The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Big Party breads...

drogon's picture
drogon

Big Party breads...

Had a big party last night and baked a couple of big loaves for it. My usual 70/30 mix of strong white + local stonerground wholemeal (and my wheat sourdough starter) plus some of Shipton mills 5-seed mix. I made 2 of these out of about 2.5Kg of dough in total.

And I remembered to take a photo before cutting it all up!

 

Big Party Bread

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Nice rustic wholesome look. What was the taste like?

drogon's picture
drogon

Well it tasted like bread should taste :-)

I know, I know... That's not helpful at all!

One issue is that I've been baking & eating bread like that for quite a while now, so that's what I personally think a good basic bread should taste like. The crust was firm and "crusty", but not gum-tearing hard shards, the crumb nice and soft but not too chewy - easily resists cool butter with a nice open texture to contain said butter! The wholemeal flour is a blend of the local Maris Wigeon and another locally grown Canadian variety stoneground together (MW is relatively low in gluten). The MW adds a real rustic "hayloft" sort of aroma to it too (100% MW makes fantastic shortcrust pastry for mince pies too - my task this evening) and takes the colour from creamy white to a pale browney shade. The 5-seed mix from Shipton adds some flavours too, but mostly texture - the long ferment softens them up quite well.

It was served alongside a large buffet at the humus and cheese end of the table. (I also did a basket of grissini which all went - mostly with the humus!)

I had an active starter ready going overnight which I added into the flour/salt mix with water at 6am, kneaded and left to ferment - I did one NSEW turn in the fermenting box sometime during the morning, turned it out and scaled/pre-shaped it at about 12:30pm, left it for about 15 miuntes then did the final shape and left it to prove for another hour or so, then into the oven. So it had slightly less ferment/proving time that I'd normally allow, but we had to start taking food, etc. up to the venue by 3pm - although food wasn't served until 8pm. I sliced it on-site at about 5:30pm - still warm inside, so it stated to stale quite quickly, but I had some left-overs as toast today - and will have more tomorrow too!

(Basically my wife and me were cooking, etc. for a combined special birthday party for the both of us with about 100 friends, neighbours, family etc. We rented a local hall, got in a ceilidh band for music and dancing and rather than make any sweets/dessert, we got in a 2m high chocolate fountain + candy-floss machine (lots of kids) :-)

 

Cheers,

 

-Gordon

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

My favorite white bread has 30% whole grain in it too.  Tastes great and the crumb is still soft and open.  Yours look perfect.  Well done and happy baking