I ran out of all forms of wheat flour - which is what I typically add to whatever preferment - so had to come up with something for the rye biga I had already made yesterday night. I ended up adding more rye and buckwheat, making this a 80% medium rye, 20% buckwheat loaf, with 60% of the rye pre-fermented in the biga.
This was a very wet loaf! I had also run out of rye and buckwheat flour by then so I decided to go with the flow and play around with what the husband called rye soup. I could only handle it with a spatula. Folded in cranberries, poppy seeds and hazelnuts midway after the 5-hr BF and before (sort of) shaping it into a bowl.
I baked this on a cast iron pan with steam for 30 mins. Beautiful crackling crust and great crumb texture! I know many here bake such non-wheat loaves regularly, but for me this was quite thrilling and extremely delicious.
Full loaf here with my 3-year-old's hand. "A big cookie!" she calls this.
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wow! Amazing result!
All in the name of fun, and if there's good eating involved, why not?
You certainly don't shirk from a challenge Lin! For what you used that's a pretty good loaf. Maybe in a tin rather than as a freeform loaf it might have stayed more upright.
My using of the crumble biga wasn't as impressive with wholemeal flours but you always seem to get a lot out of it no matter what flour you use for it. Any suggestions from your experience with the technique
Would have preferred to go with some tin support but I didn't have a good size for this amount of dough. I was so relieved when I could finally plop the soup onto the pan! And you know what, it didn't even spread across the entire base, so I suppose the soup had some structure after all...
The biga technique all began with you, Rene. Never looked back since. I tend to keep the mixing minimal in a wide dish. No big clumps, just small, loose pebbles. The next day I soak the biga in some water for 20 mins before I proceed with mixing.
I see you channeled your inner Rob Lin 😆 Excellent bake!
Jay
Where on earth have you been? We have missed you.
There's only so much inner Rob I can channel! The real Rob would have got this going way better with some added liquor, tripling fermentation times etc
sorry, but 'realRob'â„¢ would never have been able to pull that off.