Dan Leader's Dark Pumpernickel Bread with Raisins
I keep my own blog with my sisters at www.threecleversisters.com [1], but as I have a question about this bread I figured I'd repost it here too! I'm not sure if that's how TFL community works/if others do this as well? Do people keep parallel blogs around here? I think my bread stuff is a little technical sometimes for the rest of my blog, though here probably pretty basic stuff ;-) All in the name of better bread, right?
Anyway here is the post (link is http://threecleversisters.com/2010/09/12/dark-pumpernickel-bread-with-raisins/ [2])
This bread, Dark Pumpernickel Bread with Raisins, from Dan Leader's Bread Alone [4], was a lot of fun to make. However, it takes a LONG time-two ferments rather than one (that's three rises) and 1 1/2 hours in the oven.
I halved the recipe (and Lord knows how I would have kneaded all that dough if I hadn't) and as the rye starter I maintain (from Dan Leader's Local Breads [5]) seems to be different from the Bread Alone book in composition (and since my starter is drastically smaller in amount than required for this recipe), I built the necessary proportions using the rye sourdough elaboration from the Local Breads recipe for Whole Rye Berry Loaf. (I added about 5oz of water rather than the 4 oz called for in the pre-ferment as the Bread Alone sourdough seemed wetter). I meant to only add 9oz of the final starter but ended up adding the full amount which was nearer to 11 oz. This turned out not to be a problem, as far as I could tell.
The recipe gives a wide range of flours, I stayed within the lower end of this range. This seemed to work out well. The only problem was that I think my oven got too hot over the long baking period, so as is obvious, the crust was burnt. The inside is just fine, and I was thrilled by the dramatic oven spring. Plus it's the first pumpernickel I've made that was truly dark (which is what I think of for pumpernickel). It was quite sweet from the molasses and raisins, and deliciously moist: I was happy to eat it plain. I put half in the freezer as this is one massive loaf (and I only made a half batch! Unbelievable. I'll have to keep this in mind when making more out of Bread Alone-Leader is clearly baking for a crowd!)
Final question: if anyone uses both of these books, do you know if the starters are interchangeable, as they seem to be different formulas to me? If you use a local bread starter, how do you convert to the Bread Alone starter (not only in the hydration proportions but in the quantities required!?)