I used to like bread when I was young and then on to being a bachelor, when bread could do for breakfast. But becuase of the negatives of white bread on health, we migrated to whole wheat bread in the house, after my marriage.
I am not a seasoned cook, but I like expermenting around with recpies.Recently we have been reading on the additives that are found in common sliced bread found in supermarkets. However, we need bread for sandwiches to take to work. My first attempt on bread was somewhat of a failure, with the result being a dense low height log. This led me on my search to find a good receipe and it let me to this recipe in particular - http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-basic-whole-wheat-sandwich-bread-co...
This time the attempt was a bit dense, but everyone in the house loved the loaf. That gave me more reasons to experiment and a friend of mine was into sourdough. I though why not?
So one day, I started the work on the starter using the "joyofbaking" website page on starters as a guide. I mixed 200g water with 100g Bread flour + 100g Wholewheat flour. By the 5th day the starter was rising up and down for a couple of days. I took out 100g of the starter and mixed it with 50g water and 50g Flour. In an hour after refresh, it had tripled. Using the earlier recipe as a guide, I added one cup of warm water, to this I added a bit of yeast (just 1/2 tsp - to be safe and quicker), added 1/4 cup honey, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, 1 cup milk and both flours (equally) and ended up the the excellent loaf. I have not kneaded, but rather used my hands to do the stretch and fold. So far I have done four and they have all been good.
The loaf you see in the photo has hydration @ 50% (4 parts flour to 2 parts water, not counting the starter). It's quite good with none of the sourness (maybe because of the honey) and seems great for sandwiches.
The mother starter (on the 7th day) is now in the refrigerator. Eventually I plan on making a boule rustic bread found in the "wildyeast" website without any yeast help.
I'll post that when I get to that. It's been a very encouraging so far. I have not thrown much of my starter and have given some to friends and shown them the techinque I used.
Cheers & So long!
Replies
Great post first timer!! Nice loaf ill have to check it out! I recently was rummaging through my fridge and remembered that I purchased yeast. Now admittedly I have not baked with yeast more than 2 times since I started making Sourdough but I thought what if... So I mixed my "normal bread" and added just a pinch of the 'who knows how many weeks old" safe yeast. The guys at work who I bring bread to tagged it as "elite" bread. So although I feel guilty when making a hybrid bread, I will have to give your recipe a try it sounds like it might just be "Elite."
Glad you liked the post my friend :)