Spoiled

Since I’ve been cranking out a fresh baked loaf or two every week, we haven’t really eaten our store-bought bread that we stock pile in the freezer. When we ran out of the good stuff, we pulled out a loaf from the freezer and ate that instead. Except that it tasted off…something didn’t taste right. Even Movie Man noticed it and he rarely notices anything food-wise. I’m not too sure if we can go back to store-bought again. At least the cheap brand name bread we bought. I think we’ll end up shelling out a little bit more for some decent, nice store bought bread. It’s definitely worth it.

We usually buy wholesome whole grain bread, but this whole bread baking kick has me churning out white breads. While there’s no funny ingredients in a home-baked loaf, I feel that the whole grain bread is still healthier. I also had a huge bag of whole wheat “best for bread” flour where I can use more than 1/4 cup. When I walked into the Cook Book Store I spotted Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor. Flipping through the book, I knew it was going to be added to the top of my ever-growing “must get” cookbook list. My bookshelf is getting more crammed (26 cookbooks and I’ve started to collect the free Food & Drink magazine from the LCBO) so I needed to try a recipe first before I took the plunge. I found an adapted recipe of the 100% whole grain loaf. This is the recipe Reinhart wishes you start off with as it gets you familiar with the technique.

The bread rose like crazy when I had the oven on, so its misshapen. Sorry.

I tried the bread and…it was okay. Nothing mind-blowing. It is what it is, a good sandwich bread and I never imagined I would sneak a slice of it in the middle of the day like I would with my other breads. This was when we had decent store-bought whole wheat in our fridge.

But when we had to go back to a cheap brand name bread, we suddenly noticed the difference. Luckily, I now had the Real Deal, the Whole Grain Bread book in my hot hands (Amazon must make a killing in extra sales with people adding more items to their cart to get free shipping) and I was able to try out the original recipe. I even followed the directions exactly and did some hand kneading…something I haven’t done ever since I got my mixer. Truth is, it was a lot of work to make the bread, but when I tasted it, it was AMAZING. It was light and most definitely worth sneaking a slice during midday. I like being lazy, so I’m going to try the adapted recipe again, but use the windowpane test that I learned from in the book. The windowpane test is where you tear off a small piece of dough and when stretched it doesn’t fall apart, but is thin and transparent. You can see the windowpane test in action here. I had to knead the dough for an extra 10 minutes, but I’m sure it’s because I have puny arms.

I’m eager to try out the other recipes in the book. Quite a few require a mother starter, which I’m finally willing to try…but after I first make my sourdough starter. I think I’m finally ready to take the plunge into the sourdough world!