Milk and Honey Whole Wheat Bread

There's a dramatic change in my life. I go to bed by 10pm and wake up before dawn. Who said the days are longer when you are up early? My days are definitely shorter. All these things that I used to do at night, I couldn't find the time to do them. These three Netflix DVD have been on my desk for weeks - unwatched. I couldn't find time to write a new post here since February 23. I couldn't finish my knitting project I started since the last life time.

I would like to think because I was born in a tiger year, I am more productive at night.

But one must embrace change. So here it is - a post in the middle of the day.



This bread is an adapted version of King Arthur Flour's Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread. I omitted butter/oil, reduced the sweetener amount and used whole milk instead of water. The bread came out very similar to the original. So why change the classic? I needed to use up all the milk. I couldn't drink a whole glass of milk. That would be very very bad to my digestive system. So I baked it.



Ingredients

• 14 oz. whole wheat flour


• 1/4 oz. salt


• 1/4 oz. instant yeast


• 1 oz honey


• 9 to 10 oz. milk

Directions

1. With an electric mixer at the lowest speed, stir all the ingredients together for 5 minutes. Let rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Run the mixer again for 5 more minutes. Add more flour if the dough is to sticky or more milk if the dough is to dry.


2. Ball up the dough, and let rise in a bowl covered with a plastic wrap for 1 to 1 and a half hours until the dough almost double. I used cold milk from the refrigerator so I took almost 2 hours for the dough to rise properly.


3. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently deflate the dough. Form the dough into a log. Here's what I do -- press into a rectangular shape. Fold in the top quarter. Fold in the bottom quarter. Then fold the dough in half. Crimp the middle seam and the seams at both ends of the log.


4. Place into a lightly greased bread pan. Lightly oil a plastic wrap and loosely cover. Let rise for about 1 more hour until the dough rise up about an inch above the pan.


5. About 20 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


6. Bake for 35 minutes. Turn out the bread and let cool for at least an hour on a cooling rack before cutting.

Whole Wheat Flax Seed Bread

I think I just found my favorite whole wheat flax seed bread recipe. And I came up with it almost all on my own. "Almost" because I started off with Honey Oatmeal Bread from KingArthurFlour.com which I baked into Oatmeal Flax Seed Bread using half whole wheat flour and half bread flour. From that, I left out oatmeal all together, upped flax seeds and the whole wheat flour portion and made Flax Seed Bread Made With Whipping Cream. This time, I made the bread even healthier by substituting olive oil for whipping cream, reducing the sweetener and using all whole wheat flour.



The bread came out perfectly domed, crunchy and at the same time soft. It's not as sweet as the past loaves which is perfect toasted for breakfast.



Ingredients

• 2 oz. flax seeds


• 8 oz. hot water


• 12 oz. whole wheat flour


• 1/4 oz. vital wheat gluten


• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast


• 1 oz. light tasting olive oil


• 1 oz. agave nectar

Directions

1. Soak flax seeds in hot water for about 10 minutes while letting the water cool down.


2. Mix flour, wheat gluten, salt and yeast together in a large bowl. Add flax seeds and water, olive oil and agave nectar. Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.


3. Knead by hand on a lightly flour surface or right in the bowl for 8 minutes with 5 to 10 minutes pause in the middle. After the pause the dough will become more manageable.


4. When the dough is smooth, ball it up and let rise in the same bowl covered with plastic wrap for about an hour.


5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface (I used a silicone mat), flatten and roll up into a log shape. Crimp the seams including both ends. Drop into a greased loaf pan and cover loosely with a plastic wrap. Let rise until the dough dome about an inch over the pan - about an hour.


6. About 15 minutes before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 400 degrees.


7. Put the bread into the oven. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan and let cool for at least an hour on a cooling rack before slicing.

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Bread

I found a great recipe for 100% whole wheat cinnamon/cinnamon-raisin bread in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain bread. But the whole process takes 2 days - granted that it doesn't take much work - it still needs a bit of planning which I didn't want to do.



I also found a great 100% whole wheat bread recipe that is failed-proof, great tasting, a bit sweet and extremely soft. It's the Classic 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from KingArthurFlour.com. This might not be a novel idea but I was still proud of myself for figuring this out on my own... I sprinkled the bread dough with cinnamon sugar and made it cinnamon bread. The result was sweet and spicy, soft loaf of bread which was made from all whole wheat flour!



Ingredients

• 14 oz. whole wheat flour


• 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast


• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt


• 9 oz. warm soy milk


• 1 1/2 oz. light tasting olive oil


• 3 oz. Agave nectar



• 1 egg and a tablespoon of water - lightly whisked together to make egg wash


• 3 tablespoons raw sugar


• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. With an electric mixer with a hook attachment, stir the first 6 ingredients at low speed for 3 minutes. Take a 10 minutes break. And stir 3-4 minutes more until the dough holds together and climbs up the hook. Or mix and knead the dough by hands for about the same time.


2. Ball up the bread dough. Let rise in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for about an hour or a bit more.


3. Grease a 4 1/2 inch by 8 1/2 inch loaf pan. In a small bowl, combine sugar with cinnamon.


4. Stretch out the dough on an oiled surface (I used a silicone mat with a few drops of olive oil.) Brush with egg wash. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Roll the dough into a log. Crimp shut the seams including both ends. Let rise for about an hour in the prepared loaf pan covered lightly with greased plastic wrap until the bread dome above the pan.


5. About 15 minutes before the dough is ready, adjust the oven rack to the middle and preheat to 400 degrees.


6. Reduce the heat to 350 after putting in the bread and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool for at least an hour on a cooling rack before slicing.

King Arthur Flour Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread

This is the one recipe I look up whenever I need to bake no-frill 100% whole wheat sandwich bread within a few hours (when there's no time to plan for long-rise no-knead bread). This is one recipe that I used over and over with out fail to produce soft, flavorful, lightly sweet and beautifully risen loaf.



The only problem (There's is always a problem. One cannot wish for a perfect world.) is that I never have dried milk that the recipe calls for. So I sometimes use buttermilk or just water. This time I used half soy milk and half water.



Look at the pictures. How perfect are those loaves? I baked 4 of them in one afternoon and all of them came out picture perfect - an event that rarely happens in my kitchen...

The beautifully written recipe and illustrations are here at KingArthurFlour.com.

Flax Seed Bread Made with Whipping Cream

I bought a pint of whipping cream to make some frosting but never got to it. For weeks I used a few drops of it here and there. Sometimes in my coffee, sometimes in steel cut oats or my breakfast quinoa pudding. I needed to come up with new ways to use the pint and figured I would replace butter in this bread recipe with whipping cream and see what happens.



These pictures were taken in my kitchen with hardly enough light to see anything so they don't really do the bread justice. It came out very wonderfully soft with light texture and a nice crunch from flax seeds. It also rose very beautifully. Good thing I wrote down what I used. This is definitely a recipe to make over and over again (when there's cream in a house and you don't want to drink it all.)



Ingredients

• 5 oz. hot water


• 2 oz. flax seeds


• 7 oz whole wheat flour


• 3 oz. bread flour


• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt


• 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast


• 2 oz Agave nectar


• 5 oz whipping cream

Directions

1. Soak flax seeds in hot water for about 10 minutes.


2. Mix whole wheat flour, bread flour, salt and yeast in a mixer bowl. Add Agave nectar, whipping cream and soaked flax seed.


3. With a hook attachment, run the mixer at low speed for 7 to 8 minutes until the dough pulls away from the bowl.


4. Ball up the dough, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour until it doubles.


5. Grease a loaf pan. Grease the same plastic wrap. Gently turn out the dough and stretch the surface while forming a loaf. Place in the pan, cover loosely with the greased plastic wrap and let rise for about 1 more hour or until the dough rise just above the pan.


6. About 15 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes. After the first 30 minutes, check if the bread is brown enough. If it is, cover with foil to prevent over browning. When it's done baking, turn out from the pan onto a cooling rack and let cool for at least an hour before cutting.

Buttlermilk Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I made these sandwiches to bring to a day session at the US Open last week. What I like the most about going to the US Open are probably that I get to make sandwiches for friends. This year I made avocado, brie, arugula and bacon sandwiches. The bread, of course, were homemade from this recipe on kingarthurflour.com.



I had made this bread a couple of times before with great result - soft, lightly sweet and beautiful dark loaf. This time I wanted to experiment a bit. I wanted to finish the carton of buttermilk I had. And I figured I could reduce some oil and sweetener (I used Agave nectar) in the recipe.



The bread came out not as beautifully domed as the original recipe but still with great texture and flavor.

Here are what I used

• 8 oz buttermilk


• 2 oz water


• 1 oz light tasting olive oil


• 2 oz Agave nectar


• 14 oz whole wheat flour


• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast


• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

No-Knead Whole Wheat Olive Bread

This is another version of Jim Lahey's super easy no-knead bread. I might have needed to chop up the olives a little bit before mixing them into the dough because they keep falling out when I tried to shape the loaf. But, at the same time, I like slicing the bread and biting through big chunks of olives.



The bread didn't come out as crusty as I would have liked - probably because all the fat from olives. But it has really nice, moist and chewy texture especially where you bite into pieces of olives. It also looks really pretty with all the irregular holes inside - as a bonus.



Ingredients

• 200g Whole wheat flour


• 200g Bread flour


• 5g salt


• 2g instant yeast


• 300g water


• 140g pitted olives


• Oat bran or more flour to prevent the dough from sticking

Directions

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until well combined.


2. Cover with a plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 18 hours.


3. Turn the dough onto floured surface. Turn over itself a few times and shape into a ball.


4. Line a clean bowl with a kitchen towel. Sprinkle generously with bran. Place the dough on the towel. Sprinkle more bran on top. Let rise for about an hour until the dough almost doubles.


5. 30 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a dutch oven and its lid inside.


6. When ready, carefully unlid the heated dutch oven. Plop the dough upside down into the pot. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Then uncover and bake for 20 minutes more or until the top is nice and brown. Remove the bread and let cool on a cooling rack for at least an hour before cutting.


7. To store the cut bread, I leave it on the cutting board with cut side down and cover with a clean towel.

Whole Wheat Bread with Flax and Oat Bran

I'm a little bit obsessed with making yeast bread lately. During the past couple of weeks, I baked a loaf of King Arthur Flour Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread which turned out so delicious that I didn't have time to take any picture before the whole loaf was gone. I also baked a loaf of no-knead rosemary bread from my tiny rosemary plant on my window sill. I need to experiment with the proportion of liquid/flour/herb a little more before posting the recipe here.



I also baked Peter Reinhart's Oat Bran Broom Bread from his amazing whole grain bread cookbook. The reason he called it broom bread was that it has so much fiber it could clean you up...



The instructions to make the bread were on two pages - not including picture. They involve making a soaker (soaking grains and flour in water and salt) at least 12 hours in advance, a biga (fermenting minimal amount of yeast with flour and water) for at least 8 hours ahead. Then all are kneaded together with additional flour, liquid, oil and sweetener (I used Agave nectar) before 2 rises. I won't even try to write down the whole process (which is actually simple - it just requires a bit of planning) in this post.



But if you are serious about baking wonderful 100% whole grain bread, get this book. The bread came out soft and flavorful even with all that fiber from oat bran and ground flax seed. And with additional fat and sugar, the bread didn't go stale as fast as leaner bread. Five days after baking, the bread was still pretty good toasted.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

From the first time I saw this post - Chocolate Bread at DavidLebovitz.com - I promised myself that my life would not be complete without trying to make this bread. Although I kept telling myself time and time again (unsuccessfully) that chocolate isn't my favorite sweet. Maybe it's that irresistibly deep brown color. Or maybe it's the aroma of baked yeast and chocolate I conjured up in my head.



The post gave very detailed account of how the author came up with the recipe and how the recipe goes. But my bread still didn't come out looking as delicious as the pictures. My bread took more than 2 hours to rise - perhaps because I didn't substitute enough instant yeast.



The bread was soft and delicious when warm and fresh. But after a couple of days it became dry and crumbly. Even my chocolate lover friend refused to eat it.

So I did what the recipe author suggested - chocolate bread pudding. How awesome would it be? Chocolate bread with chocolate chips plus even more chocolate chips baked with eggs and milk. Perfect breakfast!



So I crumbled up about half the loaf of bread (about 2 cups). Beat 2 eggs and about 3/4 cup of soy milk and about 2 tablespoons of sugar with a glug of vanilla extract. Added half a cup of more chocolate chip. Mixed everything together. Divided into 2 remekins and 4 silicon muffin cups and baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.



Baking bread pudding in silicon muffin cups was a stroke of genius. It made difficult-to-transport baked goods transportable. I shall name them cupbreadpudding.

Oatmeal Flax Bread

My house guest from last week left me an eighth container of quick-cooking oats when she moved out. When I saw it, my brain went wild with all the possibilities. I could make oatmeal cookies, crisps, raspberry bars, coffee cake, muffins, etc. I don't stock up oatmeal for this reason. I would go crazy baking stuff - turning healthy food into not so healthy but super yummy baked goods.

I decided to make bread. Honey Oatmeal Bread.



The problem was that I didn't have enough oatmeal. I didn't have honey, applesauce or instant mash potato flakes. And I wasn't going out to buy them just for this loaf of bread. So I followed the recipe as much as I could with things I had in the apartment. I replaced honey with Agave nectar, skipped apple sauce and potato flakes, upped the amount of liquid and added flax seeds. The bread came out super soft with beautiful thin crust and full of flavor - as a result of 3/4 stick of butter and lots of sweetener. I flopped the whole batch into a loaf pan and it rose way above the rim which resulted in funny looking loaf. I'll have to divide the dough next time and make a few rolls out of it.



Ingredients

• 8 oz. warm water


• 3 oz. quick cooking oats


• 1 1/2 oz. flax seeds


• 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast


• 2 oz. Agave nectar


• 3 oz. melted butter


• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt


• 5 oz. bread flour plus more for kneading and shaping


• 4 1/2 oz. white whole wheat flour

Directions

1. Soak oats and flax seeds in warm water for 20 minutes.


2. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients together. Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is wet.


3. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Rest the dough a couple of times between kneading. Add more flour if the dough is too wet. By the end, the dough should be springy and smooth.


4. Let the dough rise in a clean and greased bowl. Cover tightly with a plastic wrap. For about 1 1/2 to two hours until the dough doubles in bulk.


5. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Lightly stretch it out and fold into third onto itself to form a loaf shape. Crimp shut the seams.


6. Let rise again in a greased loaf pan for about 1 1/2 hours until the dough domes above the pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.


7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees about 15 minutes before the dough is ready. Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool for about 1 hour before cutting.

Flax Seed Bread

I don't care that flax is not the wonder grain I thought it was. I decided I like how weirdly slimy and crunchy it feels in my mouth. This bread tastes like it's good for you. It's dense, yeasty, with the flax seed crunch that makes me chew forever. Maybe this should be called macrobiotic bread since it makes me chew more. I have a need to chase all the seeds with my teeth whenever I take a bite of it.



I adapted the no-knead bread recipe to use 200 grams whole wheat flour, 200 grams all purpose flour and 100 grams flax seeds with 375 grams water. Flax seeds really benefits from the 18-hour fermentation in this recipe (plus it's too hot to knead anyway.) They softened and became weirdly and flavorfully slimy.



I have made this in a loaf pan at lower temperature to produce softer sandwich bread. But I think the dutch oven version which made crusty and chewy bread is definitely prettier and more delicious.

Whole Wheat Flax Bread

I'm trying to add more flax to my diet for its anti-inflammation property. My latest annual blood test showed that I have higher inflammation in my body than normal. It must be all those knee and rotator cuff injuries. This Whole Wheat Flax Breadrecipe from KingArthurFlour.com is perfect.

This bread taste healthy. But not in a bad way. It's substantial but not too dense. It's soft and nutty and a tiny bit sweet - perfect for toasts and sandwiches.



I substituted a few items in the recipe and converted it into weight. If you haven't got yourself a scale, get one this weekend. Just for the dishes that you don't have to clean from one baking, it is already worth its price.



Ingredients

• 10 oz. warm water


• 1 oz. Agave nectar


• 1 3/8 oz. ground flax seeds


• 10 oz. traditional whole wheat flour


• 4 1/4 oz. bread flour


• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt


• 1 teaspoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. After everything is combined, turn onto floured counter top and knead until you get smooth dough. It took me almost 10 minutes but I'm a slow kneader. I didn't have to add any more flour or water but you might need to depending on the condition of your kitchen.


2. Ball the dough up, place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double in bulk (just a little over 1 hour.)


3. Gently deflate the dough, and form into loaf by stretching the dough surface. Let rise a again in a greased loaf pan, covered with plastic wrap until the dough rise above the pan (another hour.)


4. 30 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 40 minutes. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning the bread out into a cooling rack. Let cool for at least an hour before slicing.

(Half) Whole Wheat Challah Bread

Look at these slices of bread. Aren't they beautiful? This is possibly the most beautifully risen, softest and most delicious sandwich loaf I have ever baked, will ever bake, ever. I almost don't want to bake this again for fear that I will surely mess it up.



The recipe is here: Millie's Whole Wheat Challah Bread from kingarthurflour.com.



I used Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour in place of whole wheat pastry flour and ended up using almost 10 ounces of it. It might be that white whole wheat flour absorbs less water or just that I was a little heavy handed with water.

I baked mine in a loaf pan for 20 minutes and then 10 more minutes under foil tent just like the braided version in the recipe.

The bread would be great as french toasts or sandwiches, if I could stop myself from munching the whole loaf...

Cheddar Cheese Wholewheat Bread

This bread is so delicious I ate the whole loaf in 1 and a half day. It's cheesy and crusty (from burnt cheese) and soft and chewy. I so wanted to bake another loaf but I won't be able to stop myself from devouring it again. So good it's bad.


Cheese overload.

Ingredients

• 8 oz wholewheat flour (I used 4 oz traditional wholewheat flour and 4 oz white wholewheat flour.)


• 4 oz bread flour


• 2 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 8 oz water


• 1 oz light tasting olive oil


• 8 oz diced cheddar cheese (I used Dubliner aged Irish cheddar cheese.)

Directions

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a bowl of an electric mixer. Add water and oil. Turn on the mixer at the lowest speed with a paddle hook.


2. After everything is wet, change to a bread hook and mix at slow speed until you get smooth dough - about 10 minutes. Knead in cheese. Let rise in the bowl, covered with a plastic wrap for about 1 and a half hour.


3. Grease a bread pan. Shape the dough into loaf (gently flatten the dough on floured counter top, fold the bottom half to the middle, fold the top half, crimp the edges close. Roll back and fourth to get the desired shape.) Let rise in the pan covered with plastic wrap for another 1 and a half hour or until the dough rise over the top of the pan.


4. 30 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.


5. Turn out of the bread pan and let cool on a cooling rack for at least 1 hour before devouring. It's really great warm. Next time I might bake into rolls, so I won't have to wait.

Homemade Cottage Cheese and Whole Wheat Whey Water Bread

Alton Brown did it again. It's not often that I watched a TV cooking show and actually tried the recipe from the show. This one is just irresistible. In an episode about milk, he showed how to very easily separate curd from liquid in milk and make cottage cheese. It was worth trying just to see this happen in action and to realize I have the power to make cheese right in my kitchen.



The cheese came out dry until I added a bunch of cream/milk/and whey water back. And then it was great. I can't believe how simple it was. You basically just have to heat up a gallon of milk to 120 degree, add 3/4 cup of vinegar and watch magic happens right before your eyes.



Then just drain, wash out vinegar under cold water, and season with salt, cream and milk. I halved the recipe and got enough cheese for 2 meals.

I couldn't make myself throw away all the leftover liquid that had been perfectly good milk 5 minutes earlier. So I used a couple of cups to make no-knead bread. The result was very flavorful loaf with soft chewy texture. I will have to make more cheese just for its whey for more bread....



Ingredients

• 100 grams all-purpose flour


• 300 grams whole wheat flour


• 5 grams salt


• 2 grams instant yeast


• 350 grams whey water

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the whey water. Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is wet and well combined. Cover and let stand for 18 hours. The dough will be a little smelly and sour but no worries. The final product will be awesome.


2. After 18 hours of dough resting, dust a counter top generously with flour (whole wheat or white.) Dump the dough onto the counter top. Fold over itself a few times until the dough holds its shape. Form into ball.


3. Line a medium bowl with a clean kitchen towel. Sprinkle generously with bran. Plop the dough ball in there. Sprinkle with more bran. Cover and let rise for about an hour and a half.


4. 45 minutes before baking time preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a dutch oven and its cover inside.


5. When it's time, carefully uncover the dutch oven and plop the dough (bran and all) into it. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 20 to 30 minutes more or until the top is nice and brown. Let cool on a cooling rack for at least an hour before cutting.

Bacon Bread

I bought My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey, the god of no-knead bread. It wasn't for me. It was going to a friend. But since it was in my hands I had to read through it first. The book was beautiful. The author's story of how he came to the no-knead method was fascinating and funny at times. There was one master recipe which was explained in detail both with words and pictures. Although all other recipes seem like variations of the master recipe, they were very intriguing and inventive. I almost kept the book for myself.



Before giving the book away, I tried one recipe: Pancetta Bread. Well, you already know from the post title that I didn't make pancetta bread. I made bacon bread.

This was the first time I used bread flour - the higher protein flour (and therefore higher gluten) than all purpose.



This recipe does not kid around with bacon. It calls for 300 grams of it. That's almost 3/4 pounds of bacon. I love it.


I baked half as rolls on baking sheet and the other half in a dutch oven.

The bread came out super delicious. Thin and crisp crust. Chewy, soft and airy texture even the ones I baked on baking sheet. And bacon - so much of it! It would be delicious as grilled cheese but it was all gone before I could do anything - even taking a good shot of the loaf.

The best thing about this is that it's super easy to make. You basically just mix everything together, leave it for a day. Shape and bake.

Oh, one more thing I love about the book is that there was one picture of a bunch of dutch ovens - all of them far from shiny and perfect. They were dirty with burnt mark. Some of them even looked chipped. Yay! I wasn't the only one with ghetto dutch ovens after all!

Chickpea Bread

Remember chickpea flour? When I experimented with gluten-free baking a got a few pounds of it. I didn't have much success with it. It made all my baked goods taste like hummus - and not in a good way. So now that I gave up trying to replicate wheat with non-wheat, I need to figure out what to do with all this chickpea flour.

Then I saw this: Chickpea bread at The Fresh Loaf. Genius!

I don't keep my mother starter anymore so I couldn't follow the recipe. Instead, I made this:



Beautiful, right? And tasted good too! At first it was a little weird. Again, the flour made the loaf smell like hummus but this time in a good way. It's nutty and a little sweet. The texture was dense but soft and crunchy on the outside. Perfect savory bread. It's even good toasted with honey.

I figured chickpea flour would absorb a lot of liquid so I used almost 70% liquid. The dough was very wet but easier to manage after the first rise.



Ingredients

• 200 grams all-purpose flour plus more for kneading


• 100 grams chickpea flour


• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast


• 1 teaspoon sea salt


• 200 grams warm water


• 20 grams honey


• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix all purpose flour, chickpea flour, yeast and salt together. Add warm water and honey. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or wet hands for a few minutes until every thing is wet and well combined. The dough will be very wet. Let rise for about half an hour. It will be a little easier to manage.


2. On a floured surface, fold the dough into itself a few times to coat. Knead (keep folding) for 4 to 5 minutes. It will still be slack but easier to shape. Don't add too much flour. Use wet hands if the dough is too sticky. After kneading, let it sit for a couple of minutes while you clean the bowl.


3. Oil a clean bowl with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Ball up the dough by stretching its surface and gather extra skin at the bottom. Place into the oiled bowl, seam side down. Roll around to coat. Let rise for about an hour or until it doubles in size.


4. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a dutch oven and its cover inside for at least 30 minutes.


5. When the dough is ready, carefully take out the hot dutch oven, sprinkle flour on its floor. Flour the dough surface, slash and carefully place in the dutch oven, seam side down. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.


6. Uncover and bake for 5 to 10 more minutes or until the inside temperature is at least 180 degrees. Let cool on a cooling rack for at least an hour before cutting.

100% Whole Wheat Bread

I'm loving this. Usually when I bake bread at home, I get full-sized loaf which either goes stale within a couple of days or disappears into my belly too fast. The idea, from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, is that I make a lot of bread dough, keep in the refrigerator and bake a small portion a day. This way I have well-portioned fresh bread every day. As a bonus, the bread dough develops more flavor the longer it stays in the refrigerator. (The book said not to keep for more than 5 days.)



This is the 4th loaf a got from the batch - baked in a preheated dutch oven, NYTimes no-knead bread style. The loaves are not as airy as oat bran bread which was made from all-purpose flour. This one has beautiful crust and nutty and a bit sour flavor. My first loaf which was baked about 10 hours after I mixed the dough came out a bit bitter. But the bitterness was gone in the second loaf baked the next day.



Here's the recipe which I adjusted a little bit from the book. Why the adjustment? I think that bread is not as delicate as what people said especially those that get to ferment for many many hours. As long as the ratio of flour per liquid is about right and salt + yeast are added, there will be bread. Measuring flour by weight instead of by volume is just convenient for me. I rounded yeast and salt to a tablespoon because I couldn't find my other measuring spoons. So there.

Ingredients

• 800 grams whole wheat flour


• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water


• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm soy milk


• 1/4 cup light tasting olive oil


• 1/2 cup Agave nectar


• 1 tablespoon salt


• 1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Mix flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Mix all the other ingredients into the bowl with a wooden spoon. When all the flour is nicely combined and wet, cover with a towel and let rise for a few hours until the dough falls. (I mixed the dough at night and just leave it overnight.)


2. To bake, with wet hands take a grapefruit-size ball and shape into round by gathering its surface at the bottom and let rise on floured surface covered with a towel or plastic wrap until it's about one and a half size the original ball. (I lined a bowl with parchment paper. Rise my dough on it. And later just placed the paper with the dough on top into preheated dutch oven.) When the dough is at room temperature, it took me about one hour. But with refrigerated dough, I let it sit (covered) in a cool oven for about 2 hours to get to room temperature. Then shape and let rise for about 1 more hour.


3. Preheat the oven to 450 minutes with a dutch oven and its cover inside for about 30 minutes.


4. Flour the surface of the dough, slash (or not - I forgot with this loaf and I kind of like the way the loaf exploded.) Dump the dough onto the piping hot dutch oven, cover and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for 10 more minutes or until the bread browns.


5. Let cool on a cooling rack for at least one hour before cutting.

Oat Bran Bread

This bread is from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It's basically a variation of the no-knead bread. The idea is that you can mix up the dough and store it for weeks in the refrigerator. When it's time to bake, you just take a portion, let rise and bake.



It worked amazingly. This is the second loaf I baked from this batch, 4 days after mixing the dough.



I also love the idea of baking smaller loaf at a time so that I can always have fresh baked bread.



The only complaint I have was that it took a couple of hours for the dough to get to room temperature and rise properly. So if I want to go to sleep before midnight, I have to get home by 8pm to thaw the dough. :)