I promised in my earlier post to talk a little bit about ingredients. Keep in mind that’s I’m a total newbie here, so this is probably the first of many discussions on this subject as I learn more about the process of baking bread. But it’s common sense (at least to me) that the best ingredients will produce the best bread. The main ingredient in bread, of course, is flour, and there’s a whole world of flour out there. Flours are made of various grains, but the bread grains I have used to date are wheat, rye and spelt. I will not get here into a detailed discussion of the differences between the grains, I’ll save that for a later post. I’ll just say that wheat is the most common flour grain used in the world. Rye is the second most common, and it’s most popular and grown in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe where “heavier” breads like pumpernickel are consumed. Spelt is a hardier relative of wheat that is becoming more popular lately because of its sweeter, nuttier flavor, higher nutritional content and easier digestibility as compared to wheat.
Flours differ by how finely they are ground (from coarse to very fine) and also how refined they are (from whole grain, like whole wheat to just the core, starchy part of the grain, called endosperm, which produces the whitest flour). In Europe flours are graded by how much ash is produced when a pre-set weight of flour is burned. The more ash, the higher the grade (and the more “wholesome” nutritionally speaking the flour is).
I will honestly say that I chanced upon the King Arthur brand of flours that I now use for my baking.
It was on sale. I bought it. And I was impressed with how much more my bread rose as compared to the run-of-the-mill all purpose flour I used before. So for kicks I looked at their website. It was an education. Turns out that the King Arthur Flour company is the oldest flour mill in the United States. They started milling flour when George Washington (yeah, that George) was elected to his first term as President. Pretty cool, eh? Also, and that matters for bread baking, King Arthur’s Bread Flour has a higher protein content than the competition. And the more protein (gluten), the more “pop” (meaning, your bread will rise more and will be chewier and fluffier). Gluten is the culprit protein that gives so much trouble to people with Celiac Sprue. Gluten can be bough separately and added to flour, but it takes a more experienced baker to know how much to add, so it will be a while before I go there myself.
The other flours I have used so far are rye flours. I like Bob’s Red Mill Dark Rye Flour, it’s really heavy though, very unlike the fine rye that is used in Polish baking (as I found out by trying to use it to make light rye bread)
Bob’s Red Mill does make a fine, lighter rye flour though, and I’m hoping to try that one next.
The spelt flour that got into “Whoops” (3.0) was also by Bob’s Red Mill.
I also just finished baking a bread (let’s call that one 4.0) using a local whole rye flour, from Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill. I like to buy local ingredients. There’s something so appealing about knowing that what you eat was made by someone who is (almost) a neighbor. On that note, the honey I used in my last two loaves was from Eagleman Farms. I used mixed flower honey, but really look forward to baking with their outstanding buckwheat honey. Yummy!
Unless you’re growing your own starter and growing wild yeast (doesn’t that sound romantic?), you’ll also want to buy a nice quality commercial yeast. I haven’t looked into that much, but have been using the Red Star brand of dry yeast and it’s been working nicely for me.
OK, off to check on 4.0 which is looking awfully pumpernickel-like… I hope it’s tasty, at least.
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