We usually take about a week to get through our loaves. But last week’s loaf was moldy on Friday morning. So Friday evening, I mixed up the dough for a Saturday morning bake on Friday. To avoid overproofing, I threw in a couple extra grams of salt as well as put the dough in the garage.
300g all purpose flour (King Arthur)
100g whole wheat flour
300g water
100g starter
13g salt
60g chia seeds, soaked in 90g water
60g flaxseed meal, soaked in 90g water
It turns out I overdid it. The dough was not ready for bake when I first woke up in the morning. In fact, I ended up throwing it in the proof function of the oven for a couple hours before starting the bake.
For giggles, I tried a different pattern for the cuts on top, four snips for a square and one in the middle for the 5th. I think I’m going to try a pentagon or a star shape next time. Maybe at some point I’ll just have to get over the silly asian superstition about the number four and just live with a simple square.
The flavor at 25% whole wheat is quite good. I’m realizing it was a mistake to stop putting whole wheat in the bread earlier this year. I always felt a little mental pressure to use up whole wheat the oils that may go rancid, and I just didn’t want to deal with it after I used up the last bag. But there was a little extra complexity in the flavor this week that I realized had been missing for quite some time.
Being Saturday morning, we went ahead and cut into the loaf fresh out of the oven for breakfast. Between going lower on the water for the flaxseed meal, and the early cut, I’m going back to leaving the lid of the dutch oven ajar. Hopefully we’ll eat our way through this one before the spores come.
