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Cedar Mountain’s Grass Roots Bread

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Cedar Mountain’s Grass Roots Bread

All of my other bread related obligations are done, so I can finally bake for the family. Cedar Mountain had posted a wonderful recipe that he called “Grass Bread”. This is an almost identical recipe with a few tweaks from me. Thank you, CM, for sharing that recipe.

 

Recipe:

 

Makes 3 loaves

 

Add-ins

 

25 g hulless oats and 75 g water

38 g wild rice and 114 g water

25 g barley flakes and 75 g water

63 g large flake oats and 125 g water

 

Dough

75 g rye berries

75 g spelt berries

75 g kamut berries

75 g Red Fife berries

750 g unbleached all purpose flour

725 g filtered water

22 g pink Himalayan salt

40 g local yogurt

250 g 3 stage 100 hydration levain (procedure in recipe)

Wholewheat flour/all purpose flour for feeding the levain

 

Mid afternoon the day before:

  1. Take 18 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 18 g of filtered water and 18 g of wholewheat flour. I used flour from our local miller. Let rise in a warm place (oven with the light on and door cracked open - 82F)
  2. Mill the grains and sift to obtain 250 g of high extraction flour. Save the bran for dusting the baskets as well as for another use. 
  3. Place the high extraction flour in a tub and add the unbleached flour to it. Cover and set aside.

The night before:

  1. Place the hulless oats in a pot with the water. Boil one or two minutes and turn off the heat. Let sit covered overnight on the stove.
  2. Put the wild rice and the water in a pot and let soak overnight covered.
  3. Before going to bed, feed the levain 36 g of water and 36 g of wholewheat flour including any left over high extraction flour. Let that rest in a warm place overnight.

Dough making day:

  1. Feed the levain 72 g of filtered water and 72 g of all purpose flour and let rise 4-5 hours in a warm spot. I deemed mine ready after 4.5 hours.
  2. Boil the hulless oats gently until the water disappears. They should be soft to the bite. I ended up with 50 g of cooked hulless oats. Cover and set aside. 
  3. Cook the wild rice until it has bloomed fully and most of the water is gone. Drain and reserve. Mine had actually done most of its blooming overnight and I just needed to cook it a bit to soften the a few hard pieces. This made 95 g of cooked wild rice. Add to the hulless oats.
  4. Cook the barley flakes in the water until the water has been all absorbed. This made 69 g of cooked barley. Add to the oats and wild rice.
  5. Cook the large flake oats with the water until soft and water has soaked in. This made more than 150 g but I used only 150 g. My oldest apprentice ended up with a bit of porridge. =) Add to the other add-ins.
  6. Two hours before the levain is ready, mix the water with the flour in the tub and autolyse for a couple of hours.
  7. Once the levain has doubled, add the salt, the yogurt, the add-ins and the levain. Mix well to integrate everything and let sit for 45 minutes in a warm spot.
  8. Do three sets of French slaps and folds at 30 minutes intervals. The first two sets have 100 slaps, and the last set has 50 slaps. Continuing on 30 minute intervals, do another 3 sets of folds. The dough was highly hydrated, therefore the extra work with it. 
  9. Let rest 30 minutes and then retard the bulk for two hours. The dough rose about 30%. 
  10. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~790g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter. 
  11. Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.
  12. Sprinkle bran, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and hemp hearts in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 10 hours. 

Baking Day

  1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully place the dough seam side up inside. 
  2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 30 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425 F, and bake for another 25 minutes. I usually do 17 minutes but the loaves were still a bit pale for my taste. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

Oven spring was pretty good and the loaves look quite festive with their coating of seeds. 

 

Comments

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Very, very happy with this!!  

Edo Bread's picture
Edo Bread

Looks great - but I have to think marketing will push for a name change.

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

My daughter and my hubby were looking at me quite strangely when I was labeling the bags for the freezer. ?

Edo Bread's picture
Edo Bread

Living in Colorado, I know people around here would either think it belongs down in  pot shop, or it is a revived hippie bread that literally was full of grass! And I would not be surprised if both of those things could actually be found.

TomK's picture
TomK

That’s a beauty. I’ve been feeling the urge to do some seeded breads but concentrating on the basics for now.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

no name change, add a word...  Grass roots bread.

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I was just following CM’s naming convention. But I will change it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I too was wondering about that name ?.   Crumb looks perfect and I'm sure this must taste amazing.  One question for you; why not just make a single porridge with the rice, oats and barley flakes instead of the overnight process and individual cooking? Just wondering what the difference would be.  

Thanks

Ian

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

at different rates? Wouldn’t some of the grains like the barley and oats be total mush by the time the wild rice and hulless oats were done? I did the soaking to shorten the cooking time of the wild rice and hulless oats the next day but they still took a lot longer to cook than the oats and the barley. 

The orher thing is that CM had them weighed out individually as cooked grains. I had to figure out how much dry grain to use to get his cooked grain amounts. I was over for the most part but figured close enough. 

I am really pleased with this bread and he is right when he said that this is the best tasting bread he has had. It is absolutely delicious! 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I usually just make a porridge with all the ingredients at the same time and don't worry if one is mushy or not.  I guess if you want them to have some more bite to them it makes sense.  I always say go with what works for you.  I'm too lazy to go with all the extra steps you did, but maybe I'll give it a try one day ?

I do love adding rice to the bread which gives it a distinctive flavor.  I've been using some specialty rices I found at Whole Foods which make for more varieties! 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

grass directive, hybrid  or cross.  Grass bread is generic since all bread is grass bread:-)  Not that I would know but when lived in CA and CO when much younger I'm pretty sure folks made grass bread with pot but who knows anything was possible when we were young.  This bread looks great inside and out and has to taste even better.  I wold call it Mega Grass Porridge and Yogurt Bread with Hemp and Other Seeds.

Just beautimous and happy baking Danni

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

there is no hemp in it or hemp seeds.   

 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

hearts sprinkled on the outside..,

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

missed them.  :)