Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum

Rose, you mentioned posting a recipe on a sprouted wheat bread that you were working on some time ago but I never found a recipe on that. I am really interested in trying a sprouted wheat recipe. Any suggestions?

Reply to this      Posted by: Lorelei | January 28, 2008 2:01 PM #

Rose, thank you for your reply and suggestion. I have never worked with white wholewheat. I'll round some up and let you know how it goes. Happy baking!

Reply to this      Posted by: Ed Curry | November 9, 2007 9:38 PM #

Now that I look, I use what is called a 1 lb loaf pan. It measures 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 3/4" but I put 24 oz. of dough in each. It fills the pan about 5/8 full. I let the dough rise until it is 1 1/2 to 2 inches above the top of the pan before baking. I have found the added gluten and the longer kneading times to be very important to this recipe. The longer stirring time when putting the sponge together occurred to me when making your focaccia.

Now I have a question for you. I've been experimenting with a whole grain baguette using my home-milled four. I've made your baguette many times and find that it compares favorably with those I've had in Paris. If I increase the total water by about 3 oz and use all whole grain flour I get a baguette that has a good crisp crust, and a chewy, holey interior. However, it suffers from being a bit too flavorful. The flavor of whole wheat is overpowering in a way that it is not in my regular loaves above. I try to avoid white flour except in cakes and some cookies and would like to perfect an all whole wheat baguette. Thoughts? (On the subject of cakes, I have to say that after many many years, my stained and annotated Cake Bible is still one of my two favorites cookbooks)

Reply to this      Posted by: Ed Curry | November 9, 2007 2:03 PM #

I use Red Star Active Dry yeast, not rapid rise and bake in 1 1/2 lb loaf pans. Also, it might be worth noting that I let my loaves rise to a bit more than double before baking. I find that a dough a bit on the sticky side promotes rising and a moist final product.

Reply to this      Posted by: Ed Curry | November 9, 2007 11:00 AM #

100% Whole Grain Wheat Bread with Flax Seed and Oat Bran

I totally balk at the notion that 100% whole grain wheat bread is too heavy. I've been making a wonderfully most fine textured loaf ever since buying a grain mill three years ago. For 15 years I used the 50:50 white/whole wheat flour mixture and thought that was the best I could do. A friend gave me a small bag of fresh home-milled flour and my baking life forever changed. I use either all organic hard red wheat or a 50:50 mix of hard red and hard white (both organic). All amounts by weight unless stated otherwise. Note that the water is somewhat variable. I buy wheat in 45 lb buckets and find that the moisture content varies a bit from lot to lot. Consequently, the water required to achieve the desired consistency varies also. However, once I find the right volume for a particular batch of wheat I don’t generally need to adjust water volume until I get a new batch. I use an old KitchenAid mixer for this. Makes 3 1 ½ lb loaves.

Start by milling 30 oz. wheat berries into flour.

Mix:
20 oz flour
1 cup powdered milk
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp yeast (rounded)
1 Tbsp gluten (rounded)

Add and mix on low for 10 minutes:
3 – 3 ½ cups tepid water

Cover and let double in bulk; about 20 minutes.

Stir down and add:
10 oz flour
6 oz ground flax seed (I like organic golden flax seed and use a clean coffee mill to grind mine)
3 ½ oz oat bran
½ cup oil (canola or olive work well)
1 Tbsp salt

Knead for 7 to 10 minutes (speed 2 or 3). Dough should be somewhat sticky. Transfer to oiled bowl and allow to double in bulk. Punch down, shape into three loafs, let rise, bake 30 – 40 minutes at 350.

Reply to this      Posted by: Ed Curry | November 8, 2007 9:28 AM #

Barbara,
It sounds like you own the Bread Bible. You will find the answer to your questions in the ingredients section in the back of the book. In short, Rose uses nondiastatic powder for its flavor.

Reply to this      Posted by: Matthew | July 10, 2007 10:49 AM #

What is malt powder and what does it do? when I looked it up on King Authur Flour site there was diastatic malt powder and non-diastatic malt powder. What is the difference?I made the Ciabiatta and the texture and crust were good but we found it rather tasteless. Malt powder is in the recipe as optional-would it make a difference in the taste?

Reply to this      Posted by: Barbara Tigrett | July 9, 2007 8:57 PM #

Well, the regular French loaves vanished. The ones with the 'bread base' remain fairly untouched. Overall, the French bread was nice and crispy, but suffered from my baguette shaping (thick at the ends, thin elsewhere, looks like a dog bone).

Reply to this      Posted by: Richard Boehme | March 12, 2007 10:35 AM #

Hmm, thanks. The only water I didn't weigh is the yeast water. I'll see how this goes; I'm looking forward to comparing the version with and the version without their product. We also need to get one of those baguette pans to put on top of the baking stone.

Thanks again for the response!

Reply to this      Posted by: Richard Boehme | March 10, 2007 9:39 PM #

Rose, my wife and I are making your baguette bread (rising for the starters is tonight), and I've doubled the recipie, so that I can use King Arthur's French Herb Bread bread base in one half and make a normal baguette with the other half. When making the pate fermentee (scrap dough), in order to get it to be anywhere near "soft and sticky", I had to add much more yeast-water mixture than was called for (originally added 5 tbsp + 1 tsp) - I reserved 2 tbsp (2x the amount that should have been in the poolish) for the poolish, than put the rest into the scrap dough. That rendered it smooth (the mixture wasn't even wetting the flour all of the way). I then put the rest of the mixture into the poolish, and again had to add more water than called for to the poolish (my estimate is 1/3 C) for it to become a semi-wet dough. I weighed everything but the water for the yeast mixture in grams (I have no clue why I did the yeast mixture's water water by volume!).

Overall, I'm wondering why there was so much more yeast water than was indicated to be put in, and why it required so much more water.

Also, I'd like to know how much of KA's french herb bread to put in - it indicates 1/3 C for one batch of bread, so I was just going to replace 1/3 C of the dough fluor for a recipie of the baguette with 1/3 C of the herb bread mix.

Phew. Hope I didn't just make anyone's eyes twist - that was rater long and rambling!

Thanks for all the communication and support you give your fans/fellow bakers! (just a hobbyist here :))

Reply to this      Posted by: Richard Boehme | March 10, 2007 7:50 PM #

Rose, my wife and I are making your baguette bread (rising for the starters is tonight), and I've doubled the recipie, so that I can use King Arthur's French Herb Bread bread base in one half and make a normal baguette with the other half. When making the pate fermentee (scrap dough), in order to get it to be anywhere near "soft and sticky", I had to add much more yeast-water mixture than was called for (originally added 5 tbsp + 1 tsp) - I reserved 2 tbsp (2x the amount that should have been in the poolish) for the poolish, than put the rest into the scrap dough. That rendered it smooth (the mixture wasn't even wetting the flour all of the way). I then put the rest of the mixture into the poolish, and again had to add more water than called for to the poolish (my estimate is 1/3 C) for it to become a semi-wet dough. I weighed everything but the water for the yeast mixture in grams (I have no clue why I did the yeast mixture's water water by volume!).

Overall, I'm wondering why there was so much more yeast water than was indicated to be put in, and why it required so much more water.

Also, I'd like to know how much of KA's french herb bread to put in - it indicates 1/3 C for one batch of bread, so I was just going to replace 1/3 C of the dough fluor for a recipie of the baguette with 1/3 C of the herb bread mix.

Phew. Hope I didn't just make anyone's eyes twist - that was rater long and rambling!

Thanks for all the communication and support you give your fans/fellow bakers! (just a hobbyist here :))

Reply to this      Posted by: Anonymous | March 10, 2007 7:49 PM #

Sorry Rose, I should have given you my measurements on the finished product. The sides are 1 1/2 -inches and the center rose to 2-inches. I'm pretty sure if I double the recipe it wouldn't be too large for the pan. The bread I made this morning was in the oven for 40 minutes and it came out perfect. I assume I would have to bake it longer if I doubled the recipe, but then I was worried that it would get too dark in color.

Reply to this      Posted by: Judy Wilson | March 10, 2007 3:54 PM #

Hi Rose, I just made the Banana Bread from your Bread Bible ccokbook. Can I double that recipe and put it in the same size pan (8x4)? Wow, the texture and taste is fantastic!! Decided to put it in a loaf pan instead of making muffins.

Reply to this      Posted by: Judy Wilson | March 10, 2007 3:11 PM #

Yes I was wondering if you have a recipe for Unbleach White Flour cookies , cakes , brownies thank you

Reply to this      Posted by: Mary | March 10, 2007 7:09 AM #

Hi Rose,

If your interested I posted a little info about some malt bread making I experimented with. I need to work on the blog a bit more, as well as the bread, but I'm just to tired right now. Well here's the link http://demegrad.blogspot.com/

Reply to this      Posted by: Justin | December 25, 2006 11:28 PM #

Rose,

I have begun experimenting a little with different ingredients from the beer making store, with excellent results. I tried my best to take pictures of the process and I have started a blog but there's nothing on it yet, no time yet, but I can't wait to share.

p.s. earlier I posting on the fact that I made several cookies from your christmas cookie book as gifts. The cookies themselves became like currency amongst my friends. But no exchanges were ever made, so I guess the cookies were to good to trade.

Reply to this      Posted by: Justin | December 24, 2006 11:34 PM #

Hi Rose,

I know this topic is quite old but I wanted to bring this up as well as possible answer this question a little bit. I'm sure you must know, mostly because you list Shirley O. Corriher's book as a reference in the bread bible, that home beer making shops are a great resource for the malt powder and barley malt syrup which is called for in many bread recipes. I homebrew every once in while, and my favorite site is midwestsupplies.com. Typically a pound of the stuff is about three bucks and if your like me you have a homebrew shop in your town. Which makes me very very lucky seeing that my town seems to have almost no specialty shops. Anyway, they also sell a product called Sinimar, which is used to add malt color to beer when you don't want to upset the balance of sweet/bitter flavors in the beer. I figure this product is similar to caramel coloring. The neat thing here is that there are many types of dry malt extract, malt powder, that could be used. I've never tried using these things but I think I'm going to have to try.

Reply to this      Posted by: Justin | December 21, 2006 10:33 PM #

Hello Rose,

Do you have a recipe in your Bread Bible which matches this or is similar to it?

A local bakery makes a whole wheat type baguette (they call it a "bread stick"...it weights 12.5 oz.) which I've been trying to duplicate at home because they don't deliver every day near me. The texture of the bread inside is a dense, rather "tight" (not light/fluffy) whole bread bread made with organic stoneground whole wheat flour (I don't see much of that in there even though its the lead ingredient), organic wheat flour (now that's vague...I think that's all-purpose flour and maybe some durum?), barley malt extract, olive oil (1T per loaf they say on the wrapper), yeast, sea salt. They are the only ingredients listed on the wrapper.

It's not a heavy bread and it's not a very sweet bread, not overly moist (it does dry out quickly) and it's rolled in sunflower seeds. I've tried to duplicate it and have come somewhat close but clearly they are doing something that I'm not doing or using some ingredient I'm not using. Their loaves are moderately dark brown in color inside (which I have assumed is the barley malt) but when I've added more barley malt to my bread to try to match the color of their's, the barley malt flavor is too strong in mine. I've tried different brands of barley malt. Since they don't list water on the ingredients' list (other bakeries do list water) I'm wondering whether they are using a dark beer in the bread (secret ingredient?) instead of water which would color it darker, since the barley malt they use comes from a beer company (they've told me that much). I had first suspected they were using caramel coloring. They advertize this bread as an organic vegan bread so I would find it suspect if they were using an additive such as caramel coloring.

So, do you have any breads in your Bread Bible that sound similar to this bread? I was wondering if they possibly got the recipe from your book. One never knows! I'll still buy your book even if this recipe is not in there. I have all your others.

Thank you very much.

Josh

Reply to this      Posted by: Josh | March 10, 2006 6:24 PM #

If using white whole wheat flour in this recipe, would it be beneficial to add vital wheat gluten?

Reply to this      Posted by: Katherine | March 10, 2006 4:51 PM #