Three Grain Bread

AKA using-up-the-open-packets-of-flour-in-the-cupboard bread. ;-)

Am still working with my usual recipe formula, which I can now recite by heart. I think it's been a really worthwhile exercise in improving both my technique and consistency. But it's amazing how many different breads I can turn out using the same basic formula... And I can vary the quantity of yeast according to how much (or little) time I have.

This though, was a double quantity of dough, as one loaf was for a friend - I give her bread and in return I receive fresh eggs from her chooks. It's a fair swap, as I've got a thing for fried egg sandwiches :-)

810g flour

20g milled linseed

20g oat bran

16g salt

10g dried active yeast

480g warm water

1 tablespoon malt (the gooey stuff that comes in jars)

120g oil

90g 100% hydration rye starter.

I had several bags of flour that really wanted using up, so I made my flour selection accordingly. This particular dough had a flour mix that was as follows:

310g white bread flour

300g spelt flour

200g light rye flour

The oil was a mix of extra virgin olive oil (again, the remainder of a bottle) and rape seed oil. As usual, I mixed all the ingredients up, kneaded by hand for 15 minutes and left to bulk ferment. The dough was lovely, soft and silky, really easy to work with. Bulk ferment took about two hours at room temperature - which is about 18C here at the moment.

The dough was then knocked back, halved, shaped into batards and proofed in bannetons that were popped into plastic bags. That took about an hour, though I've learnt to watch the dough more, and the clock less... :-)

One bagged banneton was then put in the fridge. The other went into my greased and floured chicken brick, was scored and then put into the oven for 25 mins at 230C with the lid on, and a further 20 mins with the lid off. The first loaf was turned out and the second one removed from the fridge and put in the brick, repeating the scoring and cooking process.

That was when disaster struck...

I removed the lid from the chicken brick while baking the second loaf and put it on a cooling rack. While bending down to shut the oven, I hear a clicking noise and think nothing of it at first. And then I see, to my horror, that a large crack has propagated almost the entire length of the lid, leaving a gap of a good couple of millimetres between the edges of said crack. :-(

Have to admit I'm gutted as this brick has given me some sterling service. Admittedly it wasn't new when I bought it on a jumble sale many moons ago, but still... Anyways, I have ordered a new one from Amazon and am waiting for it to arrive.

Back to the bread though, I like to think I got a good result :-)

The bread smelled truly amazing according to my mum. I got a lovely crisp and slightly flaky crust and a soft, light, delicate crumb.

I can't really talk much about the flavour, alas, because I have a stinking cold and can neither taste nor smell a thing right now. But I've been assured that it's a really tasty bread that goes with just about anything.

Last week I had a rummage around in a new Polish shop in a place that I frequent relatively regularly and found they had a nice range of bread flours. I re-stocked my light rye, but I also bought a bag of oat flour, which I will be trying out soon.

My mum bought me a bag of buckwheat flour recently, and I baked a bread with it this evening. I used the same formula as above with the exception of adding some toasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and pine nuts that I blitzed down instead of the oat bran and milled linseed. The flour mix was 300g white bread flour, 300g wholemeal bread flour and 210g buckwheat flour, and the oil was rape seed. I used 4g of yeast as I was in less of a hurry today.

The dough was really sticky and not easy to work with. Yes, I made a mess as it stuck to *everything* it touched. And yes, I baked a frisbee... Ho hum, back to the drawing board. I couldn't cloche this bread as it spread beyond the diameter of my stock pot and threatened to overflow the baking sheet. Maybe I overproofed it, or maybe this is a dough that just needs to be baked in a tin...

Am wondering whether this is a characteristic of bread with buckwheat flour in it. But the proof of the pudding is, as they say, in the eating, so I'll find out tomorrow at some point whether it's an edible frisbee... Well, it *looks* edible...

On the feline front, Lexi brought me two mice and a leaf on Sunday, and Poppy has been supervising the making of show drapes. It's the Supreme next weekend - the cat equivalent of Crufts here in the UK, and we're getting ready for that. It's always a good day out regardless of what happens in the show ring :-)