French boule loaves of rye (with the seeded top)
and European Peasant loaves.
Boule is a traditional shape of French bread
that is like a squashed ball. Boule means ball in French.
If you know me, you know I make bread. It has been a lifelong chore. Bread making was never especially enjoyable, but it was necessary — especially for my
father. I started by grinding my own wheat when I was about 10 years old and making 8 loaves a week of whole grain bread for the family. (This is why I dislike whole wheat bread now.) The bread making habit stuck and I have continued to make bread all these years. I've done it manually, in bread machines, in antique bread buckets that screw to table tops, and in standing mixers.
Lately I have not liked kneading bread because of the damage in my hands from using computers too much. So when I read about the new no-knead artisan breads in the
Kind Arthur Flour blog, I immediately tried the new bread making methods.
Now, besides our daily bread at home, I make the
communion bread from these no-knead recipes. I also made 20 loaves for a luncheon at
church for 40 people. However, only 20 people actually came to the luncheon so the unused loaves that I made were sold at $5 a loaf and $81 was sent to the
UCC Haiti Relief Fund.
An aside: the new bread recipes from
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
allow me to use my huge bread bowl and
dough whisk. (Buy the dough whisk — it's worth the $15.) I haven't used them for years because I wouldn't knead the bread and I would use bread machines or mixers to knead it. But now I can stir the dough and let it rise in my beautiful bowl.
My bread dough bowl
My dough whisk after stirring English Granary bread dough.The no-knead recipes from this book and from
recipes from other bakers on the Internet (see also
here and
here for more) require new ingredients and equipment. Not much, just a bit. I am fortunate that John could make me a baking stone for the oven. It took him five minutes! He also had side less cookie sheets that I use instead of a pizza peel. I seem to require a lot of parchment paper to slide these loaves into the oven, but I'm trying to cut back on that expense. We also bought
two food quality plastic containers that each hold 8 quarts to store the dough in the refrigerator. We bought them at Sam's Club. Don't get the bins from King Arthur because you pay three times the price of Sam's Club. The bins cannot be air tight because the yeast gases would make the bin explode. But to store dough in the refrigerator, the dough has to be covered or it will dry out. John solved that problem by heating a thin wire until it was red hot and then pushed it through the lids of the bins (it slipped through the plastic lids like butter). The hole is invisible but is big enough to to let yeast gases escape safely. If I ever want the bins to be air tight, I simply need to plug the tiny hole with a tooth pick.
The new ingredients are not required because of the no-knead method. They are required because the recipes are Old World, not American. They are authentic tasting recipes that are way better, I find, than the health food loaves I would make when requested. My creativity is sparked by these recipes and I look forward to creating new tastes and shapes of loaves. The textures of these breads are fascinating and the taste of the loaves is rich.
Below is a photo of one of my piles of bread gear in the kitchen:
My bread gearIn this photo are oat flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, oat bran, raw seseme seeds, wheat berries, cracked wheat, my yeast jar, raisins, dates, malted wheat flakes and other stuff. Some of these things I get at the
Kearsarge Coop but they don't carry a lot of things they should carry, are very expensive and are often grouchy. The grocery stores now carry a lot of this stuff. I only had to go to King Arthur for the
malted wheat flakes and the
cracked wheat. I also have huge amounts of King Arthur
unbleached all-purpose flour,
whole wheat flour,
white whole wheat flour,
rye flour, and
corn meal.
I should have also gotten
malt powder but I forgot. So I am now making my own. I searched the Internet for a malt powder substitute and found that I could make my own malt powder with wheat berries. I happened to have some wheat berries in my bread gear, so I am processing them now for malt powder. Click this link at
jugalbandi blog for directions in how to make your own malt powder.
Wheat berries soaking in water for 24 hours.
I am not entirely sure why malt powder is used in some of the bread recipes. But it is a sweetener, helps the leavening, and improves the taste, color and texture of the bread (or so I read). According to
Wikipedia,
"malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water[1] and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying/heating with hot air.[2][3] Thus, malting is a combination of two processes: the sprouting process and the kiln-drying process. These latter terms are often preferred when referring to the field of brewing for batches of beer or other beverages as they provide more specific information."When
Anna visited us two weeks ago, I was in the middle of baking for the church luncheon. She went home with about 10 loaves of artisan bread. She prefers whole grain breads but I also sent home a couple of white and light wheat loaves for
Aaron. They loved it all!
When John and I went to the
King Arthur store this weekend, I impulsively bought the second bread book by Hertzberg and Francoise:
Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Don't buy impulsively! I paid $27.50 for a book that
amazon.com carries for $18.47. I am kicking myself now. Click my links here for either (or both) books and you will be having as much fun as I am baking bread.
Hertzog & Francois have a great blog at
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It has updates, new hints and tricks and corrections. The authors will personally answer any questions that you have and cannot find answers to elsewhere.
A final note . . . John is
not the biggest fan of these artisan loaves. For him, I still make a wonderful traditional loaf found at
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2010/01/28/sandwich-bread-fit-for-the-king/.
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In my post Making Bread, I explained that malt powder is used in some bread recipes. I didn't have any when I made my English Granary Loaves (shown in the photo above), so I decided to make my own malt powder with wheat berries that I had on hand.
Following instructions found at jugalbandi blog, I soaked my wheat berries in water for 24 hours (shown above). Then I drained them and put them in a dry bowl and covered the bowl with plastic wrap. They remained in this bowl for another 24 hours and the wheat berries sprouted.
In the photo above you see how I am drying the sprouted wheat on a towel for one hour. In the photograph below, you can see the sprouted berries more clearly.
After drying on the towel, John and I loaded the berries in the dehydrator for another 24 hours. John carefully tore paper towels to fit the shape of the trays of the dehydrator because the berries are so small. We monitored the temperature inside the dehydrator so that it never was warmer than 130°F. This ensures that the enzymes in the malt powder are still alive.
We were finally able to grind the berries into a flour. I don't have a wheat grinder so we used my Cuisinart Mini Food Prep. The flour is very coarse and gritty.
The malt powder is now stored in the refrigerator until I need it again. I am really wondering if we made a true malt powder or simply sprouted wheat flour. We'll find out the next time I make English Granary bread.
My final analysis: I won't bother doing this again. I'm going to pay for the malt powder at King Arthur Flour. It's only $4. The process of making your own malt powder takes several days and a lot of time. To make it properly I need to buy a wheat grinder. That alone is too much of an expense. Now I need to return to the store to replace my wheat berries. This project was a fail!
Friday Fractal
