Whole wheat, buckwheat, flaxseed meal loaves
I read about and saw pictures of gorgeous flaxseed ryes coming out of members' ovens last week and I thought I'd give it a try, but I don't like to bring new flours or specialty ingredients into the house until I use up much of what I already have. Such is life in a small New York City kitchen. Finding no rye and no flaxseeds, flaxseed rye was pretty much out of the question. There was some flaxseed meal, though, and a nice bag of Central Milling whole wheat, so I went that way.
I fed my 100% hydration white storage culture with the whole wheat a few times and mixed up a stiff levain from it to ferment overnight. I made a hot soaker with the flaxseed meal and hydrated all the white bread flour overnight. Bulk fermentation was two hours, with s&f's at 30, 60, and 105 minutes. Shaped loaves proofed another two hours on the bench. I put a total of about 2 ounces each of flaxssed meal (via the soaker) and buckwheat flour in the mix.
The large loaf was baked covered in cast iron, from which I'm getting good results recently. The smaller loaves were baked with my usual steam setup, but not covered. They did not exhibit the same cell structure as the larger loaf. The crumb on these is very light. There is no bitterness or excessive tang from the whole wheat. I tried to be conservative with the fermentation and proofing times. Delicious with good butter, cheese or maybe smoked fish. Will make these again.
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