A moving friend left a couple of containers of almond milk at my house.  A perusal of the web indicates that it can replace water in bread.  I may still "hate whole wheat" (lol) but this will be pretty good for pesto chicken salad sandwiches for supper, eh?

It's fairly light and tender for 100% stone ground whole wheat.  I decided adding two eggs would improve its "tensile strength" -- and whether that's true or not, the bread slices well. (Recipe below the pic.)

Mix together 500g stone ground whole wheat flour, 12g kosher salt, and 8g yeast.  Whisk 100g egg (2 large eggs) into 400g almond milk.  Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until all flour is moistened and most lumps are gone.  Cover with a damp towel and let rest 45 minutes.  Stretch and fold once, cover, let sit 45 minutes.  Repeat stretch and fold and 45 minute rest twice more.  Cut dough in half, form into loaves, score, and let proof, covered, 30 minutes.  Wait another 20 minutes while the oven and baking stones preheat to 375F.  Bake the loaves in the middle of the oven for 35 minutes or until internal temperature is between 200F and 205F.

The pesto chicken salad?  Oh.  Chicken breast (roasted with lemon, garlic and fresh basil, diced), shredded romain lettuce, tossed in a pesto dressing (basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, and champagne vinegar whirred in a blender).  Yum!

Almond Milk Bread with Dried Cherries

This recipe was inspired by a friend who gave me some dried cherries to bake something with, my recent success with brioche, and a box of unsweetened almond milk that just doesn’t taste very good to drink straight…

Recipe:

1000g Bread flour (Gold Medal)

600g Liquid (3 eggs + almond milk to make up amount)

200g Liquid levain (100% hydration storage starter from fridge)

150g Granulated sugar

150g Slivered almonds

230g Dried cherries

100g Unsalted butter

20g Kosher salt

10g Instant Yeast (3 tsp)

2 tsp Vanilla extract

2460g Total Dough Yield

Tools:

Digital scale

Large stainless steel mixing bowl about 15L size

Rubber spatula or wooden spoon

Plastic dough scraper

Bowl of water

Large plastic bag

Plastic tub with cover (4L or larger)

3 loaf pans 9” x 5” loaf pans

Large plastic bag

Baking stone (large rectangular)

Egg+ water for egg wash

Butter for greasing plastic tub and pans

Instructions:

Weigh out all ingredients, cut butter in to small cubes, butter plastic tub, toast almond slivers in a pan and let cool.

7:45pm – Place eggs, almond milk, vanilla extract in large mixing bowl.  Then add the bread flour, granulated sugar, Kosher salt, instant yeast.  Mix well using rubber spatula until a shaggy dough comes together.  Knead in bowl using slap and fold method for about 5 minutes.  Then add all the butter and continue kneading using slap and fold method for another 5 minutes.   Then add almond slivers and dried cherries.  Transfer to buttered plastic tub and let rise for  2 to 2 1/2 hrs or until doubled. Turn dough every 30 minutes.  (I put it in the fridge for 1 hour due to scheduling of another bake).

9:30pm – Place plastic tub in fridge for 1 hr if necessary due to scheduling.

10:30pm – Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface, divide into 3 equal pieces (800g approx).  Shape into loaf, place in buttered loaf pan. Place all pans in large plastic bag, cover and proof for 90 minutes.

11:00pm – Place baking stone on 2^nd rack from bottom, preheat oven with convection to 400F.

12:00am – Brush loaves with egg wash made from 1 egg and a little water.  Turn convection off, place loaves into oven, turn down to 380F and bake for 40 minutes or until internal temp reaches 190F or more.  Cool completely before eating.

Enjoy!

A few days ago, I bought a cardboard container of almond milk at the health food store, as a backup in case I ran out of cow's milk. Unopened, the almond milk doesn't have to be refrigerated. A prescient buy, because just yesterday I ran out of cow's milk. I had almond milk with my granola.

So, when it came time to turn my overnight poolish into bread, I said "Why the heck not?" and used almond milk rather than milk in my slapdash adaptation of Floyd's daily bread, which I think he calls Pain sur poolish. The bread was a real surprise. It had more structure than I usually get: great rise, big holes. Also, very tender, great flavor! I think I'm going to be doing more experimentation with almond milk.

I measure my ingredients, rather than weigh them. My bad. 1 cup KA white ww, 1 cup water, 1/4 teaspoon yeast, mix, overnight. 4 cups dry ingredients, 1 cup wet ingredients, knead in mixer, rise and fold twice, shape into boules, rise, slash, bake at 500 for 5 minutes and 450 for 13-15 minutes.

For these loaves, for dry ingredients I used a mix of oatmeal, KA white WW, and KA white bread flour. For wet ingredients, I used two eggs, some canola oil, and almond milk to fill out the one cup. I try to start out wet and add flour if necessary. However, thanks to the machine kneading, I can work with fairly wet and gloppy dough.

The oatmeal, BTW, was the bottom of the bin before I bought new oats at the health food coop. It had a fair amount of "oatmeal dust", which I didn't want to waste.