March 4, 2013 - 7:50pm
Sorghum & Pearl Millet Whole Wheat Bread
A nutty and surprisingly not very dense loaf made by using Peter Reinharts's mash for sorghum & pearl millet. Also made a soaker of sorghum & pearl millet flours. The final dough had the mash, soaker, stiff levain, whole wheat flour, bread flour, salt, agave nectar & instant yeast. Loved the result.
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Nice bread, Alpana. Indeed, it does look nutty and wholesome. you must have gotten a real treat with peter's mash. I've only tried mashing once, and haven't had much luck with it.
Nice!
Another new flour to use too. We always grew milo for a feed grain and fodder but so many of them also make fine breads. Yours is a great example of what its possible.
Nice baking
Thanks, Mebake & dabrownman. You both (along with many others on this site) have been my inspiration in experimenting with my breads.
I wanted to try out the mash technique, but wanted something different than my usual mix of grains. Soaker (either hot or cold) already works fine for most multigrain combos. So I thought of these two tough grains (bringing back the memories of my childhood vacations spent travelling in western parts of India where flatbreads made from these flours are a staple diet). I was surprised at the way these two grains behaved in the final bread. I had already cooked them (in rice cooker) with water in the ratio 1:1.5, as suggested by PR for tougher grains. Then I did the mash. The sorghum became soft, nutty & tasted mildly sweet but not mushy as I feared, whereas the pearl millet retained its crunch and bite and gave a wonderful contrast to the texture of the bread.
Best part of making this bread was that I served the leftover cooked sorghum & millet with salt, chlliflakes & lime juice to my kids as snack & they simply loved it. Now I have a no sweat, healthier option for after school munching :). Sadly, I still could not convince the two to bite into the bread (it is neither white nor soft) :(.
I am already contemplating using finger millet (another childhood memory) with red wine(thanks to Yuko's bread) in my next week's experiment. Suggestions & advice please.
Alpana