The Fresh Loaf

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Sunflower Sesame Wholesome Wholemeal + Roasted Malt Grains

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Sunflower Sesame Wholesome Wholemeal + Roasted Malt Grains

It is 4:45am on a quiet and cool Sunday morning.  I am taking my time … a cup of tea while listening to the birds. I can smell mangos on the table next to me.

Nat and I packed a lot of effort into yesterday. The yard work is done, and in between all the mowing and trimming necessary after summer rain I managed to put a few loaves of bread through the oven.

Have you ever stopped to think about a grain of wheat? I am slowly learning the scientific terms and descriptions … but my brain is not really wired that way. What I am slowly starting to appreciate is that these little grains are really packets of life. I don’t stop and take the time to think about this enough. They hold all that is required to germinate … just needed is the right balance of moisture and warmth.

For the baking this weekend I wanted to take a step beyond sprouting into the world of malting. During the week I sprouted wheat, rye and barley grains. After drying (kilning), I gently roasted the grains in search of flavour and colouring, not diastatic power or enzyme content. The house smelt amazing during this process …

… I now wanted to try them freshly milled in bread … and it turned out Nat’s parents were staying with us – to offer them bread is the perfect excuse to bake.

I decided upon the sourdough formula from Richard Bertinets book Crust. This formula was probably the first I knew off the top of my head. I have made it so many times in all sorts of weather with every flour combination imaginable. It is a 75% hydration dough with 25% of the total flour being pre-fermented in a stiff levain. With this amount of pre-fermented flour you need to pay attention to the ripeness of the levain builds as they have a big impact on the final dough.

Included in this I combined roasted wheat and barley malt flour at 5% of the total flour. I have been racking my thoughts on a way to best describe the aroma and taste of the roasted malt flours. I can’t. There is malt flavour in the roasted barley but also stronger rich dark toasted overtones, especially when combined with the malted wheat.

The difference was apparent as soon as I combined the ingredients. You could smell the malted flours and see them streaked throughout the autolysing dough.

On Saturday morning I took the risen bread from the fridge and allowed it to come to room temperature before filling the waking house with the aromas of fresh bread.

In the end I think the roasted malt flours did more for the colouring than flavour. The blistered crust is packed with colour and caramelized flavour while the crumb is a little darker but I find it hard to pick a noticeable difference in the overall flavour. I thought this strange after the difference I had sensed in the mixing stages but with a crumb so soft that we struggled to cut it without serious squashing and squeezing – it was deemed a delicious success.

 

Sunflower and Sesame wholesome wholemeal

I have noticed how much I missed using the mill after last weeks bake of ciabattas and brioche. I somehow felt disconnected from the bread I was making. It all tasted great but it wasn’t ‘wriggling with life’. I missed the planning and preparation, the smell of freshly milled grains … oh and the eventual endless cleaning I seemingly produced. The vacuum and I are getting very well acquainted.

I pictured bread with freshly milled grains and roasted malt flour packed with seeds. Instead of an endless variety of seeds I paired two - sesame and sunflower. The aromas of these lightly toasted seeds complimented the roasted malt wheat flour bringing a richness and depth to this wholesome bread.

Formula

Overview

Weight

%

Total dough weight (minus mix-ins)

2000g

 

Total flour

1081g

100%

Total water

919g

85%

Total salt

20g

2%

Prefermented flour

270g

25%

Desired dough temperature 24°C

 

 

 

 

 

Levain build – 8 hrs 18-20°C

 

 

Starter (not included in final dough)

135g

50%

Flour (I use a flour mix of 70% AP flour, 18% fresh milled wheat, 9% fresh milled spelt and 3% fresh milled rye)

270g

100%

Water

135g

50%

 

 

 

Final dough

 

 

Levain

405g

50%

Freshly milled wheat flour (Four Leaf biodynamic grains)

761g

94%

Roasted malted wheat flour

50g

6%

Water

784g

96%

Salt

20g

2%

Mix-ins

 

 

Sesame seeds lightly toasted

50g

6%

Sunflower seeds lightly toasted

210g

25%

+ Sunflower seeds for coating

 

 

 

Method

  1. Autolyse flour and for one hour. (hold back 50 grams of water)
  2. Meanwhile lightly toast sunflower and sesame seeds until golden and allow to cool.
  3. Add levain to autolyse then knead (French fold) 5 mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and 50 grams of water and squeeze through bread to incorporate (dough will separate then come back together smoothly) then knead a further 10 mins.
  4. Gently mix in seeds until combined.
  5. Bulk ferment two hours with one stretch-and-fold after the first hour.
  6. Preshape. Bench rest 20 mins. Shape. Spray the outside lightly with water and roll in untoasted sunflower seeds.
  7. Final proof was one hour at room temperature (25°).
  8. Bake in dutch oven for 10 mins at 250°C then 10 mins at 200°C. Remove loaf from dutch oven and bake a further 20 mins at 200°C.

 

 

After a day of mowing and raking, it was magic to stop and savor a slice of this while still warm. To top it off ­– a scraping butter. Sigh …

The Four Leaf milling grains lend their typical golden hue to a soft crumb packed with seeds. The sesame is subtle and appears in the background on occasions to remind you of their presence while sunflower seeds are the champions – from the tender bite in the crumb to the roasted crunch on the crust to the final enjoyment of picking at fallen seeds on the plate.

All the best,
Phil 

Comments

ananda's picture
ananda

Hi Phil,

Oh the contrast!   Your wholesome laves look beautiful indeed.

I read this post having spent the last hour on the first mixing for the Panettone posted by txfarmer.

More on this will surely follow; but for now to bed.

These both look fabulous; the Bertinet loaf paricularly, although I am interested in more detail on your analysis of the effect of malted roasted grains!

Best wishes

Andy

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Thanks Andy,

Yeah, thats quite a contrast ... that panettone formula looks like intensive work. I have made simple yeasted panettone in past years ... not this year though. Nat and I just spent the afternoon planning food for the upcoming Christmas celebrations ... Looks like stollen and brioche (for bostock boxing day breakfast) to be baked plus various salads and tarts.

The roasted malted grains are so different from each other. My favourite to taste was the rye ... it seemed the sweetest and had the darkest colour. I pushed the barley roasting a little further than the wheat and rye and lost some of the initial sweetness. I preferred the wheat and rye grains over the barley as they taste less toasted. Once milled the flours are quite rich in colour ... caramel/chocolate coloured. The dough smelt different when they were added ... especially the Bertinet sourdough which is predominately white flour. In the wholemeal loaf the roast wheat flavours were lost at that percentage as the fresh milled flours have so much flavour.

The crust was definitely darker on the Bertinet sourodugh than usual ... I find that it can bake quite pale after being retarded overnight when not using malt. This was not the case this time ... lovely crust. Nat can't tell the difference in flavour ... I would be hard pressed to notice it either. Might go for a larger percentage next time.

Good luck with the panettone ...

All the best,
Phil

PiPs's picture
PiPs

I was mixing another batch of dough last night that I sell to a few friends, and it came to me ... the aroma when using the roasted malt grains ...  I kept noticing it but couldn't place it...

Its the smell of a biscuit we have over here .. not sure if they sell it in the UK ... its an Arnott's Granita. It's bizarre, and the smell doesn't seem to translate into the flavour of the bread ... but as soon as the water hits the flour the aromas start. Makes me smile...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAKghtYWmhs

Cheers,
Phil

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Phil,

Have you seen this video on sprouting and malting?  It is my favorite.    Perhaps because I am a long time Sting fan.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauYECAEQ8I

Lovely loaves and I too am struck by the miracle of live contained within a grain of wheat.  Tis one of the things that got my attention when I began baking in ernest and is probably what keeps my attention...

Weird to read about you doing yard work while we are shoveling snow :-)

Take Care,

Janet

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Thanks Janet,

Confession time ... I have never even seen snow. Not even on mountain tops in the distance. TV is about as close as I have been.

Yep, we had a bright sunny day and I madly pushed a rusty old mower around the yard and managed to get a touch of colour for my efforts.

I have seen that video ... I even had to play it again while I typed these responses ...

I find the sprouting quite a miracle.

Cheers,
Phil

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Phil,

No need to confess.....I imagine there are weather conditions you have experienced that a lot of us never have or ever will....

Snow is awfully pretty in the middle of winter when everything else is all brown and dusty....another magical thing but it gets less magical when it reaches depths and weights that have to be removed by a shovel or snow blower and then it is WORK time....teenage kids handle that for me now :-)

While you were pushing your lawn mower  my son was finally getting around to draining the gas out of ours and putting it into storage until next summer...

Janet

varda's picture
varda

reading.   Your breads look fantastic but it seems your processing of the grains would give depth of flavor that I can only try to imagine.    I'm curious what is that green spread?   It looks so pretty on those slabs of bread.  -Varda  

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Hi Varda,

That was my lunch yesterday ... Avacado with a squeeze of lemon, cracked pepper and sprinkle of sea salt. YUM!

We have had a bad run with buying avocados recently, so it was a relief to finally have a nice one. I ma going to experiment a bit further with the malted grains ... see what I can achieve.

Cheers,
Phil 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Loavely loaves, Phil! The seedy wholemeal bread is my kind of wholegrain bread. What a happy ending to a weekend!

Exquisite display, and lovely execution of a recipe, makes your posts one of my favorites.

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Thanks Khalid for your gracious comments,

I missed this kind of bread after a week of baking 'white breads' The crumb looks even better a day after baking. The seeds are contrasting nicely with the crumb.

All the best,
Phil

Jeremy's picture
Jeremy

I malted some barley recently, and put it in a dough...it's good.... and those slice slathered with avocado...well it's torture!

Happy baking, I'm waiting impatiently for my breads to rise today, we've got some cold weather here in NYC 1.11 Celcius or 34 Faranheit...makes everything sluggish to rise, so all the breads are sitting over the top of my oven collecting some heat.

 

Cheers,

Jeremy

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Jeremy,

We get temps like yours here too...What is working wonders for me is a goose-necked lamp and a heating pad.  Lamp provides heat from above and the heating pad gets the bottom of the breads warm...Generally the temp. on my 'fermenting/proofing' table stays at about 75° using the lamp/pad set up.  If it gets too warm - adjusting the lamp is a breeze and the heating pad can be adjusted too.  I usually keep it on low but rely on the lamp more when proofing.

Good Luck,

Janet

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Hi Jeremy,

My daughters are on holidays in NYC at the moment with their mum so I have been keeping an eye on the temperatures ... MY GOODNESS!!!

That's what I call a winter ... We were grumbling that it was 18C and a bit 'chilly' last night. The temperature drop caught me unawares and I had to give the dough I was mixing an extra hour bulk ferment ... Teach me for not paying attention :)

Keep warm and have a great Christmas ...your totally crazy busy at work I imagine?
Phil