Bread, by Dean Brettschneider

I’ve become obsessed with baking bread. People have asked me whether it is just a phase and it has made me wonder. But I think that it is something that we’ll do forever. The process of kneading, proving, baking, carving, toasting and eating is becoming second nature. And the bread itself is getting more interesting, more consistent and occasionally experimental. When we go away on holiday I take the starter with me so long as we aren’t flying. And when we do fly, I just hope it survives the break in the fridge.

My regular loaf is a rye loaf mixed with strong white flour with a handful of pumpkin seeds and occasionally some caraway. It’s really easy and the fact that it is quite rye heavy makes it quite easy to prove and bake. It’s a little stalwart. It’s neat and reliable. And it toasts beautifully. I just use Dan Lepard’s Rye and Barley recipe from his Handmade Loaf book (250g starter, 300g strong white flour, 200g rye flour, 300g water).

So when I got an email asking if I’d like to review a bread baking book I was rather excited. Bread by Dean Brettschneider, published by Jacqui Small is a very attractive book. The photography is stunning in a way that many baking books are not. And the instructions from Dean Brettschneider are very clear and authoritative. Although they differ at times from what I’ve learned from Dan Lepard, they give you confidence that you are doing things right.

The first loaf that jumped out of me from Brettschneider’s book was his Dark German Rye Loaf. One glimpse of this Onyx loaf took me straight back to our communal breakfasts in Sweden where we would slather sweet mustard on black rye bread with a slice of Vasterbotten cheese and some smoked ham.

These dark breads, for me, are doughy nirvana. They go deep where our English white sliced barely scratches the surface. They are the polar opposite of baguette and speak to a completely different world view. A philosophy of perseverance; resilience; slowness; hard graft; depth; gnarly character; and satisfaction.

I followed the recipe to the letter and was rewarded with the best loaf I have baked to date. It is fabulous fresh or even better toasted with marmalade, smoked mackerel pate, slices of hard cheese or, heroically a slice of salted butter to contrast against the darkness.

His trick is to soak rye flakes and sunflower seeds in hot water separately from the dough mixture. And to add cocoa to rye sourdough dough mixture which is surprisingly heavy on strong white flower. Grate in some carrot. Add some malt extract, some salt and some more water and then combine after a few hours of proving. It works like a treat. Just make sure you allow it to cool properly before giving in to carving it. This will allow the dough to 'set' and not tear when you carve it.

I’ve since experimented with replacing the warm water that the grains are soaked in with coffee which has led to even darker breads with even more flavour. If you do go down the coffee route, you need to add a bit of extra malt extract or honey to counteract the bitterness. And Edwin inspired replacing the rye flakes with Dorset Cereal Muesli which worked very well too. The raisins and nuts made it a great breakfast loaf.

Dean’s white sourdough loaf recipe is also a corker. Where I’d previously struggled with my dough sticking to the bannetons and less airiness that I’d hope for, Dean’s recipe has yielded nothing but fluffy, loaves with big bubbles and lots of flavour. One of his best tips is to make sure your starter has been greedily fed 8 hours before baking. I've found this has turbo charged my loaves.

If you are serious about baking bread, I can recommend Bread, by Dean Brettschneider wholeheartedly.

Sourdough Virginity

I’ve been boring the noble people of Instagram for the last two months with highly sexed up pictures of bread that I’ve reared from hand, fresh out of the oven. The early ones were erratic and rustic, with the occasional scorched bottom and dense crumb. Some have been a funny green colour from courgette juice. And others an alarming shade of maroon from beetroot juice. Slowly but surely these sourdough loaves have improved. The crumb lighter. The crust crisper and chewier. And the most recent loaves have even got smart concentric circles on them from the bannetone which I’ve been misusing for the last month! But they have all been delicious. And even the burnt ones have been tastier than anything you’d normally buy from a shop.

It’s safe to say that I’ve become hooked on baking sourdough bread. It might well be sign of a quarter life crisis. But actually it’s been a very therapeutic experience. Most things in modern life involve instant gratification – photos get instantaneous likes and comments on Instagram; emails get responded to promptly; Snapchat messages only last seconds. Whereas making bread from scratch with a sourdough starter is soulful and takes pretty much a whole day of respect and careful attention. Haste, rush, speed and hurry simply aren’t possible when making bread. Baking is a miraculous balm to modern life’s sting.

It all started with a terrible loaf of bread that I made during a short trip to Whitstable made with fast action yeast and not very much skill. It bubbled away and ossified into a loaf with the texture and density of depleted uranium that had been compressed by the weight of an ice age. An airy, light, bouncy loaf it was not.

Irked and inspired in equal measure I decided to try to make my own starter. It seems like a rite of passage for anyone who is a bit of a food nerd. Dan Lepard has been my wingman ever since. Along with a sprinkling of advice from a Guardian article that suggested using rhubarb as part of the initial mix.

All we did was to mix 100g rye flour with 100g water and about 50g of finely sliced rhubarb from the garden. And then we undertook the very arduous task of leaving it for 5 days in a loosely covered jar. I think we may have stirred it on day 4 when it got a bit moldy. But that was it.

Then on day 6 we simply poured half of the acidic smelling gloop away and added 100g rye flour and 100g of water and left it for 6 hours whilst it doubled in size. And then we made our first loaf very simple loaf using Dan Lepard’s method.  The quantities below are for the first small loaf we made, using half measures from Dan Lepard’s Barley and Rye Loaf in the Handmade Loaf, which has become my baking bible. These ratios seem to work for all manner of loaves.

Mix together 125g starter, 250g flour, 150g water and a teaspoon of salt. Leave to autolyse for 10 minutes. Then knead for 20 seconds using sunflower oil to stop it sticking to your hands and work surfaces. Then leave it. Half an hour later knead it again. And then leave it for an hour. Then knead it again and leave it to prove on a baking tray with some oiled clingfirm on top.



Once it has doubled in size sprinkle with flour, shape it, slash the top with a bread knife and bake in a preheated oven with a roasting pan of water in the bottom to generate steam at 200 degrees C for 40 minutes. When golden and with a crisp bottom remove nad allow to cool on a wire wrack. Give into temptation and slice. Smear on butter and marvel at your first loaf. I swear nothing has ever, or will ever taste as good as your first mouthful of your own sourdough loaf.

Since that virgin loaf I’ve advanced the technique. Now the loaf is proved in a banettone (wicker basket), which is my new favourite word. However, only last week did I realise that the muslin cloth it comes with is designed to act as a hat not a lining! Whoops. The bread as a result now has lovely concentric circles of crusty semolina flour as decoration, rather than looking like it’s slept on a rather course pillow.

We’ve also got the hang of preheating the oven enough and even found a slab of marble in the garden that is the perfect size for the oven. It now acts as our baking stone. I’m convinced the people who used to live in our house must have had it cut to size because it fits like Cinderella’s shoe. The marble slab takes longer to heat up, but it is giving the loaves more bounce and a better rise, but without burning the bottom.

We’ve also got more confident at playing around with ingredients. We’ve discovered via some vegetable experimentation that you can substitute the water in a bread recipe for vegetable juice. So we’ve been juicing our glut of beetroot, chard and courgettes as the means of hydration for the bread. You can also add some of the pulp to the dough, balanced out with a bit more flour to get the right moisture ratios. The results of this have been great.

The bread takes on a great colour and flavor in the case of beetroot and really helps to keep the otherwise quite dense rye loaves very moist and lively.  I always like anise flavours with beetroot, so caraway and fennel seeds are a perfect match. It’s great with salted butter on it’s own. Amazing with marmite. And is a revelation with smoked mackerel pate.

The courgette juice and pulp loaves blend in nicely and just give a hint of background sweetness and a very pleasant moistness to the crumb. Mixed through with pumpkin seeds it makes for a fantastic loaf. The colour is less vivid than the beetroot, but it still makes for a fine looking loaf that’s got plenty of character. Subtle.

I’ve also started adding in the salt during the second knead. It seems to be working well. But, it has meant that I’ve made a couple of saltless loaves which have been irritating, but still tasty.

This baking journey has only been going for 2 months. But I’m hooked. And really hope I’m still doing it with the same starter in 2 decades time. I’m determined to make a super light white loaf with enormous holes and to master the dark arts of German pumpernickel with it’s treacle like demeanour. And I’m also keen to perfect some gluten free loaves for my new colleagues at work. If you’ve got any sourdough suggestions to try out, please let me know.