This is my second attempt at the multigrain Struan from Peter Reinhart’s wonderful book: Whole grain Breads. This is no easy dough to deal with, and I remember now why i have chosen to put it off for a second trial. The high proportion of soaked grains (I used some seeds too), held loosely by 100% whole wheat flour, some butter, and honey; makes for a very sticky dough.
I don’t know why I sometimes push myself to the extremes, but I can’t resist having excess ripe sourdough, without putting it to good use. I have adopted a lazy method of feeding my starters prior to my weekend baking, and building it to a leaven similar to the ones used in Hamelman’s Bread. No planning involved as to which bread I’ll bake, and I often end up with an excess leaven when I decide to change my recipe at the last moment.
Oh, boy i feel at home, again!
Not only baking is addictive, it has become a part of me now. Almost 3 months of bed rest, and ayurvedic therapy, 1 of which was spent in Kerala, the beautiful southern city of India; has never detached me from thefreshloaf site, nor did my enthusiasm for bread baking waver.
Last week, I have been milling my Turkish wheat berries (don’t quite know the type-probably ordinary winter wheat, but definitely not red) using my trusty Hawos easy mill, and noticed that during the first phase of my intermediary milling (coarse), I found tiny bran particles along with the middlings . I decided to try a labor intensive method of separating the bran from the other particles. Bran weighs less than the coarse endosperm particles, so I used a hair drier to blow air through the coarse mixture while stirring it.
I’ve always wanted to bake a Volkornbrot, and Peter Reinhart’s Version in “Wholegrain Breads” was appealing enough, though challenging too. The Recipe involves a soaker and a biga, as usual. However, the Biga was in the form of a Stiff Rye Sourdough, and the soaker was a Mash/scald. I have elected to skip the called for yeast, and went by the baking instruction of Hamelman’s version of volkornbrot in “Bread”.
MASH / SCALD:
I've blogged about this bread many times before, however, this time i wanted to stay true to the spirit of Hamelman. Mixing instructions for this recipe, as with most recipes in BREAD call for moderate gluten development, and i have lately deviated from his mixing instructions by applying hybrid mixing, where french slap and fold, Laurel's kneading using a bench scraper, and other mixing techniques. What i wanted was to have a well developed soft dough that raises well in the oven. Not applicable to all breads!
This is baked from Hamelman's "BREAD", in levain section. It is naturally leavened, with 10% wholewheat or so. I increased the hydration from 68% to 78%, as i like a softer dough. everything went as scheduled, but i ended up in bed at 1:00 am! a chronic symptom of my late sourdough baking...!
Therefore, i thought of an idea, which is reducing the prefermented flour to 10% to allow 21 hours retarded bulk fermentation, and consequently allows me to continue baking next day without having to sleep late.
Once more, reminded by Karin's blog, i bake another recipe out of Hamelman's "BREAD". The recipe, cast away behind Volkornbrot with flaxseeds in Sourdough Breads section, was unintentionally overlooked. Karin (hanseata)has Praised the bread, and i had to bake a mutigrain SD sourdough sometime, so i did.
This is my second take at Golden date bread, the recipe found in Laurel’s Wholegrain baking book. As I did in my previous post here, I have added a poolish to the formula to increase the extensibility of this dough, and improve flavor.
This time, however, i reduced the date puree to 50% of the original formula, as I found it to be on the sweet side, and increased the final dough water by 50 grams to compensate.
One year after Txfarmer showcased her lovely bake of Laurel's Oatmeal bread, I decided to bake one myself. It is a 100% wholewheat, enriched direct dough, leavened with commercial yeast. Having excess rolled wholegrain oats at home, i decided to give the recipe a try.
The dough was very thirsty. I ended up adding 240g of water to the dough. Intensive kneading for this dough is a must, otherwise the bread will be dense, due to all the oatmeal.
I used finely milled wheat flour for this recipe.
