The Imperfect Loaf

• 350g Redbournbury 85% wholemeal flour
• 350g Mulino Marino organic type 00 soffiata strong white flour
• 476g + 50g water – 75% hydration
• 14g salt
• 7g yeast
• 3g diastatic malt powder
• Autolyse 30 min. for the wholemeal flour

This was an experiment in several ways. To start with, I found myself with 5 kg of type 00 flour, which was included as a lagniappe when I bought my Ankarsrum mixer from BakeryBits. I don’t use this flour: it’s mainly for pizza and pasta, which I don’t make (though I plan to start making pasta in the future). It is high in protein – 14% – so I wanted to try it in combination with a wholemeal flour. The Redbournbury 85% removes some of the bran and is stoneground, so it’s a hearty flour. 

The second experiment was using diastatic malt powder, which increases oven spring. I wasn’t sure how this would work with any type of dough, let alone one with this combination of flours. You use a very small amount of this, and I decided to go for 3g, or about 0.43% of my total flour. 

Since the type 00 flour is very fine, I autolysed only the Redbournbury flour. I did this for 30 minutes, then added the type 00 flour, yeast, and diastatic malt powder. I planned to add the salt a few minutes later during the mix, but when I turned on the Ankarsrum, the dough was so dense that I had to add more water: the Redbournbury flour is very thirsty. I decided to dissolve my salt in 30g water and add that. That wasn’t enough, so I added another 20g of water a couple of minutes later. It was a long process to get the dough moving, and I probably mixed it for 15 minutes altogether, and much of that was cutting the dough with a scraper to get it to move around the dough hook.

When I took the dough out of the Ankarsrum, it was still dense and not very stretchy. I did a few folds, then put it in a container for bulk fermentation. My kitchen was 23º, so I set my timer for 45 minutes. At this point, my expectations were low. 
After bulk fermentation, the dough was stretchy and started to smell like bread. I gave it a couple of folds and then put it into my pan to rise. After 40 minutes, the in-pan rise was similar to other part-wholemeal doughs, and I put it in the oven for 25 minutes with the cloche top on and 20 minutes off. 

After it finished baking, I took it outside on my patio to cool. Shortly after, the doorbell rang, and I walked around to the front of the house. The postman was there to drop off a package. I mentioned that I was outside letting my bread cool, and asked if he wanted to take a look; we had talked about bread in the past. He saw the loaf and said, “Well, it looks like you’ve done this before.”

As loaves go, this is not one to be especially proud of. It’s almost as dense as an all-wholemeal loaf; there’s not much oven spring, and the crumb is quite compact. I don’t think the diastatic malt powder had much effect, perhaps because of the 85% wholemeal flour. Nevertheless, it tastes very good.