Question

I searched for a long time to find a coarser flour and now have found it via you. I made my first loaf in my panasonic bread machine and it tastes absolutely delicious. I just used the one flour (which is what I want to do) and little more water than usual and found that it did not rise as much as the finer flours I have been using. I do not mind this as the taste is so good but are there any hints for using this flour such as more/less water/fat/yeast? I next want to try sourdough with this flour. Thank you

Answer

Well done I agree with you that the flavours and the texture in this flour are something that has been forgotten over the years in the ever increasing search for the light and fluffy texture.

I have found that the softer full bodied flours such as these will benefit form a small flying sponge as they would have done when they only had these flours to work with. This will work well on the bread machine although it will take a bit more time to put it together.

If you are working with 500 grams of flour in your bread machine, about 30 to 40 minuets before you set the program going put down 20% of the flour or 100 grams into a bowl and enough of your total water weight to make that 100grams to a creamy batter. Add all of the yeast to this batter and stand in the corner of the kitchen.

Weigh the remaining ingredients into the machine and when the flier has had its time add it on top and set the program to a rapid program.

Doing it this way you will hydrate some of the bran particles making them more supple helping it to become more elastic and hopefully give you a lighter crumb.

Sour dough are a little more difficult to do on the bread machine and I would recommend you adding the mother to the dough as there are terrific advantages to the digestive system from eating this but you will still need to add some yest to it as the breads using 100% Mother as the active yeasts will take longer than the bread machine can give it.

Hope this helps

Happy Baking

Clive Mellum