Bread Baking Babes: Girl Power

This month our new Babe Judy ("Judy's gross eats") jumped in the deep at once to fill this month July. And what a wonderful bread she picked for us to bake. I remembered baking it before, when I was a testbaker for the 'Whole grain breads" book by Reinhart. It looked alright then and this time it turned out sort of the same. (so either I haven't learned anything, I was lucky last time or I already was good :) )

This bread looks very intimidating with pre-soaker, soaker ánd a biga over a three-day period, but rest assured: it's not that difficult as it may sounds. These breads with seeds (ground or not) and all whole wheat flour (as we don't have white whole wheat flour in the Netherlands) are always more than welcome here. My husband loves them a lot and the more seeds and grains the better. I do love a white(r) love every once in a while too btw.

So as said I used whole wheat, I had no oat bran, so I just sifted my oat flour until I had 14 grams (so that didn't take long), I used oatmilk and honey as sweetener. The raisins give it a light sweet flavour, which didn't really add much for me. Normally I wouldn't bother grinding up sunflower seeds, I would just throw them in, but here I was a good Babe and followed the recipe. As it was very very warm here during baking this, it overrose a bit and lost it's round top a bit, but it still came out great. Thanks Judy for this pick, healthy bread full of flavour, you did fantastic in this first Kitchen of the Month for you!

You wanna make this bread too? Yes I know you do, it's healthy, delicious and good fun. 
Make the Power Bread and share your experience and photos by emailing Judy a link to your blog or, if you don't have a blog, email her a photo and a brief description.  Send to jahunt22 [at] gmail [dot] com by July 29. She'll sent you a Bread Baking Buddy Badge to add to your post (if you want) and the round up will follow later.

Power bread

(makes 1 loaf)

(PRINT recipe)

Pre-soaker
71 g raisins
14 g flaxseeds (I used broken ones)
170 g water

Mix all pre-soaker ingredients in a small bowl, cover, and let sit at room temp for 8-24 hours

Soaker
All of pre-soaker
170 g whole wheat
14 g oat bran
4 g salt

Puree the pre-soaker in a blender, and mix with the remaining soaker ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir for about a minute, until everything is thoroughly combined and it forms a ball. Cover the bowl and leave at room temp for 12-24 hours (or, refrigerate it for up to 3 days, but let sit at room temp for 2 hours before mixing the final dough). Go ahead and make the biga now.

Biga
170 g whole wheat
1 g instant yeast
142 g milk (buttermilk, yogurt, soy or rice milk) at room temp

Mix all of the biga ingredients together in a large bowl. Wet your hands, and knead for 2 min. Then let it rest for 5 min and knead again for 1 min. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 8 hours to 3 days. Two hours before you're ready to mix the final dough, let the biga sit at room temp for 2 hours.

Final dough
All of soaker (at room temp)
All of biga (at room temp)
56 g sunflower seeds, ground into a flour (you can do that in a coffee/spices grinder)
56 g whole wheat
28 g sesame seeds, whole
4 g salt
7 g instant yeast
21 g honey (or agave nectar or sugar or brown sugar)

Cut the soaker and the biga into 12 pieces each. Grind the sunflower seeds into flour in a blender, food processor, or spice grinder (gently pulse or it will turn into sunflower seed butter, not flour). Mix ground seeds with remaining ingredients, including the soaker and biga pieces. Knead the mixture with wet hands for 2 min, or until everything is thoroughly mixed. Dough should be slightly sticky; if it's very tacky, add more flour; if it's very dry and not sticky, add more water.

If using a stand mixer, put the pre-dough pieces and all of the other ingredients except the extra flour into the mixer with the paddle attachment or dough hook. Mix on slow speed for 1 minute to bring the ingredients together into a ball. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium-low speed, occasionally scraping down the bowl, for 2-3 minutes, until the pre-doughs become cohesive and combined. Add more flour or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky.

Dust your counter (or whatever you're using) with flour, and roll the dough around in it. Knead it for 3-4 min. Let the dough rest for 5 min, and then knead for another minute. At this point your dough should pass the windowpane test. If not, knead more until it can pass the test. Then form your dough into a ball, place it into a lightly oiled bowl, roll it around in the oil, and let it sit covered at room temp for 45-60 min (until it's about 1.5 times its original size).Lightly flour your counter again, and form your dough into either a loaf shape or rolls. Put the loaf-shaped dough into a lightly oiled 8.5" x 4" loaf pan, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let it sit at room temp for 45-60 min (until it's 1.5 times its original size). Or, if making rolls, place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or a silicon mat.

Preheat the oven and a steam pan (an empty metal pan (with some small stones in it) on the bottom oven rack) to 220ºC. Put bread in the oven, pour 1 cup hot water into steam pan, and reduce oven temp to 180ºC. Bake for 20 min. Then remove steam pan, rotate bread 180 degrees, and bake for another 20-30 min, or until loaf or rolls are brown, have an internal temp of at least 96ºC, and have a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom. Remove the bread from the pan and let cool completely (at least 1 hour) before serving.

(adapted from Peter Reinhart - "Whole Grain Breads")

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1. Power Bread by Karen at Karens Kitchen Stories

2. Power Bread by Judy at Judys Gross Eats

3. Power bread by Lien at Notitie van Lien

4. Power of Bread by Cathy at Bread Experience

5. Power Bread by Heather at girlichef

6. Power Bread by Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms

7. Power Bread by Elizabeth at blog from OUR kitchen

8. Power Bread by Tanna at My Kitchen In Half Cups

9. BBB Power Bread Roundup by Katie at Thyme for Cooking