Buckwheat Bread

Source

Adapted from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (and made less healthy :-) )

Taste 4 (out of 5)

Difficulty 1 (out of 5)

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup buckwheat groats (320 cal)

- 1 cup buckwheat flour (560 cal)

- 1 cup dark rye flour (415 cal)

- 5 cups unbleached all purpose flour (2275 cal)

- 1 1/2 tbsp yeast

- 1 tbsp salt

- 3 1/2 cups lukewarm water for the dough + 1 cup for the buckwheat

Total 3570 cal, 4 1-lb loaves, 890 cal/ loaf

Instructions

1. Cook the buckwheat groats with 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt until done and the water is all absorbed.  

2. Mix all the ingredients in a large 5-6 quart container. Cover the container with a lid (not airtight) and allow to rise for about 2 hours at room temperature. Once the dough has risen and starts falling, refrigerate overnight. The refrigerated dough can be used over the next 10 days. 

3. The dough is very wet, so it is easier to bake it in a loaf pan. I used size 9x4 or something similar. Lightly grease the pan. Cut 1 lb of the dough, dust it with flour and shape into a ball. Elongate the ball and place into the pan. Allow to rest in the pan for about 1 hour 30 minutes. I did not cover the pan.

4. Preheat the oven to 450F. Since you are using the loaf pan, you don’t need the baking stone. But you need steam in the oven, so place an empty broiler tray or cookie sheet on the bottom shelf of the oven. Right before baking,  wet a sharp serrated knife in water, to prevent it from sticking and slash the top of the bread. Place the loaf pan on the middle rack of the oven. 

5. Pour 1 cup of hot (but not boiling) tap water into the broiler tray and immediately close the oven. You should be very careful doing it - there is a lot of steam. You might also want to cover the glass on the oven door with the towel - on some sites people report that their doors’ glass cracked.  You might also want to spray the top of the bread with water for additional moisture. 

6. Bake the bread for about 30 minutes, remove from the oven and from the pan and let cool on the rack.  

Afterthoughts

- I love the taste, but the buckwheat groats create lumps in the bread. I think this bread will be better without the groats - 1 cup of buckwheat flour should be enough for the buckwheat-experience. 

- The original recipe asked to soak the buckwheat groats in water, not cook them, so the groats were still hard when mixed with the dough, and then they turned out too dry after baking. It tasted great in pizza dough, but I did not like these hard groats in the bread - made me fear for my teeth.

- The dough is very wet, so you can add plenty of flour as you work and shape it - it will all get absorbed during resting, even in pizzas, with virtually no resting time.