Tag: wholemeal

The Hand Built Finn. My Sourdough Diaries.

The other day I ran out of bread. I can’t eat ‘white death’ or spongy packet bread of any colour, dosed with preservatives to make it last forever. Neither can I eat the fake sourdough marketed to look like the real thing sold in a well-known supermarket or the stuff from hot bread places. I perused the specialty bread section of the supermarket where racks of famous city bakers display their tempting loaves,  Dench, Baker D Chirico, La Madre, Phillipa’s: there’s not much change from $10 for an ‘artisan’ loaf, rivalling the smashed avocado as the real cause of inner city hipster poverty. We went without bread that day.

Home made Finnish Rye. Just add smashed avocados.
Home made Finnish Rye. Just add smashed avocados.

I hurried home and hastened along my trusty starter, Sorella, another offspring of Celia’s Priscilla, a consistently reliable sourdough starter in any weather.  It’s important, when baking your own loaves, to seek out variety in flavours and flour combinations. I often get stuck in a groove and make the same loaf over and over again, especially when I can make it on autopilot now.

hi hi
Overnight rise High Hydration loaves. Our regular loaves. 80% baker’s white, 20% wholemeal.

Recently I returned to the Finnish Rye loaf which I have written about before. Now that I’m hand building this loaf, thanks to the demise of my stand mixer, I’m finding it far more successful than before. For sourdough bread makers out there, I urge you to give this one a go. It stays moist for three days or more thanks to the linseed. Forget about my previous method- this one makes a superior loaf. Linseed is full of omega 3, so this loaf is healthy but doesn’t taste heavy at all. It is soft, earthy and easy to digest. You could live on it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
The recipe makes two small batards

The Finnish Rye Loaf, recipe courtesy of Craig Gardiner, baker extraordinario.

The Ingredients

  • 288g white bakers flour
  • 144g wholemeal flour
  • 144g rye flour
  • 365g water ( filtered or tank water, not treated water)
  • 173g sourdough starter (100% hydration). Make sure it has been refreshed three times and is bubbly before use.
  • 60g molasses
  • 18g salt
  • 140g flaxseed ( linseed)
  • 154g water to soak flaxseed.

Mixing the Dough

  1. Begin by soaking the flaxseed in the soaking water for at least 30 minutes in the water. ( last two ingredients on list above)
  2. Put the starter, water and molasses together in a large mixing bowl.
  3. Add the flours and bring the dough together by hand.
  4. Cover the dough and leave for 15 minutes.
  5. Add the salt, mix through the dough and let stand for 1 minute or so.
  6. Add the soaked flaxseed along with the soaking liquid and squelch through with your hands, making sure the liquid and all the seeds are distributed through the dough. The mixture will be very wet.

    The dough will look like this after the seeds and soaking water have been mixed in.
    The dough will look like this after the seeds and soaking water have been mixed in.

Resting and stretching

Let the dough stand for 30 minutes. Put a few drops of oil on your bread working surface and spread out with your fingers. ( I use a silicon mat which has been a great investment). Scrape out the wet dough using a pastry scraper, then stretch and fold the dough. Return dough to the bowl and cover.

Let the dough stand for another 20 minutes, repeat stretching and folding, returning dough to the bowl and covering.

Repeat steps one and two.

That’s four stretches in all. If you do two or three, the bread will not mind. I always have sticky hands and so have not been able to photograph this method. Where is Mr T when you need him? If you need a little visual version of this method, check Celia’s video here.

You will notice the dough tightening with each new stretch. Now cover the dough and leave in a warm spot for around 4-6 hours, depending on your room temperature. Basically it needs to double in size. Don’t overprove this bread.

Final shaping.

Scrape the contents of the bowl onto a floured surface, using a pastry scraper. It will be sticky so flour your surface well.

Now pull up one side of the dough and stretch it up as far you can and fold this long piece over the rest of the dough. Do this with the other side. Then top and bottom. All the surfaces will now be lightly dusted with flour and will not be so sticky. Cut the dough in half with a pastry scraper. Shape the loaves into round balls for another short prove. Cove the dough balls with a tea towel.

Turn oven on to 250c Fan Forced.

After 30 minutes or so, the oven should be ready and the loaves slightly risen. Now gently shape the loaves.  Do not overwork them at this point. treat them like soft babies. I like to make batard shapes. Place the loaves onto baking paper, then slash the tops well, using a serrated knife or a razor blade. Lift the paper with loaves into enamel baking tins and cover with lids.

Put the two roasters into the hot oven ( if your oven is large enough to take both) reducing the temperature to 220c. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lids, and bake for another 15-20 minutes at the same temperature. Usually the time here is 20 minutes but these loaves are a little smaller than the usual loaf size.

Cool on wire racks.

The Finn
The Finn

I am indebted to two baking mentors here- Craig for the original recipe, and Celia for the method and for the brilliant idea of using enamel bakers for a more consistent result in the home oven.

The Finn, a moist loaf.
The Finn, a moist loaf.

Pane Integrale con Miele. Wholemeal Bread

Now that we are six, four adults and two children, bread making has become an imperative. My extended family continue to buy white packet bread for school lunches, a bread that I am unable to eat. The other breads used in the household- bread to go with soup, bread after school with vegemite, toasting bread, bread for bruschetta or crostini, come from my oven. This is not just about economy, domestic goddessing or matriarchy, although some of those factors do kick in from time to time. Melbourne’s winters are unpleasant, to put it kindly, and when I’m not running away from the cold, I’m baking, a great excuse to stay indoors and keep warm.

This month, I am revisiting yeasted breads thanks to Leah of the ‘Cookbook Guru‘, who is featuring Carol Field’s The Italian Baker this month. I love this book; it is a great read even if you never bake from it. Her discussion of flour, although comparing Italian flour with American, is enlightening. To date, I have only tried five of her recipes: focaccia, (her method is unusual and produces a great result), pizza, ciabatta, a nut cake and pane integrale. My plan is to stay with Carol Field, twice a week, for a month and to post the results.

Wholemeal Bread with Honey – Pane Integrale con Miele.

Recipe makes one round loaf.

STARTER

  • ¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 160 g or 2/3 cup warm water
  • 200 g unbleached white flour

Stir the yeast into the water in a mixing bowl: let stand for about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour with 70- 100 strokes of a wooden spoon. Let rise, covered, for 6 to 24 hours. Measure 50 g for the recipe and discard (or stash) the rest.

DOUGH

  • 1¾ teaspoons or 5 g dry active yeast
  • 35 g honey
  • 360 g or 1½ cups warm water
  • 500 g wholemeal flour ( organic and stoneground if available)
  • 7.5 g or 1½ teaspoons salt.

METHOD.

In most of her recipes, Carol Field offers instructions for making bread by hand, by stand mixer ( such as a Kitchen Aid ) and by processor. I use a standard sized Kitchen Aid in all my bread recipes.

BY MIXER

Stir the yeast into the honey and water in a mixing bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add the starter and stir with the paddle until the starter is shredded or disappears. Add the flour and salt and mix with the paddle until the flour comes together. Change to the dough hook and knead for at least 2 minutes at low speed, then 2 minutes at medium speed. The dough should be fairly smooth and have lost most of its stickiness. Finish kneading briefly by hand.

First rise. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours. ( or do an overnight slower rise in the fridge)

Shaping and Second Rise. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and shape into a round loaf without punching down. Place the loaf on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornflour. Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled ( around 1 hour).

Baking. Preheat oven to 220ºC, fan forced. If you are using a baking stone, preheat it, then sprinkle with cornmeal and slide the loaf onto it. Otherwise, use the baking sheet. Bake at 220ºC for 10 minutes, spraying the oven three times with water. Reduce heat to 200º C and bake for 25 minutes longer. Cool completely on rack.

This recipe results in a dense, slightly sweet bread. At 100% wholemeal, you feel healthy just thinking about it.

wholemeal convert

In the good the old days, Italian fornai still produced a dark wholemeal bread. I recall hard, nutty little wholemeal loaves and focaccie made in the forni around Assisi during the 1980s. I couldn’t find any decent wholemeal bread during my last trip there in 2011. Carol Field mentions that whole wheat flour, containing the husk and wheat germ, has almost disappeared from Italy. Often breads passing as Pane Integrale are made from refined white flour with a quantity of bran thrown in!

It turns out that I have posted on this bread before- it must be good!

https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/italian-wholemeal-and-honey-bread-pane-integrale/

And other posts from the Italian Baker:

https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/my-italian-baking-bible/

https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/flattery-will-get-you-a-pizza/