Amazing whole wheat boule from Hungry Ghost in Northampton, MA made with nothing but water, flour and salt.
Water. Flour. Salt. Is the English translation of one of our favorite blogs, from a Romanian baker named Codutra. (Sadly, it’s gone on hiatus but the recipes are all still there, though you’ll need a translation app if you don’t speak Romanian.) It’s also a reminder that sourdough bread is at its essence those three things, when you don’t count the wild yeast captured from the air and nurtured in the water and flour mix. (Salt has not yet been added since it retards yeast development.)
Salt is by far the least of those three ingredients in weight and volume, but it has an outsize impact on taste. When we did a miche test with legendary local baker Michael London a few years back, he commented that most home bakers don’t use enough salt. That’s why we recommend you taste your bread dough early in the process of kneading or stretch-and-fold or mixing in the Kitchenaid. The amounts of salt in recipes are hard to measure by weight so we typically dump in about two teaspoons full by eye in a dough of 1500 grams or so, then taste and usually add a little more.
Well, we’ve been enjoying the delicious bread from Hungry Ghost in Northampton MA brought back by frequent travelers to that hamlet, and yesterday we had the opportunity to compare their whole wheat boule against our own bread that had just come out of the oven. And we realized the secret to their bread that makes it come alive on the tongue is…. A whole lot of salt!
Our own improvised batard is not half bad. But maybe it could use some more salt.
Our own loaf was excellent, and also a one-and-done because it was made with a bunch of orphan ingredients in small amounts we were trying to use up: kamut flour (7% by weight), white rye flour (13%), a handful of millet, freeze dried blueberries and orange-flavored cranberries from Trader Joe’s. It was a wonderful slice spread with butter, but the Hungry Ghost boule held its own with nothing more than water, flour and salt.
It’s scary to just start adding salt because once you’ve oversalted your bread you can’t go back. But I’m now thinking the acceptable salt level is higher than we thought. Try this: for your next bake, divide your dough in half. Salt one portion as you normally do, then add 50% extra to the second loaf. Let us know what happens and what you think. We’ll do the same experiment here and report back.
