Accident Bread, ready for sandwiches. I’ve found family members are much more likely to use the bread when you pre-slice it for them.
Accident Bread happened because I was experimenting with Sirvinta wheat, a heritage grain I picked up at the Maine Kneading Conference. I was under the impression it was a high extraction flour but the resulting dough was quite different than expected. I added a few mix-ins to rescue my bake and ended up with a very satisfying result. After the fact, I realized this is a pretty fool-proof formula any time you want to experiment with flours and ingredients. Makes two 2-lb loaves.
Ingredients:
150 g lively APF starter at 60%
800 g water
100-200 g whole wheat or high extraction flour
800-900 g all purpose flour (you want to end up with a total of 1000 g flour)
100 g mixed add-ins which might include rolled oats/wheat, a few gold flax seeds, rye berries
1-2 T Kosher salt (start with 1 T, then taste the dough as it forms)
1 T olive oil
2 T maple syrup (grade B preferred)
Method: Add water to starter in a large bowl and stir with a spoon until starter is dispersed somewhat. Add flours and mix thoroughly until there are no patches of dry flour. Allow to autolyse (rest) for at least 30 minutes and as long as two hours. Add all other dry ingredients and commence to stretch-and-fold using the method described in this post. Do three rounds of ten stretch-and-folds at 15 minute intervals. Before the third round taste for salt and add more if necessary, and add olive oil and maple syrup. After the fifth round (total elapsed time 1 hour) cover and allow dough to bulk-rise for four hours (more or less, depending on how lively your starter is and the temperature of your kitchen). Shape into two loaves and rest 20 minutes.
After resting, transfer loaves to floured couches and rise another 1 ½ hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 460 degrees with cast iron dutch ovens nd their lids inside. This will take at least 20 minutes. Carefully transfer loaves to the dutch ovens (you don’t need to bring to room temperature if refrigerated), slash the tops, cover and cook 20 minutes. Then take off the lids, reduce heat to 430 and bake another 20 minutes or until bread reaches an internal temperature of 206 degrees. Cool and eat.
