I've packed all my stuff, cleaned everything, thrown so much out . . . I'm moving to Basel on Sunday and I'm getting read for it! Yeyy. That's why I stayed the whole day at home. I had to get all these rather annoying things done. Now my room looks very clean and rather empty. Well done, Salome!

Still, I had to make my day somewhat more fun, and a full day at home is perfect for bread baking. Unfortunately, I realized this just after breakfast, so I didn't have time to get my sourdough ready.

That lead to the first requirement: I wanted to use a yeast formula with no pre-ferment.

Secondly, I had some buttermilk which had to get used.

Thirdly, I wanted some whole grains - baking white bread is fun, because of all the nice holes you can achieve, but it always causes me bad stomach-sensations, because I end up eating to much. So, third requirement, a whole-grain recipe!

Tadaa tadaa: I found a nice Buttermilk Whole-Wheat Bread formula!

I just had this bread for dinner, and it is a big hit. You've got to try it, it's so incredible light, even though its 100 percent whole-wheat. And the dough is simply a dream to handle, I never had a whole-wheat dough that behaved like this.

But it requires an effort: I kneaded for 30 minutes by hand, using the bertinet technique. during the last ten minutes I added gradually more water, the dough was able to absorb at least 50 ml, I'd guess. After the kneading the dough felt very smooth.

The dough has to rise twice before it gets shaped. It's a pleasantly warm day today, around 75° F - maybe that's the reason why this dough rised so beautifully. It was a real joy to watch it. It rose as high as many white flour doughs do! First rise: ~1 h 45 min, second rise ~1 h. After shaping, I wettened the dough slightly and rolled it in coarse wheat.

The next time, I'll add less honey. (The bread is subtle sweet, which is tasty and you'd think that it's the natural sweetness of the wheat if you wouldn't know better. But I found something about this subtle sweetness disturbing, too.) And more important, I'll bake it at a higher temperature. When I checked the loaves after 30 minutes, it was still incredibly soft on the outside. So I gave it 10 more minutes at 230°C, in order to achieve somewhat of a crust. This worked, but I'd still prefer a somewhat crisper crust. Next time I'll start baking at 200°C, take the loaves out of the pan after 20 minutes and maybe lower the temperature if required.

The recipe is originally from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and got posted here on thefreshloaf.com. I did the version without a biga. (but I'm planning on trying it with a biga soon as well.)

I've been far and away, hence a lot less active on TFL. That will change again soon. I received 'Crust and Crumb' in the mail (wanted to buy it in a store in the US, no such book available). This is a serious book, I really enjoy reading the first chapters. It is the mise-en-place before the actual work start in the rest of the book.

I updated my breadcollage, which I use to ask people to 'read' before they can pick a bread for me to bake.

In case you like to know: the questions I ask:

Which bread is the most 'work'?
Which bread is the easiest to make?
What is the relation between shape (looks) and taste (content, inside)?
Which bread is slowrising, which is multicomponent?
Which type I got right first time around, and which one am I still struggling with?

A few of the questions I get (apart from the 'you got to be kidding you can do this'..)

- what do you do after you knead to bread? (what do you mean with knead?)
- how much does a bread baking machine cost? (I don't know, don't have one).
- is this way too much work? (if time is your only perspective, buy bread in a store)
- what about the costs? (this is actually cheaper then buying quality bread, but don't count the labor costs...)
- why would you do this? (as mentioned before: taste, healthy food, sharable, care for my family, learning experience, 'chemistry')

Happy baking, 'I'll be back' with Pain de Michelle.

Cheers,

Jw