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!

current favourite bread recipe

have been baking over 30 loaves with this recipe and absolutely love it!

baked various types too, ranging from rosemary raisin to multi-seed to 100% whole wheat. and this recipe just works great. no wonder richard bertinent says it's his favourite bread recipe.

actual recipe is for a ciabatta but found that could be used for all types of breads. it's a very wet dough so you need a dough knife/scraper as well as the "stretch and fold" technique shown by mr bertinent in this video here.

ferment
350gm flour
180gm water
2gm instant yeast  (i use less than 1/4 teaspoon)

baking day
450gm flour 
360gm water
50gm olive oil  (okay to use less)
10gm instant yeast  (i use slightly less than 1 teaspoon)
15gm salt  (i use only 11gm)

mix all the ingredients of the ferment and let it sit for 17-24 hours. it's quite a dry ferment as it's only 50% hydration. if it's too dry, add a bit more water. try 2 tablespoon each time.

mix everything on baking day, then "stretch and fold". it's a very very wet dough so you definitely need a dough knife.

do not flour the work surface. the dough will stick somewhat to the surface but as you work on it, it slowly gains shape and less and less of it sticks to the table. [watch the video!]

let it prove for an hour, then divide and prepare to bake!

the oven should be pre-heated to 250c. before placing dough in, squirt at least 15-20 times of water into the oven to create enough steam.

place dough in and squirt another few times. 5 minutes later, reduce heat to 220c and bake for additional 15 minutes or until golden brown.

note, no honey/sugar is used but bread still has a golden hue. this is due to the natural solutions developed during the fermentation process.

mr bertinent recommends 20gm less water for rainy days (humid weather) but his recipe is all white flour. if you use whole wheat, you may use same amount of water. when i bake with 100% whole wheat flour, the consistency feels a bit "dry". it's still a wet dough by any standards but after working with wet dough, this feels a little "dry"!

there you go. enjoy this recipe! enjoy the crust, the most delicious bread crust!

new findings

been baking bread for over a year. tried various stuffs, various recipes, various methods...

current favourite method is the "stretch and fold" technique on very wet doughs, learned from richard bertinent's book "crust".

one thing that i could never quite get right is that the holes on the bread tend to be a lot smaller on the bottom side compared to the top side of the bread. this is directly related to my baking bread with a cold, as in room temp, baking sheet.

ideally, would like to place the very wet dough on a very hot baking sheet and let it bake but could never get this right as how do you handle very wet dough? what kind of peel can do the job?

seems like we need to flour it a lot, but flouring too much destroys the delicate (and delicious crust) while flouring too little... might as well don't flour it.

this bothered for quite a while until i read on some italian pizza baker's forum, this suggestion to use rice flour!

huh?

nevertheless, you only know it works if you try it.

see made myself a wooden peel (just a piece of 2mm thin plywood), oiled it with food grade mineral oil, then let it dry. to use it, flour it generously with rice flour.

place the wet dough on it and...

works like magic! the very wet dough has no problem sliding in any direction i want it to!

so finally baked bread - for just the second time - on a very hot baking sheet and the dough responds magnificently!

the sides of the bread "curl up". it doesn't even stick to the baking sheet as the heat bakes and seals the base. inside, the holes are more evenly spaced and the whole bread seems a lot more tender. even better half commented it's much softer to slice.

above is rosemary raisin 80% whole wheat bread. goes very well with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

found this great bread spread too - black sesame spread. simply delicious! goes well with the multi seed, multi grain bread.

there you have it!

ps :  i like my wooden peel so much, if you tell me you need one, i may make one for you!

video showing bertinent's method

as you know, when it comes to baking bread, good ingredients play an important role, but the rest is all technique, the baker's technique.

have been experimenting with bread baking for a while now but had the most fun lately when i learned about richard bertinent's "stretch and fold" technique of working with very wet dough.

yes, it's true that very wet dough makes good bread, but try working on it with your hands!

now this video illustrates very well on how to work wet doughs ala the bertinent technique.

remember, no flouring of the work space. you just got to have faith. after 10-15 minutes of stretch and fold, the dough really takes shape!

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/03/bertinet_sweetdough

another version of wholemeal ciabatta

aha! i'm getting a hang of mr bertinent's technique here.

stretch and fold, stretch and fold...

this time, used up to 70% wholemeal and 30% white flour. the crust is simply delicious!

wholemeal via mr bertinent's technique

in a previous blog, i mentioned about using richard bertinent's technique to "stretch and fold" the very wet dough rather than (trying to) knead it. i tried his recipe using a biga and made a ciabatta out of white flour. the crust was really good, as mr bertinent said it would. the bread was full of holes inside. there's a lot to like about this bread except that... it's made out of white flour!

so i redid this bread but this time with wholemeal. actualy the biga portion is wholemeal while the rest is white flour.

i made a slash on top but as it baked, it rosed so much the slash "made its way" to the left instead. that's why you see the "crack" there.

as you could see, there's lots of volume! this is from just 750gm of flour.

previously when i tried his cibatta, i made a mess out of all the wet dough. well mr bertinent did mention that if your environment is hot and humid, you should use less 20gm of water. hey! hot and humid, that's malaysia!

so i retried this method but with 20gm less water. it could be because of wholemeal or just less water as this time, the dough came together quite well. i was able to get a good handle on it and "worked" the dough via stretch-fold, stretch-fold, stretch-fold...

and the crust... awesome! smells good and tastes even better!

has less holes than using white flour but then this isn't surprising as there's about 40% wholemeal flour here.

can't wait to try with 70% wholemeal flour this weekend!

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...