The Fresh Loaf

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recipe suggestions for working with limited whole grain options

overseasbaker's picture
overseasbaker

recipe suggestions for working with limited whole grain options

Hello - I live in Central Asia, and am trying to learn to bake good tasting bread with whole grain content, using what is available here. So far I have found that Flour options here include:

- highest 'sort' - really white, fine texture - they say it is 'the best' and also priced the highest, I am sure it is bleached
- top 'sort' - not as white, texture sort of reminds me of AP flour in Canada, likely also bleached
(per 100g: 10.6g protein, 1.3g fat, 73.2g carbohydrate) 
- rye - they call this 'black' flour, it is sort of brown-ish, so I am assuming it isn't bleached
(per 100g: 8.9g protein, 1.7g fat, 73g carbs)
- millet flour

Other non-milled grains available: oats, buckwheat, wheat, corn
I brought over a mill, so could turn these into flours too. 

I have found various 'bran' products, both wheat bran and oat bran I think.

When I search for recipes that include whole grains, I always end up with those which use some 'whwh flour' with bread flour.
Can anyone suggest some recipes that I could try using what I have available here?

Thanks for your help in my experimentations!

James Franklin's picture
James Franklin

I don't have a recipe but a couple of suggestions:

-I would try the highest protien content flour as a base and add say 20% rye and 5% bran

-you could increase the starch content of your dough with rice flour (potato flour is popular in some parts of europe) making it easier to work with.

-try using lime juice (I use a cap full which is equivilent to half a lime for 1kg dough) to improve your crumb when working with heavier flours.

I am by no means an expert and this is my first post here, so Hi!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

My experience with central China flours is to try the cheapest one you can find because it will most likely have the highest gluten content.  You can do home tests for gluten to get a rough idea where you stand with each flour but you will need an accurate scales.      Where are you in Asia?

Suggestions?  try Oat recipes or the sweet corn raisin bread at the bottom of the list (look left)  or potato bread  or a basic white first to see how the dough will behave.  

overseasbaker's picture
overseasbaker

Thanks for the reply - by Central Asia we mean to former USSR region of 'Stan' countries.
Can you describe how I could do a gluten test at home?  I have one digital scale.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Robert posted this not too long ago, there are older posts as well.  Give the dough balls especially whole flours a little more working time before washing.  balls of dough can also be washed in a large bowl of water.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19104/quality-gluten-simple-test-you-can-perform-right-now

If you weigh out 30 g of flour and go thru the dough making and washing procedure, then dry the gluten and weigh it, you can figure the %  (weight of gluten divided by weight of flour times 100.)   If the dried gluten weighs 4g  then the flour contains 13.3% gluten.  

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and wheat berries are available you can mill them into flour for whole wheat breads.  You have rye to make rye breads.  You can also add say 5% rye and WW to white breads to improve their flavor.  You have buckwheat for buckwheat beads oats for oat breads and 2 kinds of white flours.  Also other grains you can mill to make about any multi-grain bread.  Sounds like you are set to bake about any bread recipe you can fined here with the search feature or anywhere else.  You just have to test them and see what combinations work best for you.  What fun!

Happy baking.