a successful bread experiment

Some time back I wrote that sometimes it is better to follow a proven bread recipe than to go your own way (I love Fleetwood Mac). On the other hand, sometimes experiments with bread baking can be successful.

I had more sourdough starter than is optimal for maintaining a healthy batch, so I did something I rarely do. I made sourdough bread twice in a row. Wanting to do something different, I tried a sprouted wheat sourdough.

I used the following ingredients:

• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup First Clear flour
• 1 cup sprouted wheat flour
• 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 ¼ teaspoons yeast (my standard yeast measure)
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• Something over a cup of warm water (adding until the dough was the right consistency)

I did two risings and baked at 350 degrees convection for 45 minutes as I always do.

It turned out great. Terry loved it and I was quite happy with the result.

I was going to link to the sprouted wheat and First Clear flours on the King Arthur web site, but they both appear to have been discontinued. So I won’t be able to repeat this recipe once my existing supplies run out.

Oh, well. Experiments do sometimes pay off, and that was a good one.