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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire BBA # 20



This weekend I was supposed to be baking the marbled rye bread. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate the white rye flour which is necessary for this bread. All rye flour was missing from Central Market's shelves. Interesting I thought. But none of the shelf markers were for white rye flour. I went to Sun Harvest and could find several types of rye flour, none of them the correct white flour. So I must place a King Arthur Flour order. Once I start an order, I find additional items in my basket. It is all so tempting. I imagine I will have to buy a lame. I have been using my exacto knife to score my breads, but once I am ordering, why not get the official french bread scoring knife. And then the brotforms call to me. Can I be a real bread baker without one? I have been able to resist their call so far.

So without the correct flour, I moved on the multigrain bread extraordinaire. From now on, I can say I made an extraordinaire bread, without bragging, just the facts. I have been waiting for this bread. I love multigrain bread. I have high hopes for the loaf.

Friday evening I made the soaker. I combined polenta, rolled oats, wheat bran with some water and left it on the counter for the evening. As my main stakeholder said, another science experiment on the counter.



Early in the morning, I made some brown rice in the oven. I think that making brown rice in the oven keeps it moist and requires little attention on the part of the cook. The flour, brown sugar, salt and and entire tablespoon of yeast went into the mixer. Then the soaker, brown rice, honey, buttermilk and water were added. We were supposed to sprinkle in some flour if we needed it to make a dough that was not sticky. I actually ladled in flour. Eventually I got a delightful soft and pliable ball. I really enjoyed kneading it and feeling the little pokey things in the dough. I think that the polenta may still have been a little hard. It was an interesting textural experience.

The dough was fermented at room temperature for 90 minutes. At this point, I realized that I would need to find some other ways to occupy my time this weekend.

I am the mother of two young adults on the other side of the country and one remaining teenager at home. I get snippets of information into their lives. I find the snippets sometimes annoy me, but I would rather have some information, than no information. I have four older brothers. There have not been so many years between the time when I was in college and now that I have completely forgotten how snippets are delivered. Snippets are almost always delivered in the least upsetting fashion, not misinformation, just partial information. This mornings snippet was from my rock climber. I'm on my way to a state park in WV to do a little climbing, I'm all caught up on my classes. The last time he did a little climbing, he posted pictures.




I had a few questions when I saw the picture. How high are you? Who put in the things that hold the rope? Did they get a good night's sleep? Had they been drinking? Did they eat a healthy breakfast? Why are you doing this? Why don't you have on a shirt? Do you need us to buy you a shirt?

It is fall in Pennsylvania. One of my brothers told me that he had put on a flannel shirt the other day. We don't wear flannel in Texas. The temperature has dipped into the 90s here. I miss fall in Pennsylvania. I miss frost and the changing tree colors. I might even miss scrapple . Scrapple is hog offal. I was eating offal before it was in. I miss blue hubbard squash. I saw squash in our local grocery store, they had the hubbards in the ornamental section. For $2/pound, for squash.

Back to the bread. My polenta was a coarse ground polenta. I could feel it when I kneaded it. You could see it when the bread was finished. Next time, I will use a finer polenta. And there will be a next time, this is indeed an extraordinaire bread. It may be my favorite bread so far.

6 comments:

  1. Hi, Rosemary - thanks for visiting. I'm looking forward to THIS bread. It sounds (and looks!) delicious...especially the brown rice and the other "poky" bits!
    Audrey

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  2. I can really relate to the ordering at King Arthur. Every time I intend to order just one little thing, I end up with a cart full!

    I also got a kick out of reading about your rock climber. My boys are also away from me and I get the same snippets of information. Sometimes it's too much info, other times not enough. Joys of parenting, eh?

    I'm in total agreement regarding the taste of this bread. It's out of this world! I'm also on my second batch. I made the first batch into rolls yesterday and overproofed them slightly, so the anal retentive perfectionist that I am decided to try it again today and make it into a loaf. It's proofing right now. We'll see if I get it right this time!

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  3. Mags,
    This bread and the Italian bread may be tied for favorite. I am looking forward to a sandwich. I hope you write up the rolls, good idea.

    My sons generally tell me the scary things after they are over. The rock climber reads my blog and was laughing. He apparently owns a shirt...

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  4. Oh yes KA website is the devil! When I'm there I also end up with so much stuff in my cart *sigh*.:)

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  5. Nice loaf! I am soooo looking forward to this one.

    I am fortunate (and unfortunate) enough to have King Arthur on a completely differenc continent. It makes ordering baking supplies difficult, as I have to ask friends coming from the States, though I did manage to score a few things in Paris. Germany is just not the innovative bread country, though all the bread is really good.

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  6. 95 dollars later... I did go through BBA and buy any flours that I will need.

    This may be my favorite. I am trying to figure out if I could start the marbled rye and finish it before bedtime.

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