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I have a quest to improve the rise and softness of a 100% Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread. This is the third time baking this and I have been tweaking the formula with each attempt. There has been a gradual improvement with each bake and this time I got a good rise, soft crumb, and wonderful flavour. Debra Wink has graciously given her advice and ideas given that it is her recipe in Hamelman’s 3rd Edition of Bread.

After seeing so many beautiful creative babkas for the community bake, I decided to give it a try. I read through Melissa Clark's recipe (at the end of this post) and decided maybe I can try 1 loaf with a chocolate mousse filling - this mousse is good on its own too, I smother each slice of the babka with more of this!




Dough
30g milk
30g orange juice
2 large eggs
150g all purpose flour
100g Kamut flour
30g sugar
4g salt
3g instant yeast

 Saw this made in one of those French bakery videos and thought, wait a minute, even I can do that!! I made a relatively small batch of baguette dough and voila!!

This is the bread I am going to bring our friends who we are seeing for the first time in over a year.  They do seem to prefer a softer bread so what better than a sourdough Hokkaido milk bread with Tangzhong.  This is the second time I am making this bread and I hope they enjoy it.

The recipe that follows is for a 9”x4”x4” Pullman pan open.

Ingredients

Sweet Stiff Starter 

• 53g bread flour 

• 24g water 

• 18g light brown sugar 

• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration 

Haven't posted anything lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been baking!! Baguettes galore, Ciabattas, and crazy different fruit and nut sourdough breads including Blueberry Pecan and Apricot Walnut! On tonight's menu, one of my favorite "treats", the erstwhile New York style Bialy topped with everything mix and onions! I prepared a Pâte Fermentée in advance and refrigerated overnight, which definitely added some extra nice flavor to the finished product. Fairly typical preparation, bake in a 500F oven for approx 12 - 14 minutes.

I just finished reading an advance copy of Eric Pallant's Sourdough Culture, which is coming out in a couple of weeks.

Found a little gem at the end of last week on Available for Barter Fremantle and Surrounds and although Frances said she was happy for me to just have it i said i would bake some Cinnamon buns on the Monday, unfortunately she is gluten intolerant but her son and husband are not so i hope they enjoy some of these.

holds just under 2 kgs, perfect for when i have just opened a bag

Have been loving the yeast water. 

I've recently made Hamelman's Swiss Farmhouse bread from the community bake. So interesting and it surprised me that my somewhat fizzy water has such great leavening power.

Simple but delicious. One of my most popular loaves. 

Like last week, dough was moving really fast and it got 3 folds rather than 4. It also spent more time in the fridge than usual. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g rolled oats

200 g water

45 g honey

40 g butter

Dough

700 g unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled whole grain Red Fife flour (200 g Red Fife berries)

100 g freshly milled whole grain Einkorn flour (100 g Einkorn berries)

I love the rich flavor Guinness adds to bread. The combo of fresh milled Barton Mills Danko Rye and Ruby Whole Wheat was a winner. The maple syrup helped add just the right amount of sweetness and the ricotta cheese helped create a moist open crumb.

I added some toasted onions to the top of the loaves by adding them to the inside of the bannetons. I love onions so this really took this one over the top.

This bread made excellent pastrami sandwiches with melted cheese and it was pretty good toasted for breakfast as well.