September 3, 2012 - 5:23am
Tips for daily bread recipe
I'm regularly baking a 50 % whole grain bread for daily use. Until now I have been relying on eye measurements and not measured my igredients and I have gotten fairly good bread out of it.
However I would like to improve my recipe by being more precise. Can you recommend a recipe for me that has (most of) the following characteristics:
- Healthy (i. e. lots of whole grain and not so much white flour)
- Has seeds and grain in it (like flax, cracked wheat, cracked rye, sunflower seeds etc.)
- Is light and airy
- Keeps fresh and moist for a few days
- Tastes great.
Also I have some questions on how grains and whole grain flour affects the baker's percentage.
When using whole grain when is the best time to add them? Should I just add them to the preferment as I do now or should I soak them seperately and mix them into the dough later?
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There are several multigrain recipes on this site that should be pretty easy to find by starting with the search box-try "fluffy whole wheat" or "multigrain"or even "multigrain clazar123" .At some point I believe I posted a Multigrain Whloe wheat in a loaf forma s well as sandwich thins. It was quite delcious,as I recall. Cook's Il;lustrated was the original inspiration of that bake. I think another recipe was a form of Whole wheat Hokkaido bread but that had a lot of butter and milk in it as well as whole wheat. I'm not sure where that would fall on your "healthy" scale.
Also do some research on how to handle whole wheat dough to get a moist, non-crumbly loaf. There are some dough handling techniques and considerations for whole grain that are different from using AP flour.
Roll up your sleeves and dig in. Try the recipes on the side bar,too.
You say you're baking good bread, why would wou want to start out with someone else's recipe? Why not just write down your own recipe? You'll learn more that way anyway. Especially once you start writing your recipes down, and learning about baker's percentages, you will be able to tweak and refine to your heart's content.
Regarding grains/seeds, yes, your best bet is to soak them beforehand.
"Light and airy" means extended kneading times for good gluten development. It also could mean adding fats and/or proteins to make the crumb more tender. No fat = dry loaves (think baguette!)
"Keeps fresh and moist for a few days" is more tricky. The nature of bread is that it goes stale. Potato flakes, lecithin, fats & proteins help extend life, but ultimately your best bet is probably freezing your baked, unused bread and defrosting/toasting as needed.
Breads made with a sourdough levain will keep longer, at least 3-4 days if kept wrapped.
Potatoes wether flakes or mashed also make a moister bread and also help keep the bread fresher.
I've been thinking about this recipe
280 g Øland wheat flour (20%) - (old heirloom wheat variety)
420g plain wheat flour (30)%
700g whole grain spelt flour (50%)
1400 g flour total (100%)
28g salt (2%)
980g water (70%)
28 g olive oil (2%)
1 tsp diastatic malt flour
½ dl flax seed
½ dl cracked rye
1 dl cracked wheat
1 dl sunflower seeds
I'll make a 100% preferment of one third of the flour and a small piece of fresh yeast. Let it sit on the counter overnight and then mix the rest of the ingredients in. As for the grains/seeds I'll soak them overnight separately. Does this sound like a sensible recipe?
Sounds pretty good. How much yeast exactly? Remember that whole grain flours typically ferment more quickly.
You may want to bump the diastatic malt flour f. Or you could consider doing a mash ("cooking" some of the whole grain flours with some water). Either way you may want to bump up the sweetness a tiny bit.
Usually I use the amount of fresh yeast that you can grab between three fingers - about the size of a large pea.
I made a preferment of a little yeast, 466g water, 233g whole spelt flour and 233g ordinary white flour.
I have soaked the grains in enough water to keep them covered. Tomorrow when I'm going to bake I will pour as much water as possible off the grains.
cranbo. A little honey would be very nice in this bread not so much that you taste it as a feature -maybe 20 g. Some red non-diatatic malt will help the flavor and color too. I use 2 g each of red and white for an 850 g boule - it will make a lot of difference.
Don't forget about sprouts too. We love them in this kind of bread. just take some berries of your choice and soak them for 4 hours in water. Drain and place them on 2 sheets of damp paper towel. Cover with 2 sheets of damp paper towel and cover all with plastic wrap to keep the moisture in. in 24-48 hours you will have sprouts for bread. Or you can let them go (watering them each day) for 4-5 days and then move them to a cookie sheet and dry them out in the oven. Drying at temperatures less than 150 F and you have white diastatic malt when ground or milled - drying at temperatures over 150 up to 300 F make red non diastatic malt when ground or milled.
I have many multigrain breads with soakers, sprouts, add ins etc. on my blog too. Searching this wen site will turn up thousands of recipes.
I agree with dabrownman, honey & whole grains is a very classic combination. From a flavor perspective I think I even prefer honey to malt powder.
may increase loaf sweetness without adding more sugar/honey, cook after soaking. Drop into boiling water, cover and turn off the heat to let the grains swell up for approx. 30 min and then drain and cool. Save any remaining water to use for liquids in the recipe >> taste first to see if it is bitter or sweet. If you don't like the taste, dump it. I would go with cracked or lightly milled fax as well if you want to get any of the flax nutrients and keep in mind they are a thirsty ingredient and will absorb their own weight in water. The above recipe with volume measurements of additional dry ingredients is interesting. Why did it suddenly change from weights like the flour, water, etc.? Probably a tweak to the main dough. So be careful with your water and hold some back mixing the dough. I'm not sure if some of the water is to be absorbed by cracked grain or not. It could be that the dough was too wet and the grains and seeds were added to absorb excess liquid and stiffen up the dough, at least that what it looks like to me. So if you soak or cook the grains, they will not absorb much when introduced into the dough.
I personally would not add both spelt and malt. If you find the baked and cooled loaf too heavy or gummy, switch some of the spelt flour reducing the % or drop the malt. (something for future tweaking)
Mini