country bread

I made some rolls a few weeks ago with bits and pieces of left over hard cheese. I just grated them and added to the dough. I also had just a scrap of Gouda, that I cut in chunks and threw in as well. They came out fine. Mostly a shrap taste from whatever the predominate hard cheese was. I liked the occasional smoked smoked bite from the Gouda.

When I saw a Smoked Gouda at the Costco last weekend from a local dairy, I decide I would give some cheese rolls another try. I tend to more whole grain when cooking only for myself. Figuring everyone would want some cheese bread, I decided to go with mostly white flour. Since my starter is on a white whole wheat, I went with a country style mix on the dough.

 Overall Formula:

300g Bread Flour* 60%

150g White Whole Wheat 30%

50g Rye 10%

325g Water* 65%

10g Salt 2%

0.5 Tablespoon Instant yeast ~0.5%

180g Smoked Gouda 36%

*I used a 20% of the flour as a preferment sourdough at 100% hydration.

100 g White whole wheat

100 g Water

 Mix all ingredients, except for the cheese. Knead by hand for minute or so, and fold into the dough. I cut these a little uneven in size so they would give different size pockets in the rolls.

 Stretch and fold 3 times 20 minutes apart. Let rest another 20 and divided.

 I was a little pressed for time when I started on these. My starter was at room temperature (approx. 70°), but I used warm water to bring the dough temp up a little quicker. I also kept everything in a warm oven the whole time (approx. 85°). I had formed these all as rounds. They proofed in about an hour and a half.

 Bake at 400° for just under 20 minutes. I checked at 15 originally and they were pretty much done by then, so I covered with foil. I didn't want them to brown up much more, but wanted to be sure to have the cheese melt.

 I let them rest about five minutes.

 They came out pretty good, I thought. I had two right then.

I've made similar versions before with other semisoft cheeses, as rolls and bread loafs.  With rolls you tend to get a little more seeping out the sides or you could used a little less cheese, I suppose.  I have plenty of cheese left.  I may try this as a loaf next and squeeze a little more cheese in.

Take care, Todd

I have been on a bit of a country bread kick lately but I’m always trying to mix it up. For my latest variation I’ve replaced the typical 10% whole wheat flour in a country bread with 15% sprouted wheat.

Although I don’t have that much experience using sprouted grains it’s something that has always intrigued me. Mainly because of the purported health benefits but also because of the delicious flavor.

For one thing, when you use a sprouted grain like wheat you are using the entire grain. At this point it’s already much more nutritious than white flour but not any better than your average whole wheat flour. What causes sprouted grains to excel so greatly in nutrition is the activation of enzymes in the sprouting process. These enzymes breakdown some starches before they get to your body making bread made from these grains easier to digest. The sprouting also increases levels of some vitamins and protein.

On top of all these nutritional advantages sprouted wheat also tastes great! It is much more sweet tasting than whole wheat flour and doesn’t have any of the bitterness. It’s these flavors that led me to the idea of trying sprouted wheat in a country bread.

The finished loaf had outstanding flavor! It was quite sweet from the sprouted wheat and very mildly sour probably from making it as a straight dough instead of retarding. I feel like I could increase the sprouted wheat to 25-35% of dough weight and still get a great mild sprouted wheat flavor. If I went that high with normal whole wheat it would dominate the flavor and have that bitter whole wheat taste. I think I’m going to be using sprouted wheat a lot more often in my breads.

For the formula, process and more photos visit aBreaducation.

In my last post, I experimented with spelt flour in a country bread. The flavor was very appealing with slight nutty undertones and the bread came out great! However, I'm never satisfied with my last bread and always want to push into new areas. So I decided to increase the spelt in the formula from 10% to 20%.

I didn't stop there however, as at the last second I decided to add in polenta. I've tried using polenta in bread before and liked the result. There are a few steps to take when adding polenta or any grain for that matter into a bread.

Soft grains and seeds need to be soaked in water first so that they don't steal water from the dough and change the dough composition. With a hard grain like polenta you may need to go a step further and either use a boiling water soaker or just cook the grain beforehand. I elected to cook the polenta as I didn't have time to let it soak in hot water for 2+ hours. Once the polenta was cooled off I simply hand mixed it into my dough.

The loaf was dusted with cornmeal to hint at the polenta on the inside.

But that is not all! Like I said, I had put polenta in bread before and liked it but this time I really wanted to try something new. I decided to consult The Flavor Bible which is one of my absolute favorite books for cooking and baking. It is essentially a list of just about every ingredient you can think of and then under each ingredient is another list of all the other things that pair well with that ingredient. I simply looked up polenta and found a number of options that would go great with it. I decided on roasted garlic.

The still-warm crumb.

If you've never added roasted garlic to your bread I highly recommend it! Think garlic bread except the garlic is built into the bread instead of spread on top. It created a wonderful aroma throughout the apartment while baking. How to add roasted garlic to bread you ask? Simply roast the garlic with your preferred method and allow to cool. Then chop up and mix into your dough by hand. I went with four medium to large sized cloves in my 500g. loaf. I think I could have doubled that though and been fine(the garlic flavor I got was mild and subtle).

All in all this loaf was quite delicious and I would definitely bake it again especially if I was making bread for an Italian dinner.

Was it my childish resistance against praying with St. Jeffrey's faithful congregation, or an unconscious dislike of dealing with a tome - so far I haven't baked a lot from Hamelman's "Bread". Though one bread, the wonderful "5-Grain Sourdough with Rye Sourdough", made it straight into Karin's Bread Hall of Fame, and his "Rye Sourdough with Walnuts" formula I used for testing a 1-step versus a 3-step starter (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19814/interesting-experiment-sourdough-starters).

For my "Equal Opportunity Challenge" I wanted kill two birds with one stone, giving "Bread" another chance, and finding a vehicle for the chia seeds I had just purchased for a bargain price. Therefore I chose a simple white loaf, one of the first formulas of the book: "Country Bread".

Working with the recipe wasn't very difficult. I refrigerated the mature pre-ferment overnight, and upped the amount of water in the dough a bit to accomodate the chia seeds (I didn't soak them, since, according to the description on the tag, "you can eat them directly out of the package"). The dough was slightly sticky, as intended, and I gave it an extra Stretch & Fold right away, and let it ferment for an additional 50 minutes after the last fold.

The result was a very pretty loaf, with a pleasant, slightly nutty taste - for people who don't care too much for sourdough tang. Unfortunately, the Andersons do not belong to these mild mannered goodie-two-shoes, we like our yeasts wild and free!

Therefore, this gentle bread will have to find another home, even jazzed up with chia seeds it is a bit too tame for us.

Country Bread - with chia seeds

:)

It feels great to be back on the bike. Made my first loaf of a long-fermenting bread after more than a year away from real baking. I'm still getting my sea legs back, but there were glossy holes in the crumb and the crust sang when I pulled the loaves of Country Bread (Hamelman) from the oven.

Will post photos this evening.

Sylvia