I have lots of bread recipes, but mostly I come back to the most basic one, the one that never fails me, written by My Boyfriend, Mark Bittman: 3 cups flour, 2 teasppons salt, 2 teaspoons instant or bread-machine yeast, 1 + 1/4 cups water, mush together, cover, rise 30 mins - 1 hour, bake 425F.
But, you know, all that white flour isn’t good for you blah bah blah. So I’ve been fooling with the recipe, because while I’m not crazy about the flavor of “whole wheat” bread, I like the taste of “multi-grain” bread.
So today’s recipe went as follows:
1 cup unbleached allpurpose white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2-3 heaping Tablespoons oat flour (I took some oatmeal I had and ground it in a coffee grinder)
2 heaping Tablespoons Rye flour
1 heaping Tablespoon Buckwheat flour (I’ve noticed you have to be careful with buckwheat or the flavor overpowers everything)
1 heaping Tablespoon ground flax (coffee grinder again)
1 Tablespoon dry milk (on a whim, cause I had it)
4-5 grinds of fresh black pepper
2-3 tablespoons of parmesan-romano grated cheese
Things I had, but didn’t put in there: cornmeal, ground almonds, sesame seeds.
It came out pretty good. It needed more water than plain bread does, but it pulled together and rose normally. The coarse ground oat and flax gave it a pretty good texture. Didn’t taste too “whole wheaty.” Might have needed extra salt, if not for the parmesan cheese. Tasty with my roast beef sandwhich. It got a little overbrown on the bottom at 425F. Overall, my experimental 5-grain bread was deemed a success.
So, any thoughts? Areas for improvement? I read the labels on my multi-grain products to see what grains they use. What think you of spelt or quinoa (in case you’re wondering, therte’s a Mennonite market where I can get this sort of thing)? Or ground walnuts or hazelnuts?
Tell me, children, of your own adventures in bread baking.