It's been a sad few weeks of my starter being underused. Now with work winding down and the parties beginning, it's time for some serious baking again.
Just made this basic biga bread for lunch. 60% of the flour is pre-fermented with an overnight biga, and the next day the other 40% is added with water and salt. Overall hydration is about 70%. Takes 4 hours from mixing to taking it out of the oven.
It's a 50% wholegrain, 50% bread flour loaf. The wholegrain consists of khorasan, buckwheat, einkorn and rye - all in the biga. The kids have started to really like khorasan, so it's a permanent fixture in my pantry now (I add it to everything - pancakes, sandwich bread...). I also really like what buckwheat does to the crust - especially how it tastes the next day! - so I've been adding it to my loaves too.
The cranberries and roasted pistachios and hazelnuts were added during shaping. All in all a pretty hands-off loaf.
What a joy to be eating fresh, wholesome bread!
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Great to have you back Lin and what an entrance! Gorgeous loaf. Your use of biga is inspirational to make such airy looking loaves with high whole grain flour content.
A hearty and wholesome welcome back, Lin!
And I second Rene: what a return! That sure looks scrumptious. Can you offer any tips for the relatively uninitiated on what it's like to work with khorasan and buckwheat?
Rob
Nice combo of whole grains and with the nuts this must have tasted great.
Best,
Ian