Red Fife Sandwich Loaf

Profile picture for user stellar
A square slice of bread with a tight cream crumb, with a dog looking at it longingly in the background

The first full work week of the year was pretty crazy for me, so instead of babying and (re-)starting my sakadane, I just made my usual sandwich loaf with some red fife flour that I have.

A rectangular loaf of bread being held up against a white wall with knife handles in the background

It's a recipe I adapted from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice years ago to use tangzhong. It makes great square sandwich slices in my Pullman pan, and is super forgiving even when I forget about the filled pan and leave it to overproof. That usually results in me having to clean some baked-on bread ooze off my oven racks, but honestly, I've cleaned out worse in my oven and the bread bits just peel right off.

I used a fancy stone milled sifted red fife from 1847 Stone Milling in the tangzhong, and a white red fife from Arva Flour Mill. Both are local to me, for Canadian definitions of "local" being "at least within a single day's drive".

To be honest, I'm not sure if I can taste the difference between this red fife loaf and how it normally tastes when I make it with white flour! I think I need to do a side-by-side tasting haha. But it has milk, butter, and honey, so that might be drowning out any red-fife-y notes. And most of the flour being a white flour probably doesn't help, too.

But it still makes a great sandwich! I just had one for lunch with some sprouts and prosciutto and mayo - highly recommend!

Hah! I recognize those ears at the top.  I got them myself just last week. A very nice looking loaf you've made there.

TomP

I love the photos of the beautiful loaf, dog, and knives. As most of the flavor comes from the bran, I also can't detect the flavor of my favorite whole wheat flour when it's been sifted to white flour.  Nicely done.

Richard

Thank you! Yeah, I saw that the mill was selling a white flour and thought I'd try it out since everyone else sells whole/lightly sifted, but if it's not noticeably different than the stuff in the grocery store... I still have most of the bag though, so I'll have to try it out in different recipes and probably side by side with the grocery store flour!

That's gorgeous. I'm amazed that is using red fife, it looks so light!

You may have seen that I've been playing with a Tangzhong pullman milk bread this week too. I'm hoping this weekend to try again but use something like 10-20% WW flour and see what I end up with.

Yeah I did see your loaf! It looked really good and it made me want to make one this weekend, haha.

I think you'd probably end up with something similar to this with 10-20% WW. I only used a whole-ish red fife for the tangzhong, which was 10% of total flour weight, and the rest of it was red fife but white flour, which probably helped. 

A couple weeks ago, I did make this bread with all whole-ish wheat (not sure what the proper term is but commercially stone milled and sifted - from the same mill as the red fife used in my tangzhong here. The mill claims their "all purpose" and their red fife can be used interchangeably), and it was still cream coloured (albeit slightly darker) with the same soft fluffy texture. Or even slightly more delicate, if you'd believe that. My best guess is that there was less gluten in general but because I still let it rise the same amount, and the pan (with a lid!) provided some support, it was able to stretch to fill the pan. I apparently didn't take any pictures of it, so maybe I need to make it again now!

Stella that is such a lovely pullman loaf.  I too love Red Fife, although I haven’t had any in quite some time.   I’ve seen 1847 Stone Milling and Arva Flours from time to time but have never tried them.  I’m surprised at the colour of the crumb, it is so light.  What percent is the tangzhong flour?

Benny

 

 

The light crumb colour is due to the white flour from Arva Mills! It's not as white as a bleached AP from the grocery store but it's pretty pale. Here's a comparison:

1847 Red Fife:

 

Arva Mills White Red Fife:

 

Robin Hood Bleached AP:

Not the best photos in the world, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how white the white red fife is.

I think Arva uses historic roller mills so they can make a white flour more easily than the stone mills. They do sell a whole wheat red fife, but I thought it was really interesting to see a white flour version of red fife. 

The tangzhong is only 10% of the total flour. I've been playing with the liquid ratio when making the tangzhong - that one was 1:2 flour:liquid (milk). It was too stiff for my liking though, so I'm trying 1:3 next!