I considered throwing this idea out there as a hypothetical but never got around to it. So, I went with my preferred method: bake first, ask questions later. The question that led to this formula went something like this: Instead of adding yeast to a rye sourdough, as so many book formulas do, what would happen if I added some whole wheat starter?
Baking for the county fair. Or, what if they gave a bread competition and nobody came? Well, I would win lots of ribbons, that's what! I'm exaggerating a little, there were a few other breads but none were in the categories I entered (fortunately for me). Makes the blue ribbons a bit less impressive but I still had fun doing it.
It is always a good learning experience as well. Things I learned (or was keenly reminded of):
I have a zinfandel grape in the yard, originally planted more as a whimsical tribute to our favorite wine grape than for any practical purpose. It is now producing grapes, something I should have seen coming, but what to do with them? They are tasty enough to eat fresh if you don’t mind the seeds but still…
First the old: An 85% whole wheat sourdough. I'm still tinkering with this formula and getting good bread, but I'm coming to realize that the way I handle the dough has more impact on the bread than my endless tinkering with the numbers (if only I could spend as much time baking as I do in front of a computer).
This is a bread that came from having too many different flours in the house at once. I went to the freezer intending to make another bread altogether but saw these flours and thought, "beans and corn, classic!" Beans and corn and chiles? Even more classic! This was to be my sourdough salute to the American southwest, except... the bread never really worked like I wanted it to. It's not a bad loaf, it just isn't making me as happy as I thought it would. Hmmm...
I enjoyed the last country rye I baked so much that I tried another one. This is the Polish Cottage Rye from Local Breads and the formula is pretty similar to the one I used for the last bake. The only place I really strayed from the book was to use a coarse, whole rye instead of a white rye.
I've been hung up on this line from Tartine Bread regarding the Country Rye ever since I read it: "Use a medium-fine grind of whole-rye flour as opposed to a course pumpernickel rye, which will yield a very different result." And that's it, end of paragraph, end of story. He just leaves that hanging there like I'm not going to wonder day after day just what sort of "very different result" it would yield. Yeah... no, that won't do at all.
These are a couple of the bakes from my ongoing attempt at combining methods from Whole Grain Breads and Tartine Bread into a simple, mostly whole wheat sourdough. The bread is turning out pretty well - crackled crust, soft, springy crumb, lovely flavor. It's amazing what even 15% white flour will do for the texture of a whole wheat bread. The hardest part is just making up my mind about the details!
Just what's needed, right? Another pizza dough. There's nothing glamorous about this one, either. That's what I love about it - it's dependable above all else. It makes a nice pizza and some pretty good sandwich rolls. The triple batch gives me enough dough for a pizza the size of my pizza stone and sandwich rolls for a week's worth of lunches. This has become my standard survival bake when I don't have time for anything else.
