June 2, 2020 - 5:48am
Semolina subbed for whole wheat
While I was doing my bread ingredients freezer inventory, I realized I have a large quantity of semolina flour. My favorite bread is similar to Dave's Killer Bread Good Seed, with 100% whole wheat and heavy with nuts and seeds. I usually add VWG so I don't end up with a brick, and I'm wondering if this might have been the problem. I did 50/50 with the semolina and WW, but kept the rest of the recipe the same. It's normally a successful bread (my favorite), and I make it often. This time when I took it out of the pan, it collapsed. I'm thinking I either shouldn't have used the VWG or there was too much semolina. I've only ever used it with bread flour before. Any thoughts?
- 438g water
- 9g yeast
- 47g molasses
- 28g brown sugar
- 420g WW
- 58g VWG
- 35g olive oil
- 9g salt
- 40g oats
- 23g cornmeal
- 29g flax seeds, ground
- 28g wheat germ
- 29g ea sunflower seeds, sesame seeds (black & white), pepitas, and flax seeds (all toasted)
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Because semolina is not whole grain* (it's endosperm only), it does not soak up as much water as whole wheat. So your loaf was overhydrated.
And... because semolina is gritty, meaning large particles, it takes longer to soak up what water it does want. Large particles take longer to hydrate, soak up water, than small particles.
Although the color of semolina is yellow, it is what is otherwise referred to as a "white" flour, meaning no germ and no bran.
Semolina is also made from durum wheat (generally speaking, with exceptions), and durum wheat, while high in protein, it's not the kind of protein that makes for good gluten. So your semolina made less gluten than the whole wheat it replaced.
Net: soaking your semolina for 1/2 hour before adding other ingredients, and reducing water somewhat, will make the next loaf better.
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*There does exist "whole grain semolina" but it is rare. If it were whole grain, the package would have (should have) explicitly stated so.
Thank you for explaining it so well.