A bread with semolina is like a cake. It is really delicious!
Last week I tried my hand at the Hamelman Semolina Levain bread with 125% bread flour liquid levain. With semolina coarse grain #1 used instead of the powdery durum, for experimentation. And it worked out, mostly just fine. But the flavor just wasn't grabbing me. Hence take 2 here has a few changes, while keeping everything else the same.
I decided to do another bake with a higher hydration so used 775 grams of flour with 600 grams of water so 77% hydration and really pleased with the results. It resulted in a softer lighter crumb with various sized holes. All in all a delicious tasting bread and texture. This novice baker is feeling happy!
Since I baked earlier in the week, I decided to simplify my weekend and make a yeast bread that would not tie me to the kitchen for most of the day. Flipping through FWSY, I settled on the 50% Wholewheat with Bigga.
Okay, so I’m 3 days late for homemade bread day, but this is the soonest I could get a loaf baked this week.
My last bake was a butternut squash loaf, and I really enjoyed it. This time I wanted to try something a little different.
Formula:
Weight (g) | Final dough | % |
I realized that baking bread only once or twice a month was doing a disservice to my beautiful, bright teal Kitchenaid. Sure, it makes a mean cake and yeah, it is awesome for pulled pork or shredded rotisserie chicken, but the main reason the hubby bought it for me was because I would pine for a mixer to make bread. So, I am reading recipes, watching YouTube videos, and trying to conquer my fear of kneading. I know that "the bestest" bread is made by hand, but the few times I attempted it, all I got for my efforts were aching wrists, and bread so tough and chewy it was basically inedible.
I hope this is not late for homemade bread day. There was no internet connection for several days, finally there is a connection now. I may not post for a while because our internet service provider scheduled a wide repair and maintenance, we're not sure if we will be affected. I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, the connection could be cut off anytime! I will surely repeat this bread and make a more "dramatic" post in the future. I missed uncle Dab's Mandela challenge last time and I don't want to miss this one now.
This has been a challenge in so many ways. Yesterday was the first chance all week to bake.
Friday am built my levain
100 g refreshed 100% starter
100 g water
30 g wholewheat
70 gm higrade flour
Friday mid afternoon made hot water soaker with grains
20 g black chia
25 g sesame seed
54 g pumpkin seed (all I had)
50 g sunflower seed
34 g kibbled rye
11 g salt and 310 g hot water.
I love Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread! It offers many recipes that could qualify as my favorite, so I just don't bother to choose. Often, what I bake is driven by how much time I have, and for Homemade Bread Day I did not have a lot of time. Because of that, I chose Country Bread. It uses a biga that provides 50% pre-fermented flour for flavor, but also includes only a short prep cycle that fit my schedule.
