Lucy’s Witch Yeast Fig and Pistachio Ancient Grain Bread

This week we were reminded once again that we aren’t as hip, modern and advanced as we think we are when to comes to bread and most other things.  We also don’t give our ancient ancestors as much credit and due as we should.  I published an article by Samuel earlier this week , Brewing and baking, in Ancient Egypt that shows how advanced they were in baking bread and making beer.

With all deference to Peter Reinhart’s Revolution, Egyptians were baking spouted grains and sprouted flour bread 4,000 years ago and they were putting porridge in their breads too.  They were also putting malt in their breads.  Lucy was crushed to find out they also put half sprouted and half whole grains in their bread mixes too.

Their beer making was just as sophisticated using malted barley and sometimes malted emmer in their beer and sometimes making 70% malted and 30% whole grain (barley and emmer) beers just like we do today.  They also found large amounts of yeast but only traces of LAB in their beer vats but no traces of LAB in their ancient bread loaves where lots of yeast were found.

You can tell that Samuel is no baker when he says that you can’t make a good loaf of risen spelt bread because there isn’t enough gluten in emmer - which it totally wrong.  You can also tell he isn’t a brewer when he says they probably didn’t use the barm from beer making to make emmer bread because the shock of fermenting barley in beer and then having to ferment emmer would be too much for it.  We know this too is totally wrong because commercial yeast for bread making is nothing more than the yeast used to ferment beer.

This year's winter, pot, salad garden

Some folks get a bit upset when I tell them that the stuff we do with bread and beer today are just not that different than what the Egyptians were doing in 2,000 BC.  The only real thing, a great thing really, that the last 1,333 generations of bakers and brewers have been doing and can take credit for, is carrying on the tradition and craft of making great bread and beer.  So cheers to you all for a job well done!

Well, Lucy was still a bit peeved and wanted to do something with bread that the Egyptians couldn’t possibly have done 4,000 years ago - or anyone else for that matter.  The only thing she could find that fit the bill was still 500 years old.  Witch Yeast! 

Witch yeast is made from potatoes and the Egyptians wouldn’t have had any of those until the early 1500’s since they came from the New World.  Folks living in the New World before then couldn’t have made this bread either since grains didn’t exist here until they were introduced to the New World by Spanish monks in the 1500’s. Try as she might, she couldn’t find anything new in bread for the last 500 years.

You can find the recipe for Witch Yeast here half way down the page and all kinds of other yeasty and SD things  http://www.thecookinginn.com/yeast.html.  Lucy did want to her 500 year old bread to the 4,000 year old Egyptian one to link the old with the new so she used ancient grains of emmer, spelt, barley, Kamut and a bit of rye to go with the modern wheat.  Figs and pistachios were also big in Ancient Egyptian bread as were dates and almonds.

She also sprouted half the ancient grains and used the bran from the sprouted and whole grains to feed the Witch Yeast one time - once it got going at the end of day 2. It was perking right along before and  after the bran feeding.  Instead of autolysing the dough flour with the fig soaker water we also mixed in the Witch Yeast since much of the liquid for the bread was in this very liquid starter.  We did sprinkle the salt on top.

We figured, since this was a less than a 3 day old starter, that it would be weak so the extra hour of it mixed with the rest pf the dough ingredients, less the salt would be good for it to get going, We also figured the extra sugar in the fig water would also help to feed the little Witches.

We did our usual 3 sets of 30 slap and folds and 3 sets of stretch and folds to develop the gluten and folded the figs and pistachios in on the first set of stretch and folds.  We let the dough bulk ferment for an hour on the counter, on the heating pad, before putting it in the fridge for 21 hours of cold sleep.  It didn’t rise a bit on the counter and just a little in the fridge.

We let it warm up for an hour this morning before shaping it into a boule and placing it in a basket for more than 8 hours of final proof.  This bread was slow but it was a young starter of witchy origins so you have to expect these things if you want to lead a charmed life.

We finally unmolded, slashed it and chucked it into the hot DO with the lid on for 18 minutes of steam at 450 F.  We took the lid off and continued baking for 5 minutes at 425 F before taking it out of the combo cooker and finished baking it on the bottom stone. 

Bread on right is last Friday's 50% whole grain chacon, with a 2 week old SD starter, rose a bit better in 1/4th the time for final proof.  Hopefully this new Witch Yeast starter will gain some strength as it ages.

It sprang and bloomed well enough but nit exceptionally and then browned up over the 15 minutes of dry heat.  It smelled  very nice.  Can hardly wait till tomorrow morning to see how this bread tastes.  The crumb was fairly open for a bread with these large add ins.  It was soft and moist with just the slightest hint of sour that was overpowered by the fig's sweetness.  It tastes more like a combo yeast water bread that has a bit of SD starter in it too.  We will have to see how this starter ages over time.