Kasha Graham Porridge Loaf With Remarkably Open Crumb

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tpassin on 2 Jan 2024 at 08:34

A few days ago I posted about a loaf of bread that included cooked oatmeal and graham flour (see https://weightloss-slim.fit/node/73391/oatmeal-graham-flour-sourdough-pullman-bread%3C/a%3E%29. I wanted to try it with buckwheat, and I found a box of Wolff kasha, which are toasted buckwheat groats.  Perfect!

The bread is very good in taste and texture, and the striking feature I want to highlight is how very open the crumb is. I didn't think a porridge loaf could have such an open crumb.  I used less flour for this loaf compared with the earlier oatmeal one, 300g vs 370g, yet it rose as high in the Pullman pan. Otherwise the recipe is the same: 20% (pre-cooking) kasha, 30% graham flour, 65% hydration, 30% innoculation with 100% hydration starter, 2% salt.  The starter was a little old, though, and had gotten somewhat thin.

I used the amount of water the package recommended for the weight of kasha I used.  The cooked porridge had absorbed almost all the water.  I had to hold it covered in the refrigerator over night for timing reasons, and the next day it was very dry and crumbly.  I loosened it up with a little milk, maybe an ounce/30g, and squeezed the porridge between my fingers until it turned into a thick paste.  After all the ingredients were mixed, the dough was a wet, thick paste.  I didn't worry about it since the previous loaf had the same pasty consistency.

One other change was that I bulk-fermented in my proofing box at 76 deg F/24.4C since my work counter was a little cooler, enough to slow down the development.  After I put the dough into the Pullman pan, I increased the proofing temperature to 78 deg F/25.6C.  It rose very well over the next 2 1/2 hours.

I baked with the lid for 40 minutes at 350 deg F/177C.  Then I removed the lid and baked at 400 deg F/204C for another 20 minutes.  As with the previous loaf this was enough to develop a thin but crunchy crust.  I think it would have been good to continue cooking the loaf for another 10 minutes, perhaps, to drive off more moisture since even the next morning the loaf had a very moist crumb.

With the previous oatmeal-graham loaf I found that the bread grew on me as I ate more, and this new loaf with kasha instead of oatmeal has an even richer flavor. And it toasts up so well!

TomP

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seasidejess on 2 Jan 2024 at 13:09

This bread looks delicious!

Such a lovely loaf. Looks and sounds delicious. If one can't get hold of Graham flour what would be a good alternative? 

I've seen substitution recipes out there, can't vouch for any of them. Here's one:

2⁄3 cup white flour (84g)
15g wheat bran (slightly less than 1/3 cup)
2 1⁄2g wheat germ (1.5 teaspoons)

But basically graham flour is whole wheat, just milled a little differently so the outer parts of the wheat grain are coarser and the endosperm is finer than ordinary WW.  So white flour + bran + germ makes sense, I guess.

Incredible bake Tom, so amazing to see such an open crumb with a porridge bake and a closed lid pullman pan.

Benny

I was amazed, too, Benny. This loaf makes me think that I've seriously underestimated the potential of pan loaves.

You know, this loaf came from a line of experiments that was kicked off by that 100% buckwheat loaf of Abe's and then pogrmman's historic maize-rye bread bake.  From there, I tried a buckwheat-corn-rye loaf, which gave rise to my recent oatmeal-graham bread, and now to this bread.  It's a whole line that would not have happened but for this site.  And without having invented some weird breads for the recent community bake, I may well not have tried to follow up on Abe's buckwheat loaf.

TomP