Another batch of bread

Three old favourites for the bread making this time. I’ve put the recipes at the end of this blog entry.

First up is the Toastie, based on an Elizabeth David recipe, and a long time favourite from when our children were small. Adding a little potato flour alters the crumb size to give a bread that’s ideal for toasting, and soaks up the butter. Not perhaps a health food, but great for breakfast or high tea.

Next comes Sunflower Seed Pain de Campagne. This is a bit of a cheat, since we use a bread mix bought from Carrefour on our booze cruises, and simply add sunflower seeds.

Looks very rustic, doesn’t it, Le Moulin du Prieuré? The reality is a bit more industrialised although, to be fair, it’s a nice approximation to the real artisan loaf. The wheat and rye flours and dried sourdough starter can easily be assembled at home, but they also add gluten to compensate for the low gluten rye flour, and a little malt and buckwheat bran for that extra taste.

The final mix was Buckwheat and Linseed. This produces a particularly nutty flavoured bread. It doesn’t rise as well as some of the others and makes a rather flat-topped loaf, but that’s all to the good for sandwiches. In this picture we have, on the lower shelf of the oven, Buckwheat on the left in the red pan, Toastie in the middle, and Pain de Campagne on the right.

Recipes

I haven’t included a recipe for the pain de campagne. Next time I bake, I’ll make a home-made version and do a blog entry with the recipe. It requires a starter dough, and takes a couple of days.

The two recipes below are based on 1kg of flour, which makes two large loaves. Percentages are “baker’s percentages”, where 100% = weight of flour. I add one 7g sachet of dried easy-blend yeast to each kilo of flour, which is plenty. Bread is put into the fan oven at 200ºC then baked at 180ºC until the inside of the loaf reaches 195ºF/91ºC. Your oven may vary.

Toastie

500g (50%) strong white flour
500g (50%) strong wholemeal flour
45g (4.5%) instant mashed potato powder
20g (2%) sea salt
30g (3%) unsalted butter
7g (0.7%) easy-blend yeast
650ml (65%) water to hydrate the flour
150ml (15%) milk and water mixture to hydrate the instant potato. Note that this should be around two thirds of the liquid called for on the instant potato instructions. Mine expected 230ml, so I cut it to 150ml. Adjust this to suit your instant mash.

Warm the butter in 100ml of water to soften the butter. Add it to the mixing bowl with the remaining water and milk and water mixture, plus the salt.

Roughly mix the flours with the yeast. Add to the liquid and mix thoroughly, then knead until the dough starts to form. Cover with greased clingfilm and leave to rise. Divide into 850g loaves and knead before putting into greased loaf tins. Leave to prove before baking in a well-heated oven.

Buckwheat and Linseed

340g (34%) strong white flour
330g (33%) strong wholemeal flour
330g (33%) buckwheat flour
150g (15%) linseed (brown or golden or a mixture of the two)
20g (2%) sea salt
20g (2%) unsalted butter
7g (0.7%) easy-blend yeast
640ml (64%) water

Warm the butter in 100ml of water to soften the butter. Add it to the mixing bowl with the remaining water and the salt.

Roughly mix the flours, linseed, and yeast. Add to the liquid and mix thoroughly, then knead until the dough starts to form. Cover with greased clingfilm and leave to rise. Divide into 800g loaves and knead before putting into greased loaf tins. Leave to prove before baking in a well-heated oven.