hullaf's blog

In past writing I've mentioned that I've been looking for a bread bowl. I own an antique kneading bowl that didn't clean up well and was too cracked to use so I have been on the prowl. Well, in the woods here in TN we have a variety of trees and my hubbie and I found a very big burl on a white oak tree on our property. We had the tree taken down (too big for us), got the burl off, and have set about making a bowl. It's an undertaking I tell you. We think the original whole burl and associated bark, etc. was over 120 pounds and about 3x2x2 feet big.

I went to a local grist mill, called Fall's Mill in TN, and found some fresh cracked wheat. This is the bread recipe on the side of the bag: 

In a large mixing bowl pour 1 1/2 cups of boiling water over: 

2 cups cracked wheat

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 cup wheat germ 

Let cool. Meanwhile dissolve 1 package yeast in 1/2 cup warm water with 1 tablespoon sugar. Set aside to cool. 

I'm liking my multigrain breads especially if I can get my sourdough starter to work with them. This latest is one from Hamelman's 'Bread", the Five-grain levain recipe. I followed the recipe fairly exactly only making 2/3 of the recipe. I used my whole wheat starter and not any commercial yeast. For the soaker I used part Bob's Red Mill 7-grain cereal mix, flaxseeds, and sunflower seeds. I even did the retarding part of the recipe in the refrigerator overnight, approximately 13 hours and then a four-hour warm up/proof on the counter before baking.

I've been baking various breads with seeds. When Lindy tried Hamelman's "Sourdough Seed Bread" it sounded so good. It has 92% bread and 8% rye flours and uses a white flour starter. I have a whole wheat starter so used JMonkey's version from the new TFL Handbook, the 'Three-Seed Sourdough Bread' which uses  80% white and 20% whole wheat flours. Both recipes use sunflower, sesame, and flaxseeds. My bread came out tasting very good. See node 10286. 

 Susan's sourdough    

Susan's sourdough