txfarmer's blog

This bread is based on the light rye formula in "Bread", however, I skipped commercial yeast, and added cumin and orange for a middle-eastern-ish flavor. The pin-wheel shaping method was from wildyeast's blog here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2011/05/05/shaping-a-pinwheel/

Light Rye with Cumin and Orange

*Makes 2X700g loaves

- Levain

medium rye flour, 136g

water, 108g

Some facts first:

- Hokkaido is a place in Japan.

- Hokkaido Milk Loaf is THE most classic/common/well-loved sandwich bread in Asia. It's enriched with milk, heavy cream, butter, egg, milk power, and quite a lot of sugar - which makes it richer than most Asian soft sandwich bread recipes, pushing toward brioche territory. The finished loaf is very tall, very soft, rather rich tasting.

Many have made similar breads, notably:

http://noelsbread.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/blueberry-hazelnut-bread/

http://www.farine-mc.com/2009/06/apple-blueberry-bread-with-spelt.html

The formula is from Wild Yeast's blog, there really isn't that much rye in the dough, but has quite a lot of ww flour, as well as cracked wheat and flax seeds - two of my favoriate bread add-ins. The addition of molasses adds a subtle sweetness, makes a very flavorful and satisfying whole grain bread.

In my last croissant post(see here), I said I am practicing once or twice every week to perfect my lamination skill. It's been more than a month, and my croissant fever is getting hotter -- sadly, what's heating up faster is TX temperature. If you look up "mission impossible" or "self punishment" in the dictionary, you might see the following picture (28C is about 82F):