current favourite whole wheat bread recipe

though i haven't blogged much about bread baking lately, i'm still doing it every weekend. will make the dough on saturday, let it ferment over night and bake on sunday. i've been tweaking the recipe bit by bit and have observed the changes. current favourite is still richard bertinent's ciabatta recipe tweaked for whole wheat flour.

here's the recipe again.

to ferment overnight or at least 12 hours (this is your biga):

• 350 gm of organic whole wheat flour
• 2-3 gm or quarter teaspoon of instant yeast
• 200-220 gm of water (if it's too dry, a bit more water is fine here)
• 1-3 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (optional but recommended!)

on baking day

• everything above, mix with
• 350 gm organic whole wheat flour 
• 100 gm organic bread flour  (also known as white flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast 
• ~10 gm sea salt or rock salt 
• 330 gm water
• 30 gm olive oil (use more if you prefer)

the vinegar is a nice addition. the dough ferments faster and the yeast is a lot more active. said to aid digestion of whole wheat, i don't know about this but i like the effect of the added vinegar. i used to do 100% whole wheat but the substitution of just 10% white flour results in very good rise. you could of course opt for 100% whole wheat.

this is a very wet dough. you can't knead it. it has to be so wet as we are dealing with almost 100% whole wheat flour here. if you ever cooked brown rice, you know that cooking whole grains require lots of water. same here!

so instead of kneading, you use the "stretch and fold" technique as illustrated in this video by richard bertinent. http://bleedinggumsmurphy.blogspot.com/2009/10/video-showing-bertinents-method.html. you really need a dough knife here!

don't over stretch yourself working the dough. work for a few minutes, let it rest for a few minutes then work on it again. better results than working on it continuously for 10 minutes. after you are done (say after 10 minutes or you couldn't be bothered anymore!), let it rest for about 30 minutes in a well oiled (olive oil) bowl.

after 30 minutes, it should have grown at least 50% in volume. pour it out (if you didn't oil the bowl, you'll regret now) on a flat surface and divide into 2 or 3, up to you. you could also switch on your oven now, set it for 250C or maximum temperature.put in your baking sheet now.

divided into 2, you get 2 large loaves of slightly more than 0.5kg each. divided into 3, you get 3 loaves of roughly 330 gm each.

once divided, gently stretch the dough again and fold into half. be gentle... to do this, you need 2 dough knives as there's no way your hands could handle the very wet dough. use the dough knives like an extension of your hands. place the ready dough on a piece of wood or baking sheet coated with lots of rice flour. you need this so that you could slide the dough into the oven.

once the oven is ready, use a very sharp knife, oil it slightly and slice on the top of the dough. slice it length wise or breadth wise or both. most likely you won't get a nice cut as the very wet dough will somewhat stick to your knife. never mind, let it be. slice for a depth of around 1 cm. if you don't slice it, as the dough rises up during baking, it may "break" at the sides, resulting in a not so pretty loaf of bread. if sliced at the top, it'll rise more evenly. anyway, it's okay to forego this step. most books recommend using a double edged razor blade but even with this, it still sticks as we are dealing with a very wet dough here. i know as i've tried this!

prepare a handful of ice cubes and throw into the oven after you slide in the doughs. be very quick here! you don't want too much heat to escape from the oven.

after 5 minutes at 250C or whatever max temperature your oven can handle, set it down to 220 C and let it bake for another 20 minutes.

then take it out! you are done!

if you desire for a slightly burned crust (i like this!), instead of 20 minutes, let it bake a little longer.

there you go! crusty, soft best tasting whole wheat bread. haven't tasted better!

reached an impasse in bread baking so have to try new ground

i have reached an impasse in my bread baking. been baking for about a year now but have stopped experimenting with new stuffs. been using the same basic recipe over and over again.


so need to try new stuffs.

it so happened that i bought 2 books on bread baking recently during the book fair organized by popular about a week ago. kuala lumpur bookworms have been having one hell of a time as there have been so many book fairs etc. i have acquired more than ten books in the past few months and have had hell of a journey devouring them!

one of the bread book i bought and just finished reading is richard bertinent's crust.

this book was sold at half price (hardcover!). it comes with a dvd too as no amount of text written could describe better the techniques used by mr bertinent than watching him in action.


and so, i tried one of the recipes in his book.


baked the ciabatta...

of course, this is all done with white flour, not my favourite at all, as i'm for wholemeal bread.

followed the recipe to a tee, as i wanted to see how it would turn out in the end.

mr bertinent recommends to weigh all ingredients (even water) rather than use spoons or cups as this is far more accurate. but he also acknowledged that some adjustments have to be made to cater for your local environment, say it's a hot sunny day or a cool rainy day etc.

now this ciabatta consists of 2 parts, a biga and then the real thing. this biga is unlike previous biga i did before, as it's a lot drier and consists more than 1/3 of the flour.

instead of the usual kneading, mr bertinent recommends the "stretch and fold" technique. it's quite interesting but could be very very messy as we are dealing with a very wet dough here. i do agree him that wet doughs still turn out better bread than dry doughs even dry doughs are easier to handle/knead.

needless to say, i made a mess on my kitchen top. got wet gooey dough all over the place!

the other difference in technique is that mr bertinent prefers to preheat the loaf pan to 250c and sprays mists of water into the oven to create steam. something which i never tried before! he suggests to preheat the oven to 250c, then once you place the dough in, let it bake for 5 minutes, then turn down the temperature to 220c for an additional 20 minutes.

compare to my tried and tested 180c over 40 minutes, this is interesting!

well... after all the work... i can say the result is worthwhile!

 

please forgive the pics. took with my phone as can't resist taking a bite! 

look at the holes! look at the beautiful holes!

look at the crust! look at the beautiful crust!

even wifey agrees this is a wonderful bread. smells lovely and the crust is just heavenly...

my only complaint is that white bread absolutely sucks! so will be trying the same recipe but with wholemeal bread this weekend.

stay tuned...

multi-seed rye with pics

when i bake bread, i don't think along the lines of baguette, ciabatta etc. i just do it without much of an expectation. whatever bread turns out, i'm delighted it turned out well! this way i'm never disappointed. and because of this, every home made bread is a great bread.  :)

okay, this is similar to the multi seed wholemeal baked last week except i used more rye and less bread flour this time.

overnight starter

• 1 cup rye flour
• 3/4 cup water
• less than 1/4 tsp instant yeast

12 hours later, we get this mess. smells nice though.

if you wait till 16 hours, it's fine too, but i haven't tried longer than that.

on baking day...

mix with

• 2 cups wholemeal flour
• 1 cup bread flour
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp honey
• 3/4 seed mixture - flaxseed, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
• adequate water until the dough feels sticky.

 2 hours later...

i could have waited longer but can't wait to start the next process.

well, take it out, proof and shape for another rise before baking.

another 2 hours after shaping it. the dough has grown a lot more.

you could wait longer but i had enough!

remember, slow rise = great bread. teaches us, the new generation of instant gratification spoiled brads, the value of being patient...

before baking, put more sunflower/pumpkin seeds on top. you could put raw ones here as once baked, they'll be delicious!

simply delicious!

they grow a bit more in the oven.

what do you call this? ciabatta?

i couldn't be bothered. i call it a great bread!

dipped in thick stew, soup or butter, all taste good!








oh yeah, someone asked what does the chinese characters below the title mean? literally translated, it means "an idiot making biscuit". meaning someone who doesn't know what he's doing but making a go at it. sounds like me baking bread! ha ha!

multi-seed wholemeal with more pics

told you i can't have enough of those multi-seed bread...

this time i made 4 loaves, using the same method but with different ingredients.


multi-seed wholemeal

overnight sponge

• 1 cup of wholemeal
• 3/4 cup water
  
• slightly less than 1/4 tsp instant yeast

i mixed this about 9pm saturday nighte.

this is what it looks like 9am sunday morning.

it has risen and collapsed. it has a faint sweet smell.

on baking day, mix with

• 1 cup wholemeal
• 2 cups of white bread flour
• 3/4 cup soaked in warm water mixture of flaxseed, pumpkin seed and sunflower seed
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 3 tbsp honey
• and suitable amount of water until dough "feels sticky"

after kneading for about 20 minutes, here it is in a dusted plastic container.

 2 hours later...

you could see the dough has grown quite a lot!



so take it out, proof it, shape it... you should know the drill by now. otherwise click on the "basic bread recipe" tags on the right.

baked at 180c for 20-25 minutes, or until desired "golden browness". 

voila!

bread baking is so easy!

multi-grain wholemeal again but using biga

i think it's time i try out new stuffs. again, i'm baking the multi grain bread. seems that we can't get tired of this stuff.

overnight

• 1 cup rye flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast

baking day

• 1 cup wholemeal + 2 cup white flour
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast 
  
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup simmered-for-5-minutes amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, sunflower seed, flaxseed, pumpkin seed
  
• about 1/3 cup water. add more/less until dough feels "sticky".

for added pizzaz, sprinkle the top of the dough with some sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

 actually when making this bread, i forgot to account for the 1 cup of rye flour in the "ferment". so i had 4 cups of flour on baking day.

so had 5 cups of flour in total! not a problem, just add more water till it feels right.

told you bread baking is easy. it's very forgiving.

as you could see, good to eat on its own!

went crazy with wholemeal and biga!

using the "better basic bread recipe", i went nuts and got on a bread-baking spree.

since this method is so much more fun, i decided to redo all our favourite bread recipes using this method and see how it goes.

all i can say is it works well with all our bread recipes! told you bread baking is easy!

first off, tried the rosemary raisin. used 1/2 wholemeal and 1/2 white. excellent! still our favourite bread.

then tried a plain wholemeal bread. my wife's company organized a potluck and they asked for my bread. hmm... either i'm doing something right or they are just to size me up. see whether i'm all hot air!

2 cups wholemeal flour


2 cups white flour















then tried the multi-grain again. again! but this time, went a bit nuts. went 100% wholemeal!

if you ever bake bread before, you know it's always a better idea to bake with some portion of white bread flour as it develops gluten better.

100% wholemeal is more difficult and the dough needs lots of encouragement.

i dared to try this as we have yeast on steroids! yes, using the pre-ferment method, the biga method.





pleased to tell you that this bread turned out very well. denser and chewier than those made with some proportion of white flour but it sure tastes divine!

all in all, this is the method i'm going to use for all future bread baking. highly recommended!

a better basic bread recipe

i wrote a basic bread recipe some time ago. and have been using that same recipe with good success for so long.

however, after trying the pre-ferment method, i'm sold! this is better, works faster and tastes better. only snag is the work is now spread out over 2 days. if you don't mind this (hey, good bread comes to those who are patient), then try this. i assure you you won't be disappointed.

[btw, it's called the pre-ferment method as a small quantity of dough is left to "ferment" overnight, then mixed with the rest of the ingredients. this method was in use when commercial yeast first came about as commercial yeast was expensive back then and this method utilizes less yeast. also, said to have some "sourdough" qualities. what i know is, it works fast! like yeast on steroids! and taste better. so i'm sold!

sponge, biga, poolish are all different variations of the same technique. the method shown below is about 100% hydration (meaning equal  weight of flour and water), so it's more like a biga.]

the day before

• 1 cup of flour
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1/4 tsp of instant yeast (after using instant yeast, i find dry yeast a hassle)

mix above ingredients and let it sit in a bowl, overnight. of course, covered with a plastic cling film. it could sist for 8-16 hours, it's all fine. overnight is best.

the next morning,  it should look wet, with holes and smell mildly acidic. what happened is that the dough has grown until its max, then collapsed down. if the dough looks like the same as yesterday, you can be assure the yeast is dead!

notice that no salt is used above. so we encourage the yeast to grow and grow until it collapses. hence you get a mild acidic smell.

baking day

• 3 cups of flour
• about 1 and 1/4 cup water (mixed with 1 tsp of honey). add more if dough feels dry
  
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
  
• optional: 1 cup of "extras"

on baking day, mix all the ingredients above together with the overnight dough.  note that this differs from the basic bread recipe in the sense that we use more salt than before.

the amount of water needs to be estimated. the best feel is this :  the resultant dough feels sticky but doesn't stick much to your hands. some add more flour if too wet, add more water if too dry. if not sure, let it be a bit wet.

the optional 1 cup of extras could be anything of your fancy. it could be

• 1 cup raisin, 1 tsp rosemary for our favourite rosemary raisin
• 1 cup of grains like amaranth, quiona, buckwheat, millet, flaxseed, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed for another favourite of ours, the multigrain bread.

hey hey! anything to your fancy! you could slice open the dough before baking and put in some slices of ham/cheese...

anything goes!

even the flour mixture, you could vary. it's a good idea to use a "stronger" flour for the pre-ferment. i usually use rye or wholemeal. the other 3 cups of flour could be anything of your fancy!

so after you have mixed up everything, hand knead vigorously for about 30 minutes. machine knead is too much trouble for me. i hate the washing!

then put aside and let it grow.

within an hour, you should see some substantial growth!

once doubled in size (just slightly more than an hour needed)... gently "press down" the excess air and stretch the dough somewhat, so that the yeast will work for you again. be gentle here.

shape it to whatever shape you want to, then let it sit for another 45 minutes, then bake it!

i usually bake at 180c for about 23-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

easy peasey!