There is an interesting article in today's New York Times about efforts of The Bread Lab to encourage more whole grain sandwich bread production. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/dining/bread-affordable-whole-grain.html is the URL and there is at least one recipe link to a King Arthur Flour recipe that looks interesting.
There is not enough ww sandwich bread on the store shelves?
I'm doing my best to assure full shelves at the grocery store. I make my own WW and the difference between my home milled-home baked bread and commercial WW is, to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, the difference between a lightning bolt and a lightning bug. Oh, it's cheaper, too.
One of these ww sandwich breads out of the Bread Lab project would make a sensible Community Bake, n’est-ce pas? KA has published their formula and I’m sure others could be found and chosen from.
I’m certainly tempted to try one.
Tom
Looking into it, Tom! Good suggestion.
For those interested in King Arthur’s version of The Bread Lab’s Approachable Loaf project. It is described as “ affordable, approachable, accessible whole wheat sandwich loaf”.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/just-bread-recipe
Here is a link to The Bread Lab and their Approachable Loaf project.
...however I did note the levain calls for 1 tsp of ripe starter. For me this means doing some other baking along with, to justify ramping up my starter (which I typically only feed weekly if not baking).
Beth the KA formula is just one of many. The concept of the project (for memory, exact details to be published) is to develop a bread for the multitudes.
Here are the criteria for The Approachable Loaf
- something an average citizen would buy for their family and eat.
It is a worthy goal...
This CB would not have a prescribed formula. The idea is to come up with individual variations that adhere to the basic qualifications as stated by The Bread Lab for their Approachable Loaf project. Should be fun to join in on the project with other bakers.
I have been volunteering to help make the bread at our local food pantry that is distributed for free. They make about fifty loaves in about 4 hours. Unfortunately the process is rushed through with a high temp proof. Some of the recipes have the dough going from the mixer directly into bread pans. The bread looks fine and the ingredients are high quality but the method produces bread with little taste and poor keeping quality. I have been advocating for slowing down the process and incorporating sourdough. I have not had any luck persuading them to try a different method. The hybrid loaf seems like a perfect solution. I am going to take this Bread Lab info to them and see where it goes.
Love the idea of The Community Bake towards this effort.
Mtloaf, I applaud your efforts. Do they have the refrigerator space to handle a cold final proof. I am sure that they are concerned with throughput, but if they have the space, you may be able to convince them that allowing for either a cold BF or cold final proof will yield the same number of loaves per day, just that part of that time they are in the fridge.
The Food Pantry is also a community kitchen that gets rented out to other people who cater or make food products on a small local scale. They were trying to make as much bread as possible in the shortest amount of time so they could free up the kitchen for the other uses.It had walk-in coolers and lots of space.They have just moved the bread baking to it's own facility where there is less refrigerator space, (enough to retard in bulk but not enough space to final proof). They have hired an experienced baker and are in the process of trying to provide bread for other nearby food pantries. I have been campaigning for cold proofing, preferments or sourdough methods and the value of bread that doesn't go stale as quickly. I think we are headed in the right direction. I just learned about the Approachable Loaf on another thread, that is a hybrid method that seems like a perfect idea for the bread they are hoping to produce.