85% Baked

Following on from “Another Fine Mesh” and “Crossed Wires“, let’s go the whole hog and bake with the stuff.

As I said, my blend of preference is 85% Extraction, that is sifted flour with 15% bran added. To be honest, I don’t know if this is the correct use of the phrase “85% Extraction” but that’s what I’m baking with.

This is a sort of a home-milled variation of my Classic which is half-and-half Bread Flour and Wholemeal. The formula becomes:
85% Extraction Flour – 100%
Water – 62.5%
Starter – 28%
Salt – 1.6%

You’ll notice the unfashionably low hydration and high proportion of starter but then I never was much interested in fashion – Tartine, not to mention YouTube, has passed me by.

Also, I keep my method simple. When I was baking for sale, the rule was, customers collect and collection was 6.00-8.00 in the evening. So my routine was mix the late afternoon before bake day, bulk ferment in the fridge overnight, shape, ambient prove and bake in batches next day, everything wrapped and ready by customer time.

Now I can do totally without the fridge which I prefer. Virtually all my doughs are: hand mix about 10.00 a.m.-ish, four hours bulk ferment with hourly folds (what’s a coil fold, by the way?), shape, 3½ hours in the basket, bake about 5.30 p.m. Which is what I did with this Classic II.

I got to say, this home-milled and blended flour produces the best flavoured bread I’ve ever made. If I was a young man again my little bakery would have its own mill, no question.

But there’s more. Next day I made Raisin Challah using the 85% mix:

(Actually managed to do a reasonable job of shaping a single strand loaf!)

Like my Classic, Raisin Challah uses equal weights of Bread Flour and Wholemeal. So the formula becomes:
85% Extraction Flour – 100%
Water – 18%
Starter – 36.9%
Egg – 31.4%
Olive Oil – 10.1%
Honey – 12%
Salt – 1.5%
Raisins – 50%

Same method more-or-less as above but use your judgement on proving and baking – adding extra time on fermentation and proving. Egg-wash the dough a couple of times and maybe reduce the heat half way through the bake.

The photo says it all for me. Touch of crispness in the crust, soft cakey crumb, sweet, juicy raisins, extra depth of flavour from the flour, totally delicious …