I love whole grain bread. Since always. When I was a child there was white bread at home, but not everyday. The bread that never missed was the whole grain bread.
I tried many recipes. Some good, others not so good. The whole grain is more difficult to knead and, even the one you buy from the baker has a lot of refined flour in it, just because it would be too hard to knead otherwise.
This fact really makes me curious about this whole grain bread I found in David Lebovitz‘s great blog. It is an Irish recipe and is prepared with 90% of whole wheat flour and…it is soft and delicious.
I made a few changes, as I don’t find melassa here. I prepared a quick caramel using 1 Tbsp of brown sugar and 2 Tbsp of water. This bread pleases all my family and lasts for some days out of the fridge. I love to toast it before eating by itself or with fruit jam for breakfast.
I admit that the first thing that called my attention was that it is an Irish bread. I visited Dublin last year and loved the city, loved Ireland and loved Irish people. It is a place I really want to know better.
Let’s begin eating their bread ;-D.
This whole grain bread is so easy to prepare and it is ready in little time, as you don’t need to knead nor wait hours for leavening. It seems like magic for me, especially because of the whole wheat flour percentage on it.
- 400 g /3½ cups whole-wheat flour
- 50 g /1/2 cup white flour
- 1 Tsp salt
- 150 ml / ½ cup, plus 275ml /1½ cups warm water – 425ml// 2 cups total
- 1 Tbsp homemade molasse (1 Tbsp brown sugar + 2 Tbsp water boil until becomes caramel)
- 30 g fresh baker’s yeast
- Mix flours and salt.
- Put 1 Tbsp of brown sugar in a small pan, together with 2 Tbsp of water. Turn on the gas and let the sugar melt becoming caramel. Turn off the gas. Add ½ cup of water (150 ml) and crumble in the yeast, stirring a bit. Let it rest for about 10 minutes.
- Add the yeast mixture plus the remaining water ( 1½ cups/ 275 ml) to the flour and stir until a batter is formed (sticky). Let it rest 10 minutes.
- Spray a loaf pan (25/27 cm) with cooking spray and add a sheet of parchment paper (it will help to take the bread out of the pan); pour the batter into it and level it with a spatula. Let it rest 20 to 30 minutes.
- Turn on the oven to 230°C/450°F.
- When the oven reaches the temperature, bake the bread for 20 minutes, then take it out of the pan, helping yourself with the parchment paper and bake it upside down, directly on the oven rack, at a lower temperature (200°C/400°F) for 15 minutes more.
- Let it cool on a rack.
- Buon appetito!
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