Bread #3
I used to make bread semi-regularly. I stopped because of the time factor when I started a small company. Well, eating fine dinners at several friend’s houses in WV where the hosts served home made bread inspired me again. This is my third in a series of bread-making experiments. I wasn’t happy with the first two, so didn’t post them. (You didn’t miss anything.)
I start with wheat berries, the whole-wheat kernels that are ground to make flour. I do this because when I was making bread earlier I found that the wheat goes “off” quickly. That’s why there is white flour, it stores better and lasts longer. The oils in the kernel go rancid relatively quickly, so white flour has that kernel removed. But we like the taste and nutrition of the whole wheat. I use the “hard red spring wheat” to the right. It’s better for bread due to the higher gluten content. Other wheat is lighter in color and softer too.
We have a grain grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer to make the flour from the wheat berries. (Fresh whole-grain flour makes wonderful light & fluffy pancakes and waffles too. The fresh flour has a slightly nutty taste.)
One thing I’d forgotten was that grinding a cup of berries makes more than a cup of flour - even when shaken down. Recipes should be measuring by weight in ounces, or better yet in grams. But at least in the US we tend to make recipes by volume, “4 cups of flour” for example, which the loaf below uses.
In the last two batches of bread I was grinding 4 cups berries and getting almost 6 cups of flour. But I was adding salt, yeast, water, honey, and oil for just 4 cups of flour. So I was guaranteed to be wrong. This time I measured the flour instead of the berries and it worked nicely. I kneaded it by hand 600 times, did two rises and a final proof, and it’s good. Much better than the store! (Except for Great Harvest bakery of course, I can’t touch them.)
Maybe I’ll try French baguettes some time.
