The Fresh Loaf

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Benito's 100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread 2.0

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Benito's 100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread 2.0

Should have made this one sooner. Benny has hit on something really lovely here with 100% WW Hokkaido milk breads, and the recipe is simply superb.

This bake was done by following his 2.0 version of the recipe as his later versions seemed to show that a small amount vital wheat gluten was a good thing.

As always there are some deviations. Obviously my flour was different. I used a 'sprouted' hard-white wholemeal flour for this bread. Normally that flour is a little bland and doesn't make much of a crust, but it actually was perfect for this recipe and is actually the locally grown flour with the highest protein that I can find.

Another thing is that my usual sourdough starter seems to be a little bit of a delayed bloomer sometimes on sugary doughs. When I looked at the sweet stiff levain there was growth after 12 or 13 hours, but nothing like Benny showed in his pics:



So, I got a little nervous that this one would just take forever and did substitute 10g of the full-cream milk with some yeast water to act as insurance (taken from the sediment at the bottom of the jar, which I believe to be more potent). I did also keep back 20g of the milk as per the recommendation. I do think that culturing a sweet stiff levain for a few days before the next bake might be prudent for getting a starter that is already acclimatized to enriched doughs.

The other thing is that most of the common loaf pans in my part of the world are broad and flat rather than the classical "Pullman" shape. I do have a Zenker pan which is a little like the Pullman, but that is one huge pan! So, I opted for one of my medium sized pans that is a little broader and fatter - 24cm X 7cm X 13cm, just a touch smaller in volume than Benny's recipe, but I didn't scale down the recipe and kept it the same.

The new video from Benny with the shaping is what finally planted the idea in my mind that I need to make the bread. Shaping was fun, although I did struggle to make 4 identical rolls, as usual could get 3 the same, but the 4th, well, there is always one. And maybe with some experience I'll eventually be able to roll them up so that the centres of the rolls don't stick out on the ends. But the rolls were super tight and strong and could feel that they were ready to give good oven spring when they went into the pan.

When it came to the final proof, I did find that the bread was looking quite ready for baking at about 4 hours after shaping, judging by the aliquot jar:

 

I could have gone an extra hour (to 5 hours), as the aliquot jar after baking looked like this after baking, but was worried about overflowing the pan spectacularly and still got great oven spring:

There's a chance that the YW gave this a speedier ferment, also, I think using a sprouted flour might have given some boost.


The amazing thing about this bread is I couldn't believe it was 100% whole grain, it is super soft and doesn't have that astringent whole wheat taste that you can sometimes get. Using a hard white flour was a good choice, it turned out, although I probably will throw in some red wheat next time, or try another wholewheat altogether just to see the difference. The smell after baking was particularly intoxicating and the kids and I just hovered near the kitchen waiting long enough for it to cool down to taste. Super bread and super recipe, highly recommended.

-Jon

Comments

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Nice looking bake Jon.  I might have to give this one a go too!

happycat's picture
happycat

Yummy looking crust there and nice crumb.

I have this weird hang up about using enriched breads for sandwiches and whatnot but I bet it's super delicious.

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Kind of know what you mean, it also triggered something for me when we were in France and those packs of 'soft buns' were all brioche based.

Benito's picture
Benito

Jon, I’m honored that you baked my formula for this bread.  I’ve baked so many now trying to work out the kinks.  I’ve heard from other bakers that their starters didn’t create a vigorous levain like mine seems to.  If you try the stiff sweet levain you could ferment it at a warmer temperature and start with warmer water.  Also if you hadn’t refreshed your starter in the preceding few days a refreshment might also help.

You’ll get the hang of the shaping in your next bake for sure, I actually quite enjoy making those tense rolls and the payoffs are really great oven spring.  I’m so happy you enjoyed the bread and I hope you give it another try.

Oh and by the way, smart subbing some of your yeast water for the milk, great thinking on the fly!

Benny

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Thanks for the detail and precision in your recipes by the way, I like that there wasn't any doubt about which way to go about things.

Once I've played with different wholewheat flours, my thoughts are going around to making a vegan version of this bread at some point too.

Oh, and I did have the thought to sieve out the bran and use that towards the weight of the flour going into the tangzhong.

Jon

Benito's picture
Benito

You’re welcome Jon, I’m glad you liked it.

I’ve been planning a vegan version as well so look forward to your ideas on that.  I just haven’t had the time to do it yet with so many other things on my list.  

I still haven’t tried sifting the bran out of the flour for these milk breads, I just never think to try that since the formula seems to work without that extra step.  But again, I’d love to see you try it and find out if it helps.  So far I have used sifting for hearth loaves at 100% whole grain where I do hand mixing.  With matching mixing of the enriched doughs, I’ve found that I had achieve a well developed gluten even with the bran added in the flour.  I guess the other thing is, I add the tangzhong to the milk so if we scalded the bran or cooked it with the tangzhong, it would get added early on before the gluten is developed anyhow.  I’m not sure that there is an advantage to that.  It might need to be scalded and added to the developed dough, but then I’m not sure there is enough hydration in the dough if twice the weight of the bran is used to scald the bran.  So a bunch of things to figure out.  

Benny

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

I was looking at your levain and it seems to have a different irregular texture. Sort of like the cottage cheese look that Debra Wink described with her YW dough. Your crumb also looks more open than the typical Tz which I like better. I look forward to your next attempt. 
Don

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Hi Don,

Only noticed your comment now, but think you're right about the different irregular texture of my sweet stiff levain. To be honest I've been trying again and again lately to get this kind of levain to rise high like Benny does, and I just can't get it to happen!

-Jon