The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Forkish walnut levain

Skibum's picture
Skibum

Forkish walnut levain

Well folks, in an effort to continue to get my baking out of the rut it languished in for a year or so, I turned to Ken's book, "Flour, Water Salt and Yeast," for some inspiration. It had been a couple of years since I baked his breads or consulted his book. To be honest, I have never really enjoyed his breads. He uses a little whole wheat in every recipe and I cannot wrap my taste buds around the taste of whole wheat. Even buying the best whole meal, organic whole wheat flour, i am not liking the taste it gives to my breads. Now rye flour -- OH MY!

Well I baked a loaf of this walnut bread and at first was not happy with the flavour. I then re-consulted the recipe and found that he enjoyed it toasted with butter and honey. I tried this way with blueberry, wildflower honey and liked the combination. While I will never be a fan of his bread formulas, I am a BIG fan of his technical approach to baking! Reading Forkish once again has rounded out my baking knowledge. His discussion on maintaining and modifying the flavour of a levain is priceless!

Happy baking! Ski

Comments

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

Or is it the wood-grained look?

Sounds delish. Enjoy it!

Keep on baking,

Carole

Skibum's picture
Skibum

Well Carol, it looked to me like I didn't mix the walnuts into the dough very well. I guess for loaves like this, hand mixing has it's limitations. The crumb did turn out open though.

Happy baking! Ski

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Looks like marble!

By the way, if you don’t like whole-wheat, swap it out for something else like Kamut or Spelt or half and half of those. Or s bit of those and some rye. His recipes are yours to play with and adapt!

Skibum's picture
Skibum

I really like your suggestion of using kamut and/or spelt in place of the whole wheat. My other thought is when using some whole wheat is to add something to sweeten the dough, honey or perhaps molasses to offset what I find is a bitter taste to the ww flour.

Happy baking! Ski

SweetBreads's picture
SweetBreads

I agree with Danni.  Play with the flour blend to suit your tastes.  My family is not overly fond of red wholewheat, So, I save my red flour for breads with strong add-in ingredients like olives and cheese and blend it with my white whole wheat.  KAF sells a reconstituted white whole wheat flour that is pretty good.  If you have your own home mill, you could keep an eye out for Prairie Gold/Gold 86.  It is a white hard spring wheat that has a high protein and gluten content that is great for bread baking.  If you live in a part of the world where you can receive orders from Wheat Montana, they also sell Prairie Gold in ground form ready for baking.

Also, if you grind your own flour, sifting out some for the bran in red whole wheat removes some of the bitterness.

The purple swirls are beautiful!  I wish Hubby was not so anti-walnut and mom hadn't developed a gluten sensitivity.  I am running out of brave taste testers to enjoy my experiments.  I guess there is always the taste group at work... ;-)

FSWY is on my "books to buy" list, but maybe I should see if I can borrow it through ILL first.

Cathryn

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

depressed when I don't get these purple swirls.  Another hint, adding walnut oil to the mix helps this bread quite a bit if you like walnuts in bread and purple!  Yours sure turned out great in any event and by any measure.  Well done and happy baking Ski

Skibum's picture
Skibum

I am enjoying breaking out of my baking rut. Coming back here to tfl has helped a lot!

Happy baking! Ski