I have baked breads with wheat in them. I have also read that if the wheat is more than 50 % of the total flour required in the recipe then you can call it a whole wheat bread or rolls or whatever. So despite the fact they were whole wheat rolls the breads had refined /all purpose flour in them.
This changed this time when I made a 100% whole wheat sandwich bread for
We Knead to Bake #10 courtesy
Aparna. The original recipe is from Peter Reinhart 's Whole Grain Breads. I have followed the recipe to the 'T' and the entire process went smoothly without any glitches except the wet soaker and extra flour added. This did affect the way the bread looks. Top of the loaf looks slightly rustic.But otherwise it was a perfect sandwich bread.Soft crumb and crust that is normally expected from the commercial bread -brown and soft. The taste is great. The texture is slightly crumbly as well.
Ingredients:
Soaker:
Whole Wheat Flour: 1 3/4 cups
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Water: roomtemp: 3/4 -1 cup
Apple Cider Vinegar: 1 tbsp
Sponge:
Whole Wheat Flour: 1 3/4 cup
Instant Yeast:1/4 tsp
Milk: 3/4 cup +
Apple Cider Vinegar: 1 tbsp
Final Dough:
All soaker
All sponge
Vital Wheat Gluten: 1.5 tsp(optional)(I left it out)
Salt: 1/2 -3/4 tsp
Whole Wheat Flour: 1/3 cup + few tbsp as needed. (needed almost 1/3 cup)
Instant Yeast: 2 tsp
Vegetable Oil /Melted Butter: 2 tbsp
Honey :2 tbsp
Preparation:
Soaker:
Mix together, all the dry ingredients with vinegar and 3/4 cup water till the flour is hydrated. You may need few tbsp more than 3/4 cup water and your intention is to get a manageable yet sticky dough . Leave it overnight or from 12-24 hours.
Here I added first 3/4 cup of water and then another 2-3 tbsps. But this made the soaker very moist and resulted in a very sticky dough. So make sure you add just enough water to get a manageable sticky dough.
Sponge/Biga:
Mix together all the dry ingredients with vinegar and knead to form a dough by first adding 3/4 cup of milk an then spoonfuls if needed. Knead it to get a soft dough which need to refriegerated overnight or atleast 8 hours. On the day on bread making remove the sponge from the fridge atleast two hours before and let it come to room temperature. You can even see it rising a bit during this time.
This went off very well for me as I added just enough extra milk and kneaded to get a soft manageable dough which I refrigerated overnight.
Final Bread Dough:
Divide the soaker and sponge into pieces and add to the bowl of blender/food processor. Add in all other ingredients except the whole wheat flour and blend together to get a mass. Let it rest for 5 minutes atleast.
To this add the wheat flour and little extra if needed and blend for 3-4 minutes to get manageable non sticky soft smooth dough. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl.
It is here that problems cropped up for me.Since the soaker was very sticky, I ended up adding extra flour to get the final dough and used up almost 2/3 cups total or double of that mentioned to get a manageable dough. May be this affected the final look of the bread as mine looks amateurish. :(
Transfer the dough to a greased bowl, turning once to coat and let it sit until doubled for about 1-1.5 hours. This again went beautifully for me. The dough took just about 45 minutes to double. This despite it being chilly all day with intermittent rains.
Turn over the dough gently onto a floured surface. Shape the dough into a loaf with the width little lesser. You can check the video at the
Kitchn for this incase of doubts. Its really helpful, Thanks
Aparna.
Transfer to a greased and floured loaf pan an let it rise until it is higher than the loaf tin.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350F/ 180C for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden brown.
Take out and within 5 minutes remove from the loaf and onto a wirerack. The bread when thumped should sound hollow.Let it rest completely for two hours atleast before slicing. You can refrigerate it if not consuming it the same day.
Enjoy the slices with your favourite toppings and spreads.Healthy and Perfect with almost anything.
Lets see how the challenge went off for others. Hop over to
Aparna's to catch up with the others.