no kneading required!

ok, back in the 40s, an american housewife by the name of doris grant came up with this recipe. no kneading required! perfect for working housewives. hey, back in those days, i guess this is women empowerment.

i actually did a combination of the pre-ferment and the grant loaf method. why, i haven't baked for 2 weeks due to all the pesky biz trips, so am suffering from "not-having-enough-of-own-bread" syndrome. also, i started at only 3pm and wanted everything done the day itself. the "pre-ferment" method gives very active yeast and i enjoy working with them (before i kill them off in the oven).

as the norm lately, went with the favourite multi-seed bread, namely flaxseed, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed, don't seem to tire of this at all!

• 4 cups of flour - anything you like! i went for 1 rye, 1 wholemeal + 2 whites
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp honey (more is fine)
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 1 cup of sunflower, pumpkin and flaxseeds.
  
• about 1.5 cups of water

at about 2.50pm, i mixed 1/4 tsp of instant yeast into 1 cup of rye flour and 3/4 cup of water. this "pre-ferment" is supposed to sit for at least 12 hours but i wanted to complete everything that day itself, so at 7pm, i mixed the rest of the ingredients together.

it's mixing and not kneading as the whole mixture is a bit too wet to knead, so your aim is to ensure the ingredients are mixed properly. if it looks dry, add more water! i always feel that when in doubt, err on the "wet" side.

then dump everything into a well-oiled 4" x 4" x 8" loaf pan. just scoop them up and dump into the loaf pan. doesn't have to look nice as the dough will grow nicely into the loaf pan. it's nice to use a loaf pan here as this recipe calls for only a single rise and the loaf pan helps maintain its shape. the whole dough mixture filled up to about slightly more than half of the loaf pan.

at about 10pm, time to heat up the oven! actually i should have waited more, till  it's almost touching the top of the loaf pans but i'm too sleepy... before i put into the oven, i sprinkled some rolled oats and almond flakes on top.

using a loaf pan, a hotter temperature of 200C is better but i went for 180C so i had to wait for about 40 minutes. dang... if you use 200C, i'm sure you could call it a day earlier...

and voila! we have bread!

actually i baked 2 loaves at the same time. one was a bit dry. the "wetter" rose better. the top isn't curved, i guess it's due to all the rolled oats and almonds i sprinkled on top.   hee hee...

once the bread is done, remember to remove it from the loaf pan. don't wait till it's cool! use a bread knife and through the sides, gently separate the bread from the loaf pan. then turn over the loaf pan and gently tap it till the bread comes out. when it does, you'll see lots of steam. nice! then cool on a wire rack like above.

ha! guess you have no excuse not to bake bread now.  :)

multi-grain bread, again? more than that...

remember the multi grain, multi seeds bread? the one where i used the organic ancient grain mix from "radiant whole food"?

it is a favourite here so i baked this again. but it's no fun doing the same thing same way again.

hey, even great bands like led zeppelin don't play the same song the same way twice. i guess this is how we learn, by doing the same thing in different ways, then observing and learning from there.

i varied 2 things differently here. 

first of all, after all that terrible problem with my moisture-contaminated yeast (just chucked it away), i'm using a new packet now. this time it's instant yeast, not dry yeast.  instant yeast is easier to use as you could mix into the flour directly. no need to proof it with warm water to get things going.

[to store instant yeast, pour out into a small container than pack, reseal and air tight the rest into the fridge. next time when you bake, take out from the small container.]

the second thing i tried this time, is the pre-ferment method.

usually we leaven with instant yeast and that's about it but the pre-ferment method consists of 2 parts, the night before and baking day.

the night before, mix a small quantity of yeast into some flour and water. let it sit overnight.

the next morning, you'll find the previous night's dough has risen and collapsed. now mix in the rest of the ingredients and flour to  previous night's mixture. and so on...

cookingbread.com here has as nice step-by-step tutorial. it so happens that my favourite flour mixture is quite similar to pumpernickel [i love this word!].

i used the method above, but instead of bran flakes, i used almost a cup of grain mixture (consisting of buckwheat, quinoa,  millet, amaranth, flax seed, sunflower seed and pumpkin seed)

i used 2 tablespoons of honey instead of malt extract.

i didn't use any cocoa powder.

for the baking day mixture, i used 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast rather than 1 teaspoon.

well, the dough works much better! much more active!

if before i had to wait for 2 hours for the dough to double, this time it was only an hour and half! second proofing was only 40 minutes but it was an hour with dry yeast before.

and for the first time ever, the dough grew and grew until it almost touched the cover of my plastic container. something that has never happened before.

nah, it's not some mutant yeast here, but more of "yeast on steroids". left to sit overnight, the yeast has grown and multiplied till there's enough of them. then even though you don't add much yeast the following day, as the yeast is already healthy and active, it works a treat.

taste wise, there's some hint of sourdough. don't know about you but i like it.

and i'll be trying more of this method from now on!