WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR BREAD

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Article and pictures by Cinzia Valtorta

If you want to use whole wheat flour it’s better to prepare a sourdough. You need g. 100 white flour (better if Manitoba), half a glass of lukewarm water, a little of yeast (if you add dry brewer’s yeast, use quantity as the tip of a tea-spoon). Mix the ingredients in a bowl, the dough has to be soft and dry, so you should pay attention when you’ll add some more flour or water. Cover the bowl with a film and leave to rise out of fridge, for 8 or 12 hours.

Before adding the sourdough to the rest of the ingredients, soften it with some lukewarm water. Add then g. 300 whole wheat flour, g. 200 white flour Manitoba, a tea spoon of brewer’s yeast, if it is dry, no more than 20 g. if it is fresh (note that you need g.25 of dry brewer’s yeast for g. 500 of flour). Add cl. 20/25 of lukewarm water, (use only a glass of water, at the beginning, you have to start kneading before adding all the rest of the water), 2 tea spoons of sugar cane or half a spoon of honey, 4 spoons of olive oil, g. 8/10 of salt.

If you like dry fruit you can add g. 70 to your dough. But add n. 3 spoons olive oil only in behalf of 4

Knead the ingredients, add water if necessary, dough has not to be too dry or too wet, knead it for a long time, 10 minutes at least, flour often your hands. When you get a soft and dry dough, you’ll leave it to rise, in the turned off 50° oven. As the dough has doubled its volume , knead it for a while again and form some bread of g. 70/100 or a loaf. Leave bread to rise for a hour again.

Preheat oven to 200° and put in a pot of boiling water before, so you can create some steam inside. Steam can soften better your bread. Cook bread for 35 minutes.

Leave it to cool on a grill. As you take it off from the oven, live cultures of yeast, off from intense heat, start to live again, they create pockets of air that soften bread and make it taste better.