I really have been remiss in posting my bread experiments from last year! So to continue the story, I take up where I left off: the next bread I baked in April. I tackled a complicated bread and took so many different pictures that I figure it rates its own entry. 😀
I have been baking pretty steadily, and really getting into bread baking. It’s still something I enjoy doing, and the process is getting quite familiar and comforting. It’s still an adventure to see whether the bread will rise or not, or if it will have the texture I want.
In fact, I’ve even branched out to combining a bit of gardening with baking bread.
This bread is called Sprouted Wheat Bread. It’s a whole wheat flour dough that is enhanced by adding sprouted wheat berries into the mix. You start off 3 days prior to baking day, growing the wheat.
Yes, you heard me. Growing it. Hence the gardening aspect of this bread. Here are the ingredients:
[[image:bread111.jpg:Water, Jar, Wheat berries:center:0]]
[[image:bread112.jpg:Close up of wheat berries:center:0]]
Rinse the wheat berries with warm water, empty out the water, cover the mouth of the jar with cheesecloth and put the jar in a dark place. I placed it in a cupboard.
[[image:bread113.jpg:Rinsed wheat berries:center:0]]
[[image:bread114.jpg:Beginning to grow:center:0]]
[[image:bread115.jpg:12 hours later:center:0]]
[[image:bread116.jpg:Even more sprouting:center:0]]
[[image:bread117.jpg:Day 2 of sproutage:center:0]]
[[image:bread118.jpg:Day 3 of sproutage:center:0]]
Thank God Vin was around to remind me to water the berries twice a day. I am so not a gardener. Call me black thumbed. It would be a true statement. Sadly, I realized that I would get more surface area by putting the jar on its side only on the night of Day 2 of sprouting. Crazy, huh? The sprouts grew better that way, instead of piled on top of each other the way I originally had the jar. Too bad I didn’t figure it out earlier – the sprouts might have sprouted better.
Begin the dough mixture, and add the sprouted wheat to the mixture:
[[image:bread119.jpg:Sprouted wheat in the dough:center:0]]
[[image:bread120.jpg:Mixing it up:center:0]]
After the first rising, punch down the dough, form into a loaf and place in a loaf pan:
[[image:bread121.jpg:Dough in loaf pan:center:0]]
[[image:bread122.jpg:Wheat berry is visible in the dough:center:0]]
After the bread is baked:
[[image:bread123.jpg:Sprouted Wheat Bread, baked:center:0]]
[[image:bread124.jpg:Sprouted Wheat Bread, out of the pan:center:0]]
Of course, some of my favorite shots, the bread is sliced:
[[image:bread125.jpg:Sliced sprouted wheat bread:center:0]]
[[image:bread126.jpg:Close up:center:0]]
[[image:bread127.jpg:Scrutinizing the texture and looking for wheat berries:center:0]]
The bread tasted quite good – Vin was a big fan of it. It was very wheaty – you felt healthy when you ate it. Talk about whole grains, right?
But, I was a little disappointed that the sprouted wheat itself disappeared into the dough. You could barely see the wheat berries once the bread was baked. Believe me, I looked very closely at the slices, hoping to find it standing out. So I vowed I would try this bread again, maybe varying the types of flour used just for aesthetics.
Tune in next time for more adventures in bread baking!
