Martadella's blog

I have to stop eating gluten for a while, so why not to learn how to bake stuff without it.

My no recipe approach does not work anymore. I produced a hideous monster of a loaf ans it is going to enrich my compost pile today. I thought: it cannot be any more complicated than a rye bread. Well, it can.

Anyway, I found this beautiful recipe on YouTube and this bread is just lovely.  The dough was very pleasant to work with and the result actually exceeded my expectations.  Slices great, makes a lovely toast. 

https://youtu.be/2qumv7WtK9A?si=jon_oXl9hyf5QyUn

Very successful and as simple as it gets.

Preferment: 2 cups wholegrain rye flour,  2 heaping tablespoons of rye starter from the fridge,  enough water to make a soft dough.  Place in lukewarm spot for a couple of hours, then move to a cooler place fir the rest if the fermentation (total of 18-24 hours) 

Final dough: whole amount of the preferment,  4 generous cups of wholegrain rye flour,  golden flax seeds (I shook them straight from the bag), salt to taste (about a tablespoon) enough warm (not hot!) water to obtain a soft but cohesive dough. Mix everything by hand,  let rest in the bowl for 20-30 minutes then move into the prepared loaf pan.  Proof, covered, in a lukewarm spot until it crowns over the rim of the pan. Paint with leftover thinned dough, dock with a chopstick,  bake in preheated oven without steam 15 min at 475, 15 at 425 and 15 at 400 ir until done. After 30 minutes of baking paint the surface again and sprinkle with lots of flaxseeds. 

Improvised sandwich loaf. Wholegrain rye flour, potatoes from last night, soaked stale bread from last week and nice lively rye preferment. Plus lots of roasted sunflower seeds. Delicious

Honing my improvisation skills! No measurements on that one, not even by volume. Mostly rye, some whole wheat in final dough 

First stiff rye preferment, after that soft one. Rye scald with chocolate barley malt, then acidification of the scald. Opara, final dough, bulk ferment (speedy, only 40 minutes) and final proof, which should last longer, but I didn't have time; that's why the loaf cracked.

Delicious 😋😋😋

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I used 500g rye berries for this bread. I milled them in a hand burr mill on a very coarse setting. I remilled half of them on a relatively fine setting. Use all that alongside 500 g warm water, about 300 g 100% hydration rye preferment, salt and coriander to make a dough. 

Good taste and lovely texture. Coarse rye flour makes great crumb.

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This was made out of whole unroasted buckwheat groats, soaked and inoculated with a pinch of rye starter. Fermentation was fast and extremely vigorous. Buckwheat groats are quick to fermented on their own,  but they develop really bad stink in the process. With the help of the mature rye starter they smelled really rather nice. 

Fermented groats were blended into dough. I added some coriander and caraway, and, obviously,  salt.

The mixture was poured into prepared pan. Final proof was a little too short and resulted in cracks on the surface,  but it was late and I wanted to bake and go to sleep. 

The texture of this bread is really nice, with a feel of "melt in your mouth". Taste is  very good, mild and pleasantly acidic, with notes of of spices that were used in the process. The taste of buckwheat is present, but not not overpowering. 

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Soaker:

1 cup Bob's Red Mill 7 grain cereal

1 cup coarsely ground rye berries 

½ cup whole grain coarse corn meal 

2 cups raw unsalted pumpkin seeds

½ cup golden flaxseed 

Lukewarm water to cover the seeds and grains

1 heaped tablespoon of rye starter

Mix everything together,  add more water if necessary, cover and let stand overnight in a place that's not too cold

Dough:

2 cups of wholegrain rye flour 

2 cups of wholegrain wheat flour 

2 ½ cups water 

2 heaped tablespoons of rye starter

Mix together,  cover, place in lukewarm place (oven with the lightbulb on) and ket ferment overnight 

In the morning mix the dough and the soaker together, add 3½ teaspoons if salt, 4 tablespoons molasses or dark syrup, adjust amount  of water (I like this dough to be really loose, but it's not necessary) 

Let the dough rest for 30‐45 minutes in the bowl. Then spoon it into prepared pan or pans. I used two IKEA aluminum loaf pans for this amount of dough. Brush surface with water. Let proof until the dough reaches the edge of the pan and shows some broken bubbles on the surface. Bake 10 minutes at 490, then 20 at 475, 30 at 390. Take out of the form, put back in the oven, lower the temp to 365 and bake additional 15 minutes or until done

Recipe adapted from the True North Kitchen website

https://true-north-kitchen.com/easy-overnight-danish-rye-rugbrod/

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For this one I actually always follow the recipe and even use the scale 🙂

https://www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/focaccia-fugassa-alla-genovese-genoa-style-focaccia.html

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100% whole wheat with rye starter using Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour 

This is a simple sandwich bread that can be done in one day. The texture is moist, but not gummy

Night before, feed your rye starter (mine is around 100% but it doesn't have to be precise) 

500g flour

500g warm tap water

Mix together with your fingers until lumpy. Let stand 10-15 minutes

Add 100g of starter and work it in with your fingers. Let stand another 15 minutes

Add 15g of salt, pinch in with your fingers

Work the dough gently just by pinching the edge with your fingertips, pulling it up and folding it back on top, all around the bowl, until the dough has lost most of its lumpiness. You may repeat this procedure 1-3 times and add a little stretch and fold if you feel like it 

Wait until you see the dough starts visibly expanding, doesn't have to double, it's enough when it goes up just some

Make one more very gentle strech and fold and slowly slide the dough into your prepared baking form. Now form a nice loaf by pulling the opposite edges of dough and kind of stitching them together on top, similar to stitching the batard dough in banneton 

Cover and let fully proof. It can be done at room temperature (I had to retard it 2 hours in the fridge because I was going to church)

To be honest, I don't know how to say whether or not it is fully proofed, especially that this is really a very wet dough. I just try to guess it 🙂

Preheat the oven to 500, put the pan in, immediately lower the temp to 450, bake 20 min, then 20 min at 425, then 10 min at 375 (this, however,  is an estimation, as all ovens  are different) 

I like to brush with cold water 10 minutes before the end of baking. This makes shiny, chewy crust. For soft crust, butter the top right after taking out from the oven

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This is a sourdough bread made with chakki atta whole wheat flour from costco. What a nice tasting delicious bread 😋

I used my standard grandma style procedure 🙂

Evening:

2 cups rye flour 

2 tablespoons rye starter from the fridge 

Enough lukewarm water to made a relatively stiff ball of dough 

Let ferment overnight,  until you are ready to make dough 

Next day:

All preferment minus a small ball of it (goes back to the starter jar)

4 cups atta flour 

1 tbsp of salt

Enough water to make a very soft dough 

This dough will behave like it doesn't have any gluten structure in it, but that's ok. Mix by hand until everything is moistened. Try to form a nice smooth ball of dough, I used a silicone spatula for that. 

I put the bowl outside in the shade for bulk proof, it was 79°F, so it went really fast, 75 minutes or so.

Then I plopped the dough in romertopf lined with parchment (this is a sloppy task, as the dough is extremely soft and sticky) 

I only allowed a short (30 min) final proof and then backed in my bbq grill. I started from cold, set the 4 burners on low, let it go for 30 minutes then opened the lid to check how is it going. Turned the heat up a little, let it bake 20 more minutes,  turned the 2 burners directly under the pot off, uncovered the lid and let bake 15 more minutes or so. 

Anyway, when baking on the grill, you have to figure it out yourself and observe your bread very closely. It's easy to burn things!

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I really like the mild, lightly sweet taste of this bread 😋😋😋