October 7, 2023 - 7:29am
Looking for suggestions. Reinhart's Whole grain breads
Hello, friends.
I am in search of my still MIA copy of The Rye Baker. Meanwhile, I found Whole grain breads. I am looking for suggestions from this volume for my next bake. My bride & I are not big fans of a lot of included seeds. Thanks for your input. Photo is strictly for attention
King regards,
Will F.
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Hi Will. Given your predilection, I’d suggest the Anadama but with a white whole wheat rather than a coarse whole wheat flour. That book is my least favorite of all Reinhart books and basically wastes shelf space in my library.
I think this is the first time I more that barely opened this book. Smile...
Will, thanks for reminding us about this book! Just what I needed today, : )
Peter Reinhart has some amazing bread recipes in all of his books. I noticed that he places the best first (his star achievements), and then follows with variety breads. But they have to be mastered, sometimes requiring more than one test bake if not more to catch his drift and reach the same level of awesomeness as his Gold Medal world-famous breads.
So, for your first whole grain bake to enjoy I would think that his Master Bread on page 78 is a must bake, if you wish to create a wholegrain sourdough biga from scratch or already have one.
Otherwise, his 100% whole wheat sandwich bread on page 95 is the first to open the section 'Breads' in his book. Its biga is instant yeast based which is more approachable for the first time bakers of breads from his books.
His Brother Juniper's Struan bread which made him and his bakery famous years ago is very multigrain, so I haven't baked it myself after having tried it once, but it is the kind of bread to try at least once, just to understand what's that about. Its whole wheat version is #3 on his list of Breads, page 102. There is an easier and whiter original version for the ultimate toasting bread, it is given by Floyd here. He worked in Peter's bakery for some time and shows what to aim at.
It makes sense to start with the master formula. Learning all of these techniques, that I should have mastered much earlier. If I had opened this and other books that I own it would have been beneficial to my growth as a home baker. Instead, I searched out formulas and literally just winged it. While, the pan de Cristal was just another formula, learning to deal with high hydration was a beneficial exercise. I want to dive into these techniques further. However, one thing at a time. Now that I have the time to concentrate, I want to learn much more. Less bravado & more listening, reading , and learning. I know I have said this before, hopefully I can muster the patience to make it happen. As always, I will post my results and brag on the mediocre results! Lol. "This bird can not change." Can you place the quote? Hint contemporary rock and roll.