Description
This article is from the How to Make Basic
Bread FAQ, by Darrell Greenwood darrell.faq@telus.invalid with
numerous contributions by others.
25 Laurel's Kitchen Breadbook
The expirement for this week was making the "Loaf for Learning" from
Laurel's Kitchen Breadbook. This is a book with an attitude! I learned a
lot. Since someone else has already submitted a book review for this book,
I am only posting my experience.
This book was written by a vegetarian, but it is not preachy. It simply is
operating under the assumption that you need all of the protein of whole
grain, which is a more urgent fact for one on a vegetarian diet. I am not
a vegetarian, but I still would like to learn to bake well with whole
grains.
The book promisses to help you learn to make a light fluffy well risen loaf
of whole grain wheat bread without any added gluten or white flour. I was
somewhat skeptical when I checked the book out of the local library, sure
our ancestors only worked with whole wheat, but then somehow I had the
notion that they made these dense loaves, and that was why they were only
to happy to convert to the use of processed flour.
I was wrong! Dead wrong. The book really came through on its promise!
I followed the instructions for the "Loaf for learning" and I kept saying
to myself, this is never going to work, it is going to come out flat and
dense, just like all the loaves I have ever made, but what the... I'll try
what they say.
I kneaded and kneaded. I let it rise, and deflated, and rounded, and
folded, and let it rise, and deflated and rounded and folded again. I had
a difficult time with the shaping, and then I let it rise for the third
time in the loaf pan. The shape was ugly, due to my ackwardness, but I was
dumbfounded at how well it rose, and for the third time! Well I baked it
and it came out light like a sponge; not heavy like all the other bread I
had ever made. It had puffy holes, evenly distributed. I could not
believe this texture! There was no crumbling or cracking like always
happens when we used to bake whole wheat with active dry yeast.
The crust was thin and crisp and flaky. It somehow reminded me of
Vietnamese egg rolls, how the thin wrapper flakes and cracks.
I had added no gluten, nor any white flour. All the flour came freshly
from my home stored hard red winter wheat, using my own flour mill.
And in the process I learned an awful lot. I learned that when I have
kneaded enough I should be able to stretch the dough paper thin without
ripping it. I learned that I always make my dough to heavy-- not wet
enough. I learned that yeast ripens the gluten, and that I need to learn
how to tell when it is ripe.
I used to think that the yeast was consuming nutrients from the wheat,
nutrients that I would otherwise have used. I came to realize that this
was another mistaken notion. Wheat has many nutrients locked up in forms
that I cannot use until yeast unlocks the structures that have stored them.
Yeast has an enzyme (lets see if I can spell it-- amalyse?) that breaks
starch into sugar, and other enzymes that break protein into usable parts.
Our symbiotic relationship with yeast (and lactobacilli for that matter too
I suppose) goes much deeper than I had ever previously supposed.
One of the major ingredients to making a fluffy loaf, I learned, is time.
And this was inspite of the fact that I was using active dry yeast. It
took time for the yeast to process the flour, ripen the gluten, and unlock
nutrients. All in all I spent about 6 hours in the kitchen making this
loaf. (I was reading about the process while the dough was rising.)
Then, when my wife had a taste she said, "Oh, I can make a better loaf."
Grrr.........! Well she has a different set of criteria that determines
what makes a good loaf I guess. I know she can't make a light and fluffy
loaf from 100% whole wheat.
Now as I recall, when I first bit into the loaf, it seemed to me that it
had a residual waxy taste. Not bitter, but it was a suprise to tase bread
that had been so thouroughly processed by yeast. I was so used to
home-baked whole wheat bread that had only risen once. After a couple of
hours, that taste had made such an impression that I didn't want to go back
to the old "fresh ground wheat" taste.
So far the portion of this book that I have read has made such an
impression on me that I intend to make it a part of my own library. (First
I have to find out what it costs.) I highly recommend the book.
-david adams dadams@cray.com
Cathy Gearhart adds: exucsge@s16a15.ericsson.se
I agree with what you (dadams@cray.com) said about the Laurel's Kitchen
Bread Book. It is wonderful and I have also made her (Laurel's) Loaf for
Learning from my own freshly ground (still warm from the mill) 100% whole
wheat flour. Until one follows her techniques, though, it is easy to think
that the only way to make light whole wheat bread is to add white flour.
I also recommend her Buttermilk Bread and the Oatmeal Bread is fabulous.
Keep on baking!
Cathy :)
Highly Recommended
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