Thing Sixty: Workhorse Loaf

I decided to try a new bread recipe today. Although I do love the bread I get from my Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day recipe, I wanted to see if I might be able to get a better loaf using the technique from the Serious Eats blog's recent Breadmaking 101 series. This is their initial loaf recipe that they use to get you used to the different steps and to teach you about the chemistry involved. It's supposed to be a white loaf, but...you know me. I couldn't leave well enough alone, and used half whole wheat bread flour and half white bread flour. I ended up adding just a touch more water to the recipe, even though it was already at 70% hydration (that is, 70% as much water by weight as there was flour), since the dough looked a bit tighter and drier than the pictures did for the white flour loaf on the blog. My loaves appear to have turned out pretty nicely! I sliced a bit off the first one done to taste it. Yum. I feel like this has a MUCH nicer crumb than the HBin5 loaves. Of course, it does have less whole wheat, percentage-wise (those are about 70% whole wheat). Other differences include an autolyze step--that is, mixing together the flour and water and letting them sit to incorporate before adding yeast and salt--and a little actual kneading (basically, this was just the incorporation of the yeast and the salt), as well as the lack of sitting overnight or longer. It did use a retarding process, though, letting the loaves proof a second time in the refrigerator for about an hour and a half, after the warm-room-temperature bulk ferment. If you're interested in the chemistry involved in the various stages of making bread, I highly recommend the Breadmaking 101 series. Start at the bottom for the oldest post.

Here, have some bread porn!