Wednesday night I made this loaf of Microbrewery Beer Bread from The New Best of BetterBaking.com, and between this and the cabbage soup, I have enough to eat well into the weekend. The dough is a mix of water, instant yeast, sugar, beer, vegetable oil, salt and whole wheat flour, and is glazed with a beaten egg white.
The recipe calls for half whole wheat flour and half bread flour, but because a) I only have whole wheat flour; b) there was no bread flour at the No Frills; and c) the whole point of baking my own bread in the first place was to save money -- I used only whole wheat flour. And I did this completely against Marcy Goldman's warning in the introduction that when she calls for bread flour, she insists on bread flour: nothing else will yeild the same results. One day, I promise, I will try the same recipe using bread flour.
I was already feeling excited about bread after making this loaf, but then I watched this video and got even MORE excited about bread. Chad Robertson explains the importance of the long rise to flavour -- something I could taste in that bread I made last week from the dough that sat in my fridge all weekend. Watch it! And feel free to buy me his book, blogreader.
if you pick up wheat gluten from the bulk section of wherever (I think I got mine at Save-On-Foods) you can add one tablespoon per cup of flour to approximate the extra gluten-ness of bread flour as seen here: http://www.ehow.com/how_2316531_make-bread-flour.html
ReplyDeleteCool, thanks Gerald!
ReplyDeleteMy cousin has that book and loves it; I want it too now. After seeing the video, I think we should have a bread-making party (yes, two days of hanging out with friends might be intense... but I never see you anymore).
ReplyDeletehmmm... I want to touch that dough!