There are the dreams of night that are forgotten with the morning coffee; and, there are the dreams that come as one considers the bread one is eating with morning coffee. Thus, one steps forth in the bright morning light, to find the 7 Pillars of Wisdom. (T.E.L. will forgive me because one of the best breakfast breads I ever had was in Hafer Al-Batin.)
I was in a big-box food-service warehouse, and picked up a big bag of Grain Craft Power Flour ($11/25 lb). It is a commercial pizza flour, and I was aiming to increase the amount of whole grain flour/meal in my PdC without compromising volume. Another option would have been to add vital wheat gluten, but the pizza flour is easier, and we sometimes like commercial style pizza and bagels.
PdC as a modern commercial product is based on modern commercial flours. It has more flavor than white bread, but mostly it does not interfere with the rest of the menu. For Thanksgiving, I took PdC of that school. I knew the first course would be herring – so it had to be a bread that would stand up, to the strong flavors of hearing, but would not overwhelm things like roast turkey and green bean casserole. There was also some white bread.
This morning's PdC made in a hurry; but good.
About 6am I ground 25 g rye and 175 g of red winter wheat as fine as possible, then added 400 ml of water, a tsp of instant yeast, and 100 g of very good starter, stirring well. I put a shower cap on it and let it sit at 85F for a couple of hours.
Then, I used a wooden spoon to stir in 400 grams of GM bread flour making a rough dough, put the shower cap back on it, and put it back its proof box for half an hour.
I make my baking as easy as possible - I want bread, not the experience of making bread.
I keep a sourdough starter, and I feed it about 30 grams of whole wheat flour and 20 grams of water, about every other day, so it is always ready, always very active, and always about the hydration of my dough - one less thing to worry about.
In high school, Louis Diat was my hero, and I baked croissants, brioches, and challah, so there was fresh bread and pastry in our house almost every day. (Most of the year, there was also a surplus of eggs and garden produce.) By the late 1970s, I was pastry chef in pretentious restaurants in New York City. After that, I ran and owned restaurants and hotels in California for a few years, before changing my life. In all, I have baked a lot of stuff that looked and tasted just like what you would find in a good bakery.
