Farine

Crazy for Bread

Search Results for: how to make bread

Blueberry Bread with Spelt Starter

Even though (or because?) it is a three-party marriage (“un mariage à trois” as we say in French, usually with a snicker), the alliance between spelt, apple and blueberries really rocks!
The flavors complement each other with none of them trying to steal the show. Definitely a felicitous union although it could be be sweeter. That is, I could have put in a sweetener. I didn’t because I usually prefer not to, but this time, just a hint of agave nectar or honey would have been welcome.
You know how they talk about the boys of summer? Well, this is a bread of summer. It brings back memories of fragrant hayrides and long hours among the bushes, picking to one’s heart’s content.

I love blueberries, their shape, their color and the way they seem to blush under the thinnest coating of mauve talcum powder. I actually read somewhere that this very thin powder is their sunscreen. They secrete it to protect themselves from rays that would otherwise turn them into raisins. I wish we were genetically programmed to do the same. Although maybe that’s what a suntan is…
But too much suntan does turn you into a raisin after a while… So we don’t have it as easy as blueberries and that’s a fact.
Anyway, I was trying to come up with a blueberry bread that could be eaten on its own, a bit like a quickbread, and still be a “real” bread, the macho type with a nice crust and a chewy crumb. And save for the fact that it could have been a wee bit sweeter, this bread delivers. As is, it is actually excellent with Swiss cheese or white Cheddar cheese and obviously delicious with blueberry jam!
I would have used all spelt (a combination of white spelt and whole spelt flours but I ran out of white spelt, so I replaced some of it with unbleached all-purpose flour). Spelt flakes and/or spelt bran could be added for texture if desired. I had given my usual white starter (100% hydration) two feedings of spelt and it looked quite happy and rearing to go. So off we went…
Ingredients (for 1 small loaf and 1 big one):

  • 288 g white spelt flour
  • 171 g whole spelt flour
  • 112 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 285 g water
  • 115 g spelt starter
  • 86 g unsweetened applesauce
  • 229 g fresh blueberries
  • 28 g almond oil (or other neutral oil)
  • 13 g salt
  • 2.8 g instant yeast
Method:
  1. Mix the instant yeast in the flour
  2. Put the flours, the starter, the oil, the applesauce and about 80% of the water in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add the reserved water as needed
  3. Let rest, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes (autolyse)
  4. Add the salt and mix at medium speed until the dough reaches a low/medium level of gluten development (when you pinch a piece of it off with wet hands and stretch it, you should see a thin membrane – or “gluten window” – with opaque spots and that means the dough is ready)
  5. Place the dough on a flour-dusted worktable and gently incorporate the blueberries, taking care not to squash them too much
  6. Spray with oil a large bowl or bucket, put the dough in it and cover tightly
  7. Let ferment for 1 1/2 hour or so (if the dough is very slack, you may want to give it a fold after the first 30 minutes)
  8. Spray the worktable with oil and gently put the dough on it, taking care not to deflate it or squash the blueberries more than necessary
  9. Divide the dough in 1 small loaf and 1 big one (or 3 small ones)
  10. Pre-shape the pieces in balls and let them rest, covered, for about 20 minutes
  11. Shape tightly in the desired shape (I made one small boule and one big oval bread as I don’t have 3 small baskets) and place in well-floured baskets or bannetons
  12. Set to proof for about 45 minutes inside a clear plastic bag, well sealed
  13. At least 30 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 F/232 C, after placing a baking stone and a shallow metal pan inside
  14. When the loaves are ready, turn them out of their baskets onto a semolina-dusted sheet of parchment paper placed on a half-sheet pan or baker’s peel and score them in a cross pattern
  15. Pour one cup of water into the shallow metal pan, taking care to protect your face and hands
  16. Slide the loaves onto the baking stone, spray the oven walls heavily with water and close the door
  17. Bake for 35 minutes (turning them half-way during baking so that they color evenly)
  18. Then remove the parchment paper from under the loaves and flip them over gently to ensure a crisp bottom (that’s because the blueberries tend to leak during baking and make the bottom of the loaf soggy in places)
  19. Bake another 5 minutes
  20. Remove from the oven and set on a rack to cool. Enjoy!


This Blueberry Bread goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

Double Apple Bread

The idea for this bread came to me as I was continuing my spring cleaning of the kitchen cabinets and encountered a half-full container of organic dried apples I had bought a couple of months ago at the farmers’ market on 47th street. I had some fresh apples as well which I needed to do away with before our trip. I also had some newly bought muesli that I was eager to try.
I remembered reading in Joe Ortiz’s The Village Baker that he made a bread with an apple starter and another one with some muesli mash. I didn’t have time to make a foolproof apple starter (although I definitely will later on this summer or this fall because I love the idea) but I thought, hey, why not try to just ferment an apple with some sugar and water and see what happens?

If it didn’t turn out to be palatable, nothing much would be lost except the apple. As for the muesli mash, it is very easy to make. Just soak the muesli with hot water overnight, in the morning add the flour and the sweetener (inspired by Jeremy from Stir the Pots, I used pomegranate molasses instead of honey) and let it rest between 24 and 36 hours.
But everything hung on the fate of the fermented apples. Would they make the bread or the compost heap? On the day of the baking, when I woke up, I still didn’t know. I uncovered the bowl and hesitantly took a tiny bite out of a tiny piece and…the flavor was incredible, both sweet and alcoholic and very, very sophisticated. The juice that had seeped out was marvelous in its own right. It went straight into the dough. Imagine fall concentrated into an elixir and you’ll have an idea of what it tasted like. I bet fermented apple pieces would be delicious in sourdough pancakes. That will be for when we come back!

 


The fermented apple after 5 days

Meanwhile, hesitation was no longer possible, the bread was begging to be made. I knew I wanted a healthy dose of whole wheat flour and I also wanted a very wet dough as the dried apples might soak up all the moisture otherwise and I would end up with an autumn-tasting brick.
So here is the recipe I came up with. I added a tiny bit of honey. For consistency sake, I should have stuck to the pomegranate molasses but, still under the spell of the magical potion, I completely forgot that it had been my sweetener of choice for the muesli mash. Ah well, not to worry! Pomegranate molasses being quite acidic, maybe honey was a better choice anyway, especially because I had forgotten to feed my starter the day before and it was definitely giving me sour looks.

 


The dried apples from the farmer’s market
When I wrote the above post, we hadn’t yet tasted the bread. Now we have and we love it. It has a crunchy crust and a flavorful crumb and the pieces of apple are a real treat. The interior could be a bit more open but I am not sure how to go about getting more holes with as much whole wheat. I’ll have to experiment. As always, suggestions are welcome!

In any case, my family loved this double apple bread and that makes it a keeper for me as I always like to see them gobble up whole grains without noticing it. Next time however:

  • I will NOT forget to feed my starter the day before
  • Which means that I will NOT use yeast
  • Which also means that I will go for a longer fermentation time
  • Which probably means that I’ll retard the dough overnight
  • I will play around with the amount of fermented apples to try and get more of that awe-inspiring liquor which tasted like it was well on its way to transmuting into either calvados (apple brandy) or hard cider, and replace more of the water with it for added flavor
  • I’ll probably use a white whole wheat mash (I’ve never tried one before and I am curious to see how it turns out) which will either replace or complement the muesli

Ingredients (for one large loaf and a small one):

For the fermented apples

  • 165 g firm apple (I used a Fuji), peeled, cored and cut into little pieces, left to marinate for 5 days in a tightly covered bowl with one stirring a day
  • 37 g granulated sugar
  • 26 g water

For the muesli mash

  • 90 g muesli
  • 40 g raisins, added to the muesli prior to soaking
  • 140 g hot water
  • 77 g unbleached all-purpose flour, added after a 12-hour soaking of the raisins and muesli
  • 1/2 tsp pomegranate molasses (or honey), also added after the initial 12-hour soaking

For the final dough

  • 400 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 400 g white whole wheat
  • 420 g water
  • 200 g mature liquid starter (hydration 100%)
    all of the muesli mash
    all of the fermented apples (however the juice is added to the dough at the beginning of the mixing and the pieces of apple themselves at the end)
  • 37 g dried apple slices, roughly chopped
  • 21 g pomegranate molasses (or honey)
  • 20 g hazelnut oil (a neutral oil such as canola or almond would work too)
  • 20 g salt
  • 5 g instant yeast

Method (this bread is made over 6 days):

  1. Five days before baking day, mix apple, sugar and water in a small bowl and cover tightly. Set it to ferment in a warm place and give it a stir every 24 hours
  2. At least 36 hours before baking day, mix the muesli in a small bowl, cover well and let soak overnight or for 12 hours. The following morning, add the flour, cover tightly again and set to ferment in a warm place next to the apples. Forget all about it for the next 24 to 36 hours
  3. On baking day, put the flour, the muesli mash, the starter, the yeast, the oil, 80% of the water and the juice of the fermented apple in the bowl of the stand mixer and mix at low speed until incorporated (adding water as necessary)
  4. Cover the bowl of the mixer with a towel and let rest 20 to 30 minutes (autolyse)
  5. Add the salt and mix at medium-speed until the dough reaches medium consistency (when you pinch off a piece of it with wet hands and stretch it, you should see a thin membrane – or “gluten window” – with opaque spots, which means the dough is ready)
  6. Add the dried apple and mix briefly until well distributed
  7. Place the dough on a flour-dusted surface, knead for a few seconds by hand and incorporate the fermented apples until well distributed
  8. Place the dough in a large lightly oiled bucket or bowl and cover tightly
  9. Leave to ferment for 1 1/2 hour, giving the dough one fold after 30 minutes
  10. Divide in two (I made one large and one small loaf) and pre-shape each piece into a ball, cover and let rest for 20 minutes
  11. Shape tightly into balls and set to proof for about 40 minutes in well-floured baskets or bannetons placed in a clear tightly sealed plastic bag
  12. 30 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 475 F/246 C after placing inside a baking stone and a shallow metal pan
  13. Invert the boules onto a semolina-dusted sheet of parchment paper placed on a baker’s peel or half-sheet
  14. Dust them with flour (if desired) and score them
  15. Pour one cup of water in the metal pan, taking care to protect face and hands
  16. Slide the boules into the oven (still on the parchment paper) directly onto the baking stone
  17. Spray the oven walls with water
  18. Close the oven door and lower the temperature to 450F/232C
  19. After 30 minutes, rotate the boules and check the color of the crust. If already quite dark, lower the oven temperature and/or protect the boules with tented foil
  20. Bake another 10 minutes
  21. Turn off the oven and, keeping the oven door ajar, let the loaves dry out another 5/10 minutes
  22. Set to cool on a rack.

This Double Apple Bread goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

Essential Sweet Perrin (Pear Bread)

Si vous préférez lire ce billet en français, cliquer ici

Those of you who have access to Maggie Glezer’s excellent book, Artisan Baking Across America, where I got the recipe, will realize right away that this isn’t the way the bread is supposed to look.
For those who have no way of checking it out, here is the way it is (or was) made at Essential Bakery in Seattle – the bakery which contributed the recipe to the book :


(photo scanned from the book, frame and text added by me)

I love their presentation too and I’ll probably make the Sweet Perrin that way one day, especially around the holidays when it would make a lovely present to bring to someone’s house. But for this once, I wanted to give the bread a pear shape.

Except for the shaping and the use of pureed canned pears in lieu of a jar of pear baby food (which would have required a trip to the supermarket), I pretty much followed the recipe as indicated.
When I make it again though, I may skip the cinnamon as we are not huge fans of that particular spice (maybe because the taste of cinnamon as we know it in the United States is more assertive than the one we grew up with in Europe).
Save this restriction, the bread is truly lovely. The raw pear bakes inside the bread and when you bite into it, it yields an explosion of sweet and fragrant juice in your mouth. The hazelnuts add a welcome crunch. The figs contribute a marvelous depth of flavor. The cracked rye gives the crumb a chewy texture and the white whole wheat and high-extraction flour make it tastier and more wholesome. A good bread for the Man to bring to the office as a snack, which is why I made it!
Ingredients:
For the pre-ferment

  • 175 g unbleached bread flour
  • 175 g water
  • 1 tiny pinch of instant yeast

For the soaker

  • 17 g cracked rye
  • 17 g water

For the final dough

  • 300 g hi-extraction flour or unbleached bread flour
  • 40 g white whole wheat flour 
  • 1/4 tsp instant yeast
    all of the pre-ferment
    all of the soaked rye
  • 120 g water (I had 34 g leftover)
  • 80 g pear baby food or pureed steamed or canned pears (if canned, preferably with no added sugar)
  • 12 g salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 115 g very hard crisp pear such as Bosc or Anjou, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch cubes
  • 60 g dried figs, stemmed and cut in 1/2-inch pieces (the recipe calls for Calimyrna figs but I used the regular Trader Joe’s ones as it was all we had on hand)
  • 60 g hazelnuts (lightly toasted and skinned) (to toast the hazelnuts, put them in a small baking pan in a 350 F/177 F oven for about 15 minutes, then rub the warm nuts in a paper towel to remove the skins)

Method: (Glezer gives instructions for 3 different mixing methods, by hand, by stand mixer and by food processor. I used a mixer with a dough hook). This bread is made over 2 days.

  1. The day before, scale the yeast and the flour for the pre-ferment, add water and stir well. Cover and let ferment overnight or about 12 hours (Glezer says to use instant yeast and to mix it in water before adding it to the flour/water mixture but I wonder if that’s not a typo as, from what I understood, only fresh and active dry yeast should be added to water. So I just proceeded as usual and mixed the instant yeast with the flour before adding the water)
  2. Also the day before, combine the cracked rye and the water in a small bowl until well combined , cover well with plastic wrap and let soak overnight for 12 hours
  3. The day of the baking, combine the flours and yeast in the mixing bowl, add the pre-ferment, soaked rye, water (I saved about 20%, some of which I managed to add later in the mixing and some of it I just couldn’t use as the dough looked already very hydrated. Of course the raw pear made it even wetter. If I had used all the water indicated in the recipe, I probably wouldn’t have been able to give the loaf the shape I wanted) and pear puree and mix just until smooth
  4. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest (autolyse) for 20 to 30 minutes
  5. Add the salt and the spices to the dough and knead on medium speed until very smooth (about 5 minutes)
  6. Remove the dough from the mixer and incorporate the figs and hazelnuts by hand until evenly distributed
  7. Incorporate the raw pear pieces (I did that last as the dough becomes very wet and pretty tricky to handle once you do it. Maybe the pear I used was too juicy even though it felt really hard to the touch)
  8. Place the dough in a bowl as least 3 times its size and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let it ferment until airy and well expanded (but not yet doubled in bulk), about 3 hours
  9. Flour the surface of the dough and the worktable and turn the dough out
  10. Pre-shape lightly in a ball (Glezer says that at this point, you should cut the dough in half and make two loaves but I had drawn a rather large pear stencil, so I didn’t divide the dough for fear that my stencil would end up being too big)
  11. Let the dough relax about 15 minutes
  12. Give it a pear shape (click here to see a photo tutorial of the shaping method)
  13. Let proof about 1 1/2 hour minutes in a large well-sealed clear plastic bag, or until the dough is well expanded but still springs back when gently pressed with a finger
  14. At least 45 minutes before the dough is fully proofed, arrange a rack onto the oven’s second-to-top shelf and place a baking stone on it as well as a shallow metal pan on the shelf below
  15. Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C at least 45 minutes before baking time
  16. Remove the loaf from the bag, and stencil it if/as desired
  17. Make small vertical cuts all around it
  18. Just before baking, pour a cup of water in the baking pan (taking care to protect your face and hands)
  19. Put the loaf in the oven, spray the oven walls with water to create more steam
  20. Bake until the bread is evenly browned, about 40 minutes, rotating it halfway into the bake
  21. Let cool on a rack.

The Sweet Perrin goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting .

Millet Bread

By now, you must have decided that I love bread, right? I mean, why would I bake all the time and blog about it if I didn’t? Well, I don’t love this millet bread which I baked for the first time this spring on Day 2 of the Whole Grains workshop at the San Francisco Baking Institute, I positively adore it! Not only is it a lot of fun to make but it is deliciously crunchy and tasty.
It is also a healthful bread. I just read in The Village Baker by Joe Ortiz that, according to a baker he met in Germany who describes himself as “an organic grain madman”, millet seeds and poppy seeds when eaten together make it easier to digest protein. If all these seeds were not such energy powerhouses, I would have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and maybe for a snack in the afternoon too.
Two pre-ferments go into the making of it, levain and pre-fermented dough (a.k.a. “old dough”). You add to that some flour, some pre-soaked seeds, some yeast, some salt, some water and here you are, with your finished loaves that look almost like golden galettes.
Their shape reminds me of the bérets my grandfather used to wear (so French!) Another reason for me to have a deep affection for this bread…

I froze one, gave away two and felt incredibly virtuous (and lucky) to save the last one for us. Believe me, you need to try it. Once you do, there’s no looking back!

Ingredients: (for 4 loaves)
For the levain

  • 30 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 30 g water
  • 50 g starter 100% hydration

For the pre-fermented dough

  • 278 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 181 g water
  • 5.5 g salt
  • 1.6 g instant yeast

For the soaker

  • 100 g millet seeds (+ more for the top cover)
  • 100 g sesame seeds
  • 39 g poppy seeds
  • 39 g pumpkin seeds
  • 109 g water

For the final dough

  • 155 g whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat but regular whole wheat is fine)
  • 486 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 360 g water
  • 37 g canola oil
  • 74.5 g levain
  • 466 g pre-fermented dough
  • 2.5 g instant yeast
  • 20 g salt
  • 326 g soaker

Method:

  1. The day before, mix the pre-fermented dough, leave it at room temperature for one hour or so and put it in the refrigerator for the night
  2. Also the day before, mix the levain and leave it at room temperature for the night
  3. Do the same for the soaker
  4. On the day of the baking, mix the final dough using all the ingredients except the soaker until proper consistency is reached (improved mix)
  5. When proper consistency is reached, add the soaker and mix at low speed until incorporated
  6. Transfer the dough to a covered oil container and set it to ferment for 2 hours
  7. Divide the dough in four pieces and pre-shape each of the pieces in a ball
  8. Let them rest 30 minutes
  9. Then flatten each ball into a galette (on both sides) and wet the top
  10. Dip wet side in millet seeds

  11. Let proof 1 hour and 30 minutes at room temperature millet side up (a bit longer if the room is cool)
  12. Score them in a criss-cross pattern
  13. Bake for 25 minutes at 450 F/232 C (with steam the first 15 minutes).

Please note that the original SFBI formula contains 15% honey and that I didn’t use any. If you do put it in, bake the breads at 410 F/210 C instead of 450 to avoid overbrowning.
Enjoy!

These millet loaves go to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature.

100% Whole Wheat Mash Bread – Updated post (see bottom)

Please don’t think that I am already responding to the challenge I set for myself here yesterday, i.e. that I already read the introduction to Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads (all 75 pages of them) and learned to master the master formula. I haven’t moved one iota in that direction yet.
No, this mash bread is the product of two preferments which were already alive in my kitchen as I was writing that other post, both whole wheat: a mash and a levain. I had made both before I even thought of challenging myself. Actually I challenged myself because I made them both.
See, I must be a rebel at heart (at least that’s what the headmistress – who was a nun – told my Dad when she made him come and pick me up from school right in the middle of a workday because I had kicked her in the shin. Of course she didn’t tell him that she had slapped me first and when my Dad heard that, he said he understood and had often felt like kicking her himself but to please not do it again. I was 9 when it happened and to this day, I have never kicked a nun again, so I can’t be that much of a rebel).
Anyway to come back to these preferments, I was a bit stressed out by Reinhart’s instructions about sticking the mash in and out of the oven to keep it at the right temperature and I just didn’t feel like doing it.
Then I remembered that Baggett’s mash making method in Kneadlessly Simple was actually just that… quite simple: it involved pouring boiling water over the whole wheat flour just as Reinhart says to but after that, just to put the bowl in the microwave next to a cup of hot water, to wait 15 minutes and microwave on High for 1 minute, then wait 30 minutes and do it again, and then that was it. You could let the mash do what it had to do without having to worry about it.
But I was mixing her method and his method and even though it was simpler, it was also very confusing and that’s when I decided that enough was enough, I had to read the book and understand the whys and why nots of Reinhart’s technique and take it from there.
However I had my two preferments and they both looked fine. I put them in the fridge overnight so that they wouldn’t get carried away while I was sleeping and two hours after I took them out this morning, they were at room temperature and ready to go to work.
So I took out the book, opened it to page 199 without even glancing at the introduction and set out to read the recipe/formula.
I was astounded right off the bat because, get this, there was NO mention of water. Mash, levain, whole wheat flour, instant yeast, salt and oil or butter (honey or agave nectar or sugar too but it’s optional and I optioned it out) and NO water, which meant that, either the mash and the levain were watery enough for the amount of flour indicated or Reinhart had had a senior moment and completely forgotten about hydration or he had invented a new breadmaking technique that didn’t require any water and I didn’t know about it since I hadn’t read the introduction.
Well, now was not the time to find out. I decided to wing it. Just to be on the safe side, I put a cup of water on standby next to the mixer and proceeded as instructed.
But the dough didn’t need more water. It actually needed more flour! And Reinhart says that, yes, sometimes you have to add water and sometimes you have to add flour, and it’s okay! So I added away. Altogether I added 94 g of whole wheat flour to the 255 g already in the formula.

That’s a lot! But that’s the only way I could think of to eventually get a mash bread and not dozens and dozens of mash silver pancakes because that dough looked like a batter for the longest time, I kid you not. All of a sudden however it decided to stop joking around and settled down to business and it became beautifully soft, smooth and elastic.
It actually became so pleasant to work with that I got second thoughts about reading the book. Don’t they say that too much knowledge can be dangerous?

Ingredients:
For the mash

  • 300 g water 
  • 120 g whole wheat flour 
  • 1 g diastatic malt powder 

For the levain

  • 64 g mature whole wheat starter
  • 191 g whole wheat flour
  • 142 g water at room temperature 

For the final dough

  • 398 g starter (i.e. all of it)
  • 397 g mash (i.e. all of it)
  • 255 g whole wheat flour + 94 g (see above)
  • 8.5 g salt
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 14 g almond oil (you can also use melted butter or vegetable oil and it is optional but I chose to put it in because it helps the bread stay fresh longer) 
  • extra whole wheat flour for adjustments 

Method:
Please note that I am describing what I did, not necessarily what Reinhart says to do. Also note that I used a stand mixer but that the dough can be kneaded by hand.

For the mash

  1. Set water to boil
  2. When it boils, pour it over the flour and the malt. Mix briefly and set in the microwave oven next to a cup of hot water
  3. Fifteen minutes later, microwave on High for one minute without opening the microvave oven. Repeat after 30 minutes and leave to cool in the microwave
  4. When cool and after 3 hours at room temperature, you can either refrigerate it until you are ready to use it or leave it out overnight if you plan to use it within the next 24 hours. (I left it out for about 12 hours, then I put it in the fridge)

For the levain

  1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl to form a ball of dough. Using wet hands, knead in the bowl for about 2 minutes until the ingredients are evenly distributed and the flour is hydrated. Let rest 5 minutes and knead again with wet hands for one minute. The dough will be tacky
  2. Transfer to a clean bowl, cover losely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 4 to 6 hours until nearly doubled in size (Reinhart warns it can take 8 hours or longer)
  3. When the levain is fully developed, knead it for a few seconds to degas it. It is then ready for use but if necessary to coordinate the timing with the mash, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the fridge two hours before mixing the dough (in my case, it stayed out pretty much the whole day then went in the fridge together with the mash)

For the final dough

  1. Using a metal pastry scraper, chop the starter into 12 smaller pieces
  2. Put the pieces and all the other ingredients except the extra flour into the mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on slow speed for 1 minute
  3. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium-low speed, occasionally scraping down the bowl for 2 or 3 minutes until the pre-doughs become more cohesive and assimilated into each other. Add more flour or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky (that’s where I started to add the first of the extra 94 g)
  4. Dust a work surface with flour, take the dough out of the mixer and roll it into the flour to coat and knead for 3 to 4 minutes by hand, incorporating only as much flour as needed (yeah! right) until the dough feels soft and tacky but not sticky
  5. Form into a ball and let rest for 5 minutes
  6. Lightly oil a bowl or dough bucket
  7. Resume kneading for 1 minute and make the final flour adjustment. The dough should pass the windowpane test. (Well, mine didn’t! Not by a long shot. It ripped like crazy, so forget about hand mixing, I threw it back into the mixer and went at it, on medium-low, for as many minutes as it needed to pass the windowpane test and it took a while and I did have to add flour – although it set my teeth on edge because that’s exactly what I hate do do and I hadn’t added any water so why was the dough SOOOOOOO wet?, but I went on mixing and I went on adding flour until I had added in a total of 94 g and that must have been the magic number because all of a sudden the dough started behaving and passed the windowpane test with flying colors and I was in baking heaven)
  8. Form into a ball and place in the prepared bowl, rolling to coat with oil
  9. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for approximately 45 to 60 minutes, until it is about 1 1/2 its original size
  10. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and loosely form into a batard
  11. Let rest for 15 minutes and form into a tighter batard
  12. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dusted with flour (I used a mixture of bran and semolina as it works fine for me)
  13. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for approximately 45 to 60 minutes, until it has grown to 1 1/2 time its original size
  14. Preheat the oven to 425 F/218 C after putting in it a baking stone and an empty metal pan
  15. When dough is ready to bake, score it (for whole grains it is best to score at a 90-degree angle to the sides of the loaf), pour a cup of water into the metal pan, lower the temperature of the oven to 350 F/177 C (I have an issue with that as I think it’s way too low. I actually would have liked the loaf to come out of the oven a little bit browner and ruddier, so next time, I’ll shoot for 380 F/193 C from the get go)
  16. Rotate the loaf 180 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 30 minutes until the loaf is rich brown on all sides, sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom and registers at least 200 F/93 C in the center (as it wasn’t brown enough, I increased the oven temperature to 380 F/193 C and added 10 minutes to the baking time)
  17. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 2 hours before serving and longer if possible.

Reinhart says that mash breads tend to taste better after they have fully cooled, and up to one or two days after they come out of the oven (store them in aluminum foil or a paper bag).

So I left the mash bread to cool all evening and all night and I sliced it open for breakfast this morning. Here is what the bread should look like according to Reinhart (I scanned the image from the book) …

…and here is what mine looks like:

So maybe mine is a little less airy (doesn’t it sound better than “denser”?) but it isn’t too far off the mark. It is not however what I was hoping to achieve, which is this:

… and I got that using the Baggett’s recipe in Kneadlessly Simple for a 100% whole wheat honey bread based on Reinhart’s mash method. I will need to put the two recipes side by side and see where they differ and try to make adjustments to Reinhart’s until I get the same result. Why not just stick to Baggett’s recipe? Because I don’t find it particularly advantageous not to have to knead. In fact Baggett has us do some heavy mixing (with a spoon) which I find pretty tiresome. Plus her method is for home use only. It wouldn’t work in an environment where you have to make more than one loaf at a time.
Tastewise, Reinhart’s mash bread is very good. It’s hard to describe the flavor other than by saying that it is, well, wheaty, which I happen to love. It doesn’t feel dense or heavy under the tooth, it isn’t chewy, it’s just a great sandwich or breakfast bread. It could not pass for a baguette or a ciabatta but it certainly stands its ground. Will I make it again? Yes, but with white whole wheat to see the difference. Stay tuned!
I had sent a link to this post to Peter Reinhart and here is what he kindly wrote back:
“Thanks for a very entertaining ride! I love that you are playing with all these ideas in your own quest for bread you can fall in love with. Bravo! Nancy’s loaf really gave you great holes–I haven’t been able to get those with my method. 
I tried developing a mash using boiling water and never thought to use the microwave the way Nancy did–see, we all have things to learn. I gave up on it because it was too hard to maintain at the right temp. 
My wetter version, which really can work without all the oven fretting–just put it in a warm oven and turn it off–the next day the mash should taste sweet like maltomeal cereal. But then, yes, you do have to add lots of flour because it’s such a wet mash. 
I think there’s room for perfecting this concept to create the kind of bread you’re looking for but, now that I’m about to put the latest book to bed after a year of intensive writing and research (it goes to press Friday, God willing), I’ll be taking a break from breads for a while and just recharge this summer. 
But you know, sooner or later, I’ll dive back in and go after it again.
Interestingly, the whole wheat bread that seems to get the best crumb for me is the spent grain bread with biga. It always opens up nicely and the spent grain adds fabulous flavor. I get the grain from my local brew pub where the brewmaster is happy to set aside a bag from whatever he’s making and I subdivide it into smaller zip bags and keep it frozen. The spent grain has a lot of positive effects on the dough. If you try it, let me know.”
Thank you, Peter! I’ll be sure to read these 75 pages before the new book comes out!

This loaf has been submitted to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature.