more room for any occasional gadgets:(
Sue
Hello Sue, What lovely shaping, and precise scoring - what a steady hand, scoring that boule!
The breads and the Croque Madame...a delight for the eyes!
:^) from breadsong
I was relatively happy with the scoring on boule, but not really on batard and baguette.
I've been trying to achieve the scoring without gringe on boule for past few weeks, and that way of scoring just got to me when I scored the baguette and batard. I'll have to reacquaint myself on scoring with ears again:)
Croque Madame was the delightful for lunch too:)
Sue
Beeyootiful as always. I'm with you on baguettes.
That croque madame looks delish - it's lunchtime, and I'd better run off and attack my fresh-baked pane de campagne before I dribble all over the keys. WIsh I hadn't forgotten to buy eggs...
Cheers!
R
I used the recipe of Croque Madame from Gourmettraveller mag website. It was quite unsual that they put bechamel on top of the sandwich and grill under the broiler, instead of in the filling. The result is more appealing, I suppose.
Pane de campagne would make a perfect sandwich, I can imagine.
Sue
Very nice post.
Howard
:)
Sue
Almost missed this one, Sue. It slipped off the screen before I had time to comment. Lovely, as always. Your loaves are so consistent. My everyday sourdough has rye/ww/bf ratios very similar to yours. Don't always add the wheat germ (although I love it) as it does involve the extra step of toasting and sometimes I just don't have the time.
Syd
My first plan for flour combination was 10% rye, 15% WW and 75% bread flour. But I ran out of rye, and only got 5% left, which worked otu nicely. I like the flavour of bread made with mixed flour starter too. It has more acidity in it. WW and wheat germs gave its nice nutty flavour and slight chewy texture to it. Totally love it.
Sue