I made another batch of 100% whole wheat buttermilk bread from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book yesterday. This time I used freshly ground flour (hard red spring wheat) measured by weight, mixed all the ingredients except the butter for 2 minutes and then let the dough sit for 40 minutes in an attempt to hydrate the fresh ground flour a little bit. Next time I would attempt this without the salt added as per the various threads on this site regarding autloyse - but yesterday I didn't come up with the idea until after I'd already added everything.
After the 40 minute rest I mixed it for 4 more minutes on speed 4 on the KitchenAid and added the butter in cold, small, pieces as per the recipe. The butter didn't mix in very well so I moved the dough to the counter and kneaded the butter in for another minute or two, then let the dough sit in a covered bowl (in a cold oven with the lights on for warmth). I let it rise for 2 hours and 15 minutes, giving a stretch and fold every 45 minutes. Then divided it into two equal pieces, rounded them and let them sit for 15 minutes before forming them into pan loaves.
I let the loaves rise for 1 hour, then baked them in a pre-heated 350F convect oven for 35 minutes. They rose in the oven a little more and ended up the perfect size for sandwiches.
This bread is always delicious and my family loves its softness and flavour for sandwiches and toast. The fresh-baked heels are amazing and we usually snitch those from the sliced loaf before we freeze it - no one ever wants the heels for toast or sandwiches later anyway!
