bread #2 – the saturday whole wheat bread

This weekend whole wheat bread made it’s way into my life.  As with the Saturday White, this was a single day recipe bake. And as with last weekend I ended up baking without advance planning. Which meant my pantry wasn’t properly stocked with the necessary flours! This recipe calls for 750 grams of whole wheat flour and 250 grams of all purpose unbleached – aka home-style all purpose.  Here’s my story..

Weights and measurements : 556 grams of whole wheat flour (all that I had left); 444 grams of all purpose flour; autolyse with 800 grams (the Saturday White called for 720 grams) of water at a temperature 95 degrees, brought down to 88 degrees after mixing and resting; 23 grams of fine sea salt and 3 grams of commercial yeast; post mixing temperature of 82 degrees; shaping temperature 77 degrees; room temperature for most of the day was about 74 degrees. That said, I ended up using about 25% less whole wheat flour in my version of the recipe. The dough was understandably denser than the Saturday White even though it had a higher water content. It was not only tackier when mixing and folding, but also had less give when folding. But the dough did seem to rise to three times it’s size faster than I recall from last Saturday’s white bread dough.

Timeline: autolyse at 9:35am; first folding in of yeast and salt by 10:10am; second fold by 10:40am; third fold at 12 noon; shaped at 3:35pm and rested into banneton baskets; they were proofed and baked at 475 degrees upper middle rack (dutch oven method) by 5:15pm; 30 minutes with lid on; both loaves were given 18 minutes without the lid to form a nice dark brown crust. As I cooked one at a time, I covered one of the proofing loaves with plastic and put it in the fridge about 20 minutes before the first bake.

Results: The smell, taste and crust of both loaves was very good.  It might have been just me, but these loaves were very aromatic – much more that the Saturday White loaves from last weekend.  They had a good crunchy crust and were not chewy. That said, I think they could have benefited from an additional few minutes in the oven.  This week I raised the rack to the upper middle level.  The bread bottom crusts weren’t as dark/burnt as last week, but still a bit charred. I’m not entirely sure how to over come this. I might get an oven thermometer to see if my oven burns hot. I might need to lower the temperature from 475 degrees if that’s the case.

I made these yesterday. I’m not a fan of soft crusts, so I left them out over night as putting them in a plastic bag would soften them. The half eaten loaf was left cut side down on a cutting board while the second loaf was left uncut and uncovered on the cooling rack.  I had some more tonight and the bread tasted even better today fully cooled. But the crust was a bit softer than I thought it would be.  Although it still had lots of crunch it seemed to slightly soften for some reason. Last week’s Saturday white bread had much more crunch to it.  All in all, a really great whole wheat bread. I would make this again. Enjoy the pictures.

 

bread #1 – the saturday white bread

Last weekend I baked the first recommended bread from this book. It’s the Saturday White Bread – page 81. It’s a straight dough recipe. It turned out to be a great single day (everything required to make this bread can be done within a single day) bread bake. This is my story of that experience.

For anyone that has a copy of the book you’ll know one of it’s great features to be the timing guide provided for each recipe.  As with all good baking books, it also lays out weights rather than measurements. Many a baked good has been unsuccessful at the hand of an over or under packed cup of flour, sugar or the like. Bread making, like all baking is as much about chemistry as artistry. Not to mention tender loving care.

Unfortunately the desire struck me to bake before I was able to confirm my pantry was able to accommodate my intentions!  As a result the flour mix wasn’t exactly the same as outlined in the book. Vital stats below on this bake, as much for my record keeping as anything else.

Weights and measurements : 550 grams all purpose; 350 grams caputo 00; 100 grams whole wheat; autolyse with 720 grams of water at a temperature 95 degrees, brought down to 88 degrees after mixing and resting; 21 grams of fine sea salt and 4 grams of commercial yeast; post mixing temperature of 82 degrees; shaping temperature 78 degrees; room temperature for most of the day was about 73 degrees.

Timeline: autolyse at 9:40am; first fold by 10:10am; second fold by 10:45am; third fold at 11:20am; shaped at 4:25pm; proofed and baked at 475 degrees lower middle rack (dutch oven method) by 5:30pm; 30 minutes with lid on; first loaf an additional 15 minutes to a golden brown; second loaf 18 minutes to a nice dark brown.

Results: The smell, taste and crust of both loaves was superb. They had a great crunchy crust, were not chewy, and the flavours were nicely aromatic. The second loaf benefited from the few extra minutes without the lid and I would recommend the extra time. The pot sat low in my oven (on the second from bottom rack level) and the bottoms were a bit darker but not entirely burned. Using a higher rack setting next time should solve this problem as it would put the pot further away from the heat source at the bottom of the oven.  On the second day the bread tasted even better! Toasted it was superb. But clearly this bread, need to be cooled completely to allow it’s true flavours and character to be appreciated. This also gave the crust a bit more crunch and less chew.  Truly a “wow” bread.

Pictures