Reinhart's 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
100% Whole Wheat boules
100% Whole Wheat boules Crumb
I had made the whole wheat bread from Reinhart's BBA a couple of time. i liked it a lot. It was, for me, the perfect bread for a tuna fish sandwich or a BLT.
I bought Reinhart's newer book, "Whole Grain Breads" a few months ago and read, with interest, the introductory chapters right away. Following his "journey" and the evolution of his thinking has been really interesting. But I had not baked anything from the new book until today. I decided to start with his "foundational loaf," the "100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. As you can see, I decided to form 2 boules of around 1 pound each rather than making one sandwich loaf.
It's interesting that Reinhart's instruction have you hand knead this bread, even after a 2-3 minute machine kneading. This is a relatively dry dough. I hand kneaded it as instructed, maybe with an extra minute or two, and actually achieved window paning. That was a kick!
This bread is not really that different from the BBA version. The new formula uses milk (I used buttermilk.) in the soaker. The BBA whole wheat uses water. The BBA bread has an egg in it which the WGB bread does not. The end result is actually quite similar. I suspect that baking boules rather than pan loaves made as much difference as the different ingredients.
The crust felt a little soft, even after an extra 10 minutes left in the oven, but it crunched nicely when I bit into it. The bread has a pronounced whole wheat flavor but with many layers of flavor including sweetness that are lovely.
I bet this will make delicious toast for breakfast, even with competition from the banana bread from Crust & Crumb that I also baked today.
David
Comments
This is one of the breads that we'll be testing because I haven't got his whole grain book recipes to work perfectly yet either. i think the differences in ingredients here change a lot.
Your breads are lovely!
Jane
Hi, Jane.
Thanks for the compliment! Besides the differences in flours, are you thinking of differences in other ingredients?
I have never had pain complet in France. I wish I had, if only to compare it to this bread. I would say the bread I report on in this blog entry is typical of American whole wheat bread, except a lot better. (Credit for that I give to PR. I just follow directions.)
David
No, I guess I mean the flour. I tried the whole grain hearth and it was a two time disaster. It made a terrible, gummy mess that cooked up to an edible bread, but not very nice. Very strange because I followed the recipe to a T. But I'll get your advice when i get back to trying his whole wheats.
Jane
Gummy mess? That is really surprising, because the dough turned out pretty dry and stiff for me. Assuming we both read the recipe correctly, the difference has to be in the flour or in the mixing/kneading. I doubt that your water is wetter than mine!
Well, when you are ready to problem solve, I'll be happy to help. There are others on TFL who have much more experience with whole grain breads than I, however, so I'd suggest you post a new topic with your problem.
David
Jane and David: I'll be happy to jump in also on this one whenever Jane is ready. I've been having pretty good results from baking from Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread Book. Nothing spectacular, but more than acceptable.
But no hurry, Jane -- I know you have a plateful of sourdough at the moment, as do I. And I'm not going anywhere, in regards to TFL.
Mary
I definitely would like to work it out. I'll get back to you as soon as I start trying again.
It's vacation week here with the kids (5), plus the new sourdough bake off and my mother in law visiting. That's a full plate!
Jane