Home Bread-Bakers v104.n046.9
[Advanced]

Re: Whole wheat breads

Diane Brown <debunix@well.com>
Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:52:52 -0500
v104.n046.9
RosesCakeBible@aol.com wrote:
>what i wrote and said about bread made with 100% wholewheat flour being 
>dense and bitter is not true when you use freshly ground high protein 
>wheat berries.

Glad to see you've seen the light!

By the way, your pretzel recipe in the Bread Bible is super made with 
freshly ground hard white wheat flour.  I've done it several times now and 
the only problem is that it gets eaten up so fast!

And for Theresa, who wants to make whole grain sourdough and sprouted wheat 
breads, I'd suggest finding a copy of the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as a 
first step.  It's an excellent introduction to whole grain baking.   After 
you're comfortable with their basic recipes, you can really substitute 
fresh-ground whole wheat flour in almost any recipe. I like to blend my 
hard and soft white wheats to try to match the protein content of the flour 
recommended in the recipe, and you can play with adding a tablespoon or so 
of gluten flour per loaf if you're not satisfied with the texture you get 
with straight wheat.

The new hard white wheats do have a slightly milder flavor than hard red 
wheats, which is helpful especially if you're using recipes for 
flavored/spiced/fancy breads designed for white flour.

I believe that the Laurel's Kitchen book also has an extensive section on 
sprouted wheat breads, but I've never tried their recipe so can't make a 
specific recommendation.  I have made the amazing sprouted wheat/apricot 
unyeasted flatbread from Flatbreads and Flavors many times, especially to 
take with me on trips because it is such a great keeping bread--though 
quite dense and chewy and not perhaps to everyone's taste.

Diane Brown in St. Louis
http://www.well.com/user/debunix