Baking A Sweet Life

Its time again for the monthly Bread Baking Day bake-off!  Zorra, the founder of BBD is hosting the one year anniversary edition – and the theme for this exciting occasion is Bread with Sprouts!  For my bread I decided to do a variety of sprouted grains – an equal mix of Hard Red Wheat, Kamut, and Spelt.  I chose these grains because I love the flavor of each, and for ease of sprouting – they are all roughly the same size.
I followed Susan’s method for sprouting, ‘cuz she’s so smart and knows how to simplify things :)  And it worked like a charm.  I had started to see teeny tiny tips after only 24 hours, but I waited until about 40 hours to use them.  As Susan mentioned in her post, it was very easy to express the endosperm, and that was another clue that the sprouts were rearin’ to go.

Here are the sprouts after being pulverized by the food processor

This bread is incredible.  Everything from the crust to the crumb was outstanding.  This was my first experience *ever* with a sprouted bread and it may be my new standard.  The three different grains gave the bread such incredible flavor.  The texture of the crumb was so soft and had a perfect balance of open and tight.  The crust came out of the oven so richly colored, I didn’t even want to cut into it – it was so perfect as it was.  I was thrilled with this bread in all aspects.  One thing I did that I think contributed to such great flavor was that I used the water that the grains sprouted in.  This was the water from the second washing, which should’ve been cleaner than the first day’s water, but the grains had been thoroughly washed prior to soaking, so I wasn’t concerned with any debris.   I did think the dough had a very different smell to it, and was happy to see that whatever “scent” the sprouts added was baked off in the oven.

The following recipe was put together on the fly – the bread was really really *really* sticky, but was definitely manageable for shaping with just a little flour sprinkled on the surface and bread.

Multigrain Sprouted Sourdough Bread

Sprout Grains – ~48 hours
Mixing and Autolyse – 30 min
Bulk Fermentation – 4 hours with folds at 1 and 2 hours
Rest and Shaping – 20 min
Bench Proof – 2 hours
Bake – ~40 min

Ingredients:

300g 100% hydration starter
200g high gluten bread flour
150g bread flour
200g water*
210g sprouts**
14g salt

*I used the water that the sprouts had been growing in with the hopes of added flavor
**I did an equal combo of sprouts – 70g each of kamut, spelt and hard red wheat sprouts

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients except salt in a large mixer bowl and mix until combined.

Autolyse for 15-20 minutes.  Add salt and continue mixing on medium speed until the dough comes together in a ball.  It will eventually happen!

Scrape dough into lightly oiled container, and do one or two folds at that time.  Cover and let ferment at room temperature for approximately 4 hours, with a fold at 1 hour and 2 hours.

Deflate the dough and divide into two equal pieces.  Pre-shape, cover, and let rest for 15 minutes.

Shape the two pieces into batards and place seam side up on a lightly flour lined couche.

Cover and allow to bench proof for two hours, or until a finger indention doesn’t refill.

About 45 minutes before you anticipate the dough being read, preheat the oven to 500F.  Place a steam pan in the oven on the bottom rack or very bottom of oven while oven is being preheated.

When dough is ready to bake, turn over and slash, if desired.  Steam oven, and place bread in, lowering the temperature to 450F after 3 minutes of baking.  Rotate the loaves if necessary to promote even browning.

The loaves should be done in about 40 minutes, or when the internal temperature reaches 190F and the crust is a rich, golden brown.

Yum!