Bread Baking Babes go Granary

This month a new invite to bake with the BBBabes. Our kitchen of the month is the delightful Tanna ("My kitchen in half cups") who invites us to the sandbox to play around with Granary Bread. Granary is a brand bread flour by Hovis from the UK. I baked with that specific brand a few years back and I remember I really love the taste of it. There is no way of getting this brand here, so if you can't get hold of it, feel free to play around to make something similar with the ingredients you can get a hold of. That was the mission this month. 
Here in the Netherlands I can buy malt flour (either whitish or very dark brown) to add to flour in very small quantities, but that's it, no malted flakes. So what to do. I didn't really wanted to order the Hovis Granary flour, because I already baked with it once and even maked different breads with it too. So I searched for malted wheat flakes, I couldn't find them here, but there was an online shop ("Bakery bits") that sold them in the UK. As there were a lot of other nice things to buy there (like nut-brown or red-brown malt flour, fior di Sicilia essence, bread pans, ecc, ecc) I bought several things there and got them shipped over.
I also bought two organic granary flour blends from different mills to try. They both contained white wheat flour, malt flour (a lighter brown coloured one probably) and malted wheat flakes. The blend from Stoate & Sons also containes some rye flour. 

Granary-style rolls (flourblend Stoate/Sons)

I made some rolls with both of these blends and they had a tight crumb, hardly any difference in colour or taste. And I also loved the taste a lot, as expected. Now it was time for my personal playtime. I changed the flour blend, added malted wheat flakes, barley malt syrup and nut brown malt flour. The bread was good, but had a very sticky crumb, hard to slice and the sides of the loaf caved in. As the flour blend should be right (frome experience), it probably had something to do with the amount of malted ingredients. After a little search on the net, I found that too much malt indeed makes a sticky crumb. So I had to change that for starters. 

And this time I got a beautiful loaf, good crumb, lovely flavour and fragrance. I really love this style bread , thanks for letting me play in your sandbox Tanna! And now I have some delicious baking ingredients to play some more after school. As the ingredients for this bread are not available here in the Netherlands, I won't give a translation in Dutch I normally would try to do, because it might be a bit costly to ship the ingredients in. But anyone who want to get to know the granary bread taste, give it a go, try to find as many ingredients as you can (something malted is a must to get an idea of this bread) and bake along with us. 

Become our Bread Baking Buddy, mix, bake, photograph, write ecc about your granary-style loaf adventure and send your details to the Kitchen of the month (that's Tanna this month ) In order to receive a BBBuddy Badge and appear in her round-up post at the end of this month you MUST e-mail her at comments my kitchen at mac dot com – you know no spaces and the @ sign – AND use BBB or SandBox on the subject line. Deadline 29th of March.

Granary-Style Loaf

Yield: 2 loaves

(PRINT recipe)

540 g lukewarm water

20 g barley malt syrup

115 g malted wheat flakes

10 g (nut brown) malt flour

350 g whole wheat flour

70 g whole rye flour

30 g whole barley flour

2 tsp instant yeast

2 Tbsp olive oil

15 g salt

420 – 500 g white bread flour

(optional wheat or barley flakes for topping)

Pour the water into a mixing bowl. Stir in the barley malt, wheat flakes and whole wheat, whole rye and barley flour. Mix in the yeast, and allow this sponge to work for 15 to 20 minutes.

Stir in the oil, salt, and about 300 g of the bread flour. Add flour slowly until you have a shaggy mass hat begins to hold together and pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured or lightly greased work surface, and knead until it's cohesive. Give it a rest while you clean out and lightly oil your bowl. Continue kneading for several minutes, adding only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to you or the work surface. (You can also knead the bread in your standmixer with the dough hook attached for about 10 minutes)

Shape the dough into a ball and return the dough to a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat all sides, cover the bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap, and let the dough rise until it's doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. Gently deflate the dough, cut it in half, and shape each half into a log. Press the top in the flakes (optional). Place the logs in two lightly greased bread pans (22 cm). Allow the loaves to rise, covered, until they're about three-quarters of the way to doubled.

Bake the bread in a preheated (200ºC) oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf registers 96º C. Remove the bread from the oven, remove it from the pans, and transfer it to a wire rack to cool.

(adapted from the Granary style loaf recipe by King Arthur Flour)

Kouign Amann Buddies - Round Up

These Kouign Amann were really delicious weren't they?! The buttery, sugar crusted layered lovelies from Brittany. I don't think there was anyone who didn't like them. And all of them turned out beautiful as well.

Five Bread Baking Buddies sent in their bakes and take a look at those pictures: beautiful. I'm getting a craving for them just by looking at these pictures.

Thanks all Bread Baking Buddies for sending in your entries, I'm glad you enjoyed making, baking, sharing and eating them with us

• Carola ("Sweet and that's it") made these, love the suger on top. and check her blog for her tip how to make the butter block the right size using a ziplock bag.

• Kelly from "A messy kitchen" proofed that the use of spelt flour also makes wonderful Kouign amanns. She also lined her muffin tin with sugar and salt, I think that's just a great idea to remember next time I make these.

• Judy ("Judy's gross eats") was able to bake the recipe just before she moved house. As several people were saying, these pastries were also on her to-bake-list for a while too. Hers had beautiful layering and a little chocolate too.

• Sandie from "Crumbs of love" also made little ones in a mini muffin tin for Portion control sake, that didn't work btw. Here another great tip to make a butter blok, line a 6" (15 x 15 cm) tin with plastic and push the butter in it in a flat layer. Great tip.

• Karen ("Karen's kitchen stories") chilled the dough overnight in the fridge, so she could eat them for breakfast, now that's a great reason to get out of bed! And her pastries look fantastic caramelised on top and bottom.