Mistakes can be tasty!

Inspired by Shiao-Ping and David (dmsnyder) I decided to try out my new bannetons (bought from SFBI) with two 1-kilo loaves made ala Gerard Rubaud. Rather than copy/scale either of their formulae, I went to the source http://www.farine-mc.com/ and did my own adaptation of Msr. Rubaud's formula. In a phrase...

I messed up!

I made up a quantity of his whole-grain flour mix--10% rye, 30% spelt, 60% Whole Wheat-according to plan; noted his comment he mixed his levain in the same ratio as his final dough: 30% flour mix, 70% All purpose, and proceeded to make my levain entirely fed with the whole-grain flour mix, except for the 18g of seed starter that got it going. Wrong!

The levain contributed 25% of the total flour. Of course it was essentially all whole grain, not the 30/70 split with AP intended. To further exacerbate the error I diligently added 5% more of the flour mix so that now my final dough was 30% whole grain. At 78% hydration the final dough was decidely slack. Applying a zillion French folds, I believe the dough's gluten developed good strength, probably as much as possible, but the dough remained extremely extensible. Nonetheless, I proofed my two basketed boules, and baked them.

And, it was about midway through the early steam cycle my mistake hit me. I went back to the source, and reread Master Baker Gerard's interview. Yep, I'd got it wrong. Bigtime!

The Good News. This bread is tasty! The prefermented rye, spelt, and whole wheat combination lend a distinct flavor unlike anything I've tasted before, but reminiscent of each of them: nutty like spelt, a wheaty base note throughout, and a gentle bite to it all from the rye. I'm going to do it again, rightly, following Shiao-Ping to the letter. But I'm also going to keep this mistake in my formula ecard-file.

David G