This week, I read an article defending bread against all its current detractors. The claim was fiberless bread is the culprit for all our woes, and it recommended a minimum of 10% fiber relative to carbohydrates. I had already planned on skipping on the dried fruit this week, so I decided to add some whole wheat flour and crank up the flax seed meal and chia seeds, both of which are pretty heavy in fiber.
This morning, I still hadn’t gotten around to getting whole wheat flour so I started with a regular loaf and went heavy on the additives, but my wife went on a grocery run and picked some up, hence the odd 450g of flour this week. We also used up the last of our Arrowhead flour which is pretty thirsty, so I dropped the water ratio a little bit until I added the whole wheat which always soaks up a bit of water. According to my breadsheet, this gets me to 12.4% fiber.
400g all purpose flour (primarily King Arthur this time)
50g whole wheat flour
330g water
100g starter (the usual 50/50 mix)
10g salt
60g chia seeds, soaked in 90g water
60g flaxseed meal, soaked in 120g water
The mix and shape went well with the new SOP’s and the bread came out great. It’s a little flat as usual, but I suspect I need to get a larger dutch oven if I want it to rise a little more. You can see the flecks of whole wheat but at 10% its doesn’t affect the flavor or texture at all. I think the flaxseed is very, very oily which is why the crust is more akin to one of my enriched breads, but that’s just fine. As for the whole wheat I’m thinking about trying to get the ratio crazy high, but to do it in 10% increments so that when my wife says enough, I’ll know to stop. Next week will definitely be 20%.
