Multi-grain Bread v. 4.4

I have been fooling around with a new recipe for a multi-grain loaf. I am using ideas from Nancy Silverton's multi-grain recipe but primarily from Peter Reinhart's new book, Artisan Breads Every Day. (And I was so lucky to attend a baking class with him last week!)


What makes ABED different from Peter's other books is similar to the ideas in Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day ( Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg): Make up a batch of dough and bake it off over the next 4 days. That gives me fresh baked daily bread. Peter believes that after 4 days, the dough is over-fermented.

ABED also describes the stretch and fold method that artisan bakers have been using. There is a cool video on Amazon's page that shows Peter demo'ing the stretch and fold method. He also has a video of how to prepare your oven for hearth baking.

I have been using my starter and bread flour, whole wheat flour, rye chops, Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal (which includes cornmeal, oats, barley, triticale, brown rice, soy) and millet and flax seeds. I'm pretty excited about my results.

This is a two-step dough but once it is made, I put it in the refrig for a cold, slow ferment. Then I take out about 1/4 of the dough, shape it, and bake it. These are small-ish loaves (about 300 g) but perfect for two of us.