RECIPE: REC: Whole Wheat Walnut Bread. This is really good with cheese, and it freezes

RECIPE:
J

joe

Well-known member
well. It's best to make the starter the night before.

WHOLE WHEAT WALNUT BREAD

from Julia Child

STARTER:

1 cup unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour

1 cup tepid water

A pinch of sugar

1 package (2 tsp.) dry yeast

Whisk together all starter ingredients in a 1-quart measure. Don't worry about lumps. Clean off the sides of the container with a rubber spatula and cover with plastic wrap.

Let sit at room temperature several hours or overnight. It will rise, then fall.

DOUGH:

2-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour

2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 Tbs. salt

4 oz. (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces

The starter

1 cup milk, plus more if needed

2-1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Put both flours, the salt and the butter in the bowl of a processor fitted with the plastic blade. Add the cup of milk to the starter and mix well. With the machine running, pour in the starter in a steady stream, adding a little more milk if necessary, until the dough masses on the blade. It should be fairly soft. (With my whimpy Cuisinart I have to do this in two batches.) Turn off the nachine and let the dough rest 4-5 minutes. Process again so the ball of dough makes 30 revolutions. Remove to a floured surface and let rest 2 minutes. Knead 50 strokes by hand.

Transfer to a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise slightly, just until 1-1/2 times it's volume, then turn out onto a floured surface. Pat or roll the dough into a rectangle, cover half the dough with 1/4 of the walnuts, then fold over, Roll out again, spread one side with another 1/4 of the nuts and fold. Repeat two more times. Return the dough to its bowl, cover and let rise fully, to more than double its volume.

FORMING AND BAKING:

Place a floured towel on a tray. Punch down the dough, turn onto a floured surface, divide and form into 2 or three rounds. Place them smooth side down on the floured towel. Cover with another floured towel. Let rise to more than double.

Place a pizza stone in the center of the oven or line the rack with quarry tiles. Place an iron skillet on the bottom of the oven. Heat the oven to 450*F. Have a 1/2 cup of water ready.

Sprinkle a baker's peel or cutting board with corn meal. Gently invert a loaf, smooth side up, onto the peel. Slash with a razor blade. Slide ontothe hot baking surface. Repeat quickly with the other loaf or loaves. Pour the water into the hot frying pan to create steam. Close the oven quickly to keep the steam in and leave it closed for at least 10 minutes.

Bake for 30 minutes, until brown and crusty. Insert an instant thermometer into the slash. the bread is done ar 200*F. If it needs to bake longer, reduce the oven to 400* and test again in 5 or 10 minutes.

NOTE: You can bake the bread on a baking sheet but the crust won't be quite the same as with the hot stone or tiles.

 
Joe this sounds great and very timely, as it is my goal to start baking

more from scratch. Do you think I could sub sunflower seeds for the walnuts? Or maybe a combination of pecans and sunflower seeds? I am new to making bread, other than in a breadmaker. Thanks for posting this. I am going to start my starter tonight and make it tomorrow.

 
I think any nuts would work well. The walnuts are particularly nice served with cheese. I hope

you try it, using whatever nuts you have.

Julia's dough technique--in the processor with the indicated rests, then a final kneading by hand, work well for just about any bread recipe.

I've never tried it, but you could bake this in a loaf pan.

 
I made the starter, and have it sitting, covered on the counter. Now one more question,

do I have to bake both loaves at one time, or can I refrigerate the dough to bake later in the day. I would like to bake one early in the day, and then the other one closer to dinner time. Is that possible? Thanks for the advice Joe.

 
I've made this- it is wonderful. Try toasting the nuts first- even a better flavor to the bread

 
You could refrigerate some of the dough to slow it down, then bake later, but I'm not sure...

I've had a problem with this recipe when the dough has risen too much or too long; it tends to run out of steam and not rise very much in the oven. I don't know why that is, and I'm still experimenting. I know all kinds of delaying tactics for regular French bread but this one is a little more touchy.

If you bake it earlier in the day, it will still be fine in the evening. You can reheat it and refresh it at 400* for about 10 minutes if you'd like it warm. I would recommend that over delaying the baking.

One of the advantages of the starter is that is has a slight sourdough effect and the bread keeps longer.

Speaking of running out of steam, if you're doing the frying pan thing for steam and you're only baking one loaf, I would use extra water, maybe a full cup, to compensate for the lesser ammount of dough in the oven.

I'm really delighted that you're trying this. Let me know how it goes. I love Cathy's idea of toasting the nuts first.

 
Accckkkkkkkkk...I am so baking impaired. I just realized that I forgot to add the pinch of sugar

to the starter. Do I need to start a new one, can I use as is, or can I just add the sugar now? I am not baking it until later this afternoon. Thanks, again! P.S. I am going to use toasted salted sunflower seeds and toasted pecans (I am using up ingredient from my freezer(.

 
Dawn, I don't think it matters all that much. You can put a pinch of sugar in now. If the starter

bubbled up overnight, you're fine.

 
Ackkkkkkkkk! (my turn) It was supposed to be 2-1/2 cups each of white and whole wheat flour. I'll

revise the recipe. Sorry, I was typing it from memory at work.

 
The reason bread dough runs out of steam

Is the same as the reason that you have to punch dough down when it reaches a certain point. What you are trying for, is to enable the yeast to keep multiplying. When it is allowed to rise past a certain point, the waste that it is secreting (carbon dioxide- this is what rises the dough actually) overwhelms/suffocates it and it dies off. This is in part also a result of not enough available food (simple carbs). Punching down and kneading a couple of times redistributes everything so there is food for it, within reach, again.

Whole wheat doughs, along with heavier ingredients, accelerate this process because there is not as much food for the yeast in, say, a cup of whole wheat flour as in a cup of white flour. That's also why whole wheat is better for blood sugar.

IF and only if I managed to explain that right (I know it in my head but may have lost something in translation lol), that might help? I only use whole wheat flour, in fact I haven't owned any white flour in years, and as long as you keep punching the dough down in time you should be able to keep it for even a couple of days or more. It will become more sour over time, but a few hours between breakfast and dinner shouldn't be noticable.

I like to rise my dough many times for texture and flavor of the final product. When I first discovered this, I accidenally made an apple coffee cake into sourdough. Didn't go well with the apples and cinnamon lol.

 
It's fine

The reason for sugar in starter (or proofing liquid) is to jump-start the yeast. I don't put any sugar in mine, and use only whole wheat flour. Makes for a slow coming to life, but I like the texture and flavor.

As long as your yeast was good and you don't use liquid that is too warm it should be perfectly fine.

 
You've explained it perfectly. Thanks, now I know why I've had trouble with this dough and not

plain French bread dough, which seems indestructable.

 
Okay, I made the bread and ran into a few problems...long and rambling commentary warning:

after I rejuvinated the starter, I assembled all of the ingredients. I went to get my food processor, I have that mega Cuisinart one, I noticed that the plastic blade did not make the move with us here to MO. All of the other blades are there, but not the plastic one. I decided to use my KitchenAid mixer with the bread hook instead.

Since I had the starter for two loaves and was only going to make one loaf, I decided to use 2 cups ww flour and 1/2 cup ap flour. I toasted the pecans pieces and mixed them with the toasted sunflower seeds, set them aside.
I did my best to convert food processor directions to the stand mixer, and mostly just tried to imagine what a softish dough should feel like. I think I did pretty well with that.

I followed all the directions for the rising and patting out into a rectangle (which in reading the recipe earlier, I did not realize that there was more than one rising involved or that you did not just mix in the nuts with the dough). I had my two-year-old helper at my side who helped me sprinkle the nuts on the dough. I decided to use 2 cups of nuts since more of a good thing is always better (I do learn from my mistakes). There was a lot of nuts to fold into that much dough, but we did it. I am assumed that you should not be able to feel an air layer between the dough and the nuts, so I tried to press out the air. A question here also, the directions didn't specify how to do this exactly. So I patted the dough into a horizontal rectangle, and we sprinkled the nuts on the right half of the rectangle, then folded it together, and patted it out the same way as before. Was that right?

I heated the oven a little and let the bread rise, punched it down, and placed it on a floured towel for it's final rising.
A question here, why couldn't I put the cornmeal on the baking tray, and let the bread rise on the tray and then put it in the oven? I had a little problem transferring the soft risen bread dough to my cutting board, I kind of smushed one side a little. I slid the dough onto the baking sheet (my pizza stone is probably still sitting back in my oven in San Diego), poured the water into my cast iron frying pan, and quickly shut the oven door.
Since there was only one loaf, I wasn't sure about the baking time, so I set it for 20 minutes. I took a peak at it, and let it bake
for another 5 minutes.
As I am typing this, I just realized I forgot to slash the top of the bread. Is that just for aesthetics or is there a purpose to slashing the top of the bread?
I let the bread rest for about 10 minutes before I sliced/sawed it. The crust was incredibly hard but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be or not. The inside texture was actually pretty good, not dense at all. My husband asked if there was supposed to be a "streusel" layer of nuts? Was there? I told him yes, the name of the bread was Streusel Nut Bread. He ate two slices, and didn't really say much. He commented that it tasted like Rye Krisp. My son said he liked it, but didn't like those little seedy things in it. This morning I asked my husband if he would like a couple slices of the bread warmed up in the oven with a little butter and Splenda brown sugar on it? He looked at me and sweetly said, Dawnie, you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear. Sigh. In my bread's defense, hubby does not like crusty breads, and this definitely is crusty, but not like some bread flops I have made before, I think maybe this is how this bread is supposed to be?
I had fun making it, and I think I have a feel for what the bread dough should feel like; not too sticky, but not too dry either. I want to keep trying to master this process, so hopefully some of you will give me some helpful critique of what I did right and wrong.
I checked out the Cook's Illustrated Baking Cookbook from the library and I am going to try some recipes out of it.
If you have any recipes that use a stand mixer to mix the dough, I would appreciate them. I don't think I want to hand knead the doughs just yet. If you have made it all the way to the bottom of this post, thanks, and if you have any helpful hints or recipes, a big thank you!
Dawn aka The Wondering Baker (sorry Heather!)

 
Dawn, I think maybe the proportion of ww flour was too high. It should be half and half,

despite the fact that the starter is all white. That's not very "whole wheat," I know, but with the heavier additions of butter and nuts, the yeast needs a little help. I'm assuming you only used half the starter, and half the added milk.

Did you cover the loaf with a towel while it was rising? The outside of the loaf does dry out a bit, which helps hold it in shape, but it shouldn't get too dry. Slashing releases some of the surface tension and lets the loaf expand more. Flipping the loaf when you're ready to bake exposes the softer side, and that helps the bread expand in the oven as well.

If it dried out before baking, that might explain the hard crust. Or perhaps my idea of using extra water for the steam was a dud; the steams sets starch on the surface to make it crusty.

You could skip all this and let it rise on a tray, covered, if you're not using the baking stone.

It sounds like you folded in the nuts just right. All that folding is supposed to keep the nuts inside the loaf, but a few find their way to the top no matter what. The three rises are to give the yeast a boost. The first short one gets it started, then the folding re-distributes the yeast for a strong second rise. Julia calls for first short rise and the folding (but just twice) in all her breads.

I'm still tickled that you gave it a try, and sorry it didn't come out as well as you hoped. Ii hope you'll try baking bread again--it's such a primal pleasure. Maybe it was too tricky a recipe for a first attempt. You might try plain French or sourdough bread, to get the hang of the techniques, before trying a heavier dough like this.

In my experience, the stand mixer doesn't knead the dough as vigorously as the processor. I use the mixer for brioche dough precisely because it's gentler. With the stand mixer, you gererally start with the liquid and add the flour, then the fat; the reverse of the processor.

You can use the steel blade of the processor, but you have to be sure not to cheat on those 50 strokes of hand kneading at the end. The metal blade cuts the gluten strands that are forming, but the hand kneading rejoins them.

 
Joe,

I covered the dough as the recipe calls for. I added all of the starter and half the milk, which was why I thought I could get away with using more ww flour, I did add the salt, but forgot there was salt on the sunflower seeds. I think the rye crisp flavor might have come from sunflower seeds perhaps? I will definitely be trying again. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for all of your help!

 
I asked because I've left out the salt and it's awful--and there's no remedy.

In fact, once i made this recipe, forgot the salt, and tried to knead it into each loaf before baking. I ended up with mottled misshapen loaves with a bowling ball consistency. I accidentally left one on the counter while I was out and came home to find that my dog, who steals all the bread she can get her teeth on, had nibbled it and spit it out.

I sense a baker has been born!

 
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