Wolter & Teubner's Wheat Germ Loaf Revisited

Wolter & Teubner's Wheat Germ Loaf Revisited

Oh, the humanity. 

Chalk this one up to just another minor Hindenburg disaster on the long road with its ever-receding horizon, that leads to whole wheat bread perfection.

Okay, I was really curious about this loaf for two reasons:  (1) the way the yeast gets elaborated in a straight-dough method, and (2) the unusual crust that the loaf in the picture accompanying this recipe in W&T's book seems to have.  I have to show you their picture, because frankly, I have not yet been able to duplicate it!

The ingredients:

• 100g liquid honey ( 1/3 c)
• 750g warm water, 110 degrees F (3 c + 2 TBSP)
• 37g Active Dry Yeast (4 pkg, or 4 scant TBSP) (NB: use 10g instead!)
• 400g 900g Whole Wheat Flour (6 c) (woops! see comments)
• 13g Salt (2 tsp)
• 38g Oil (3 TBSP)
• 150g Wheat Germ (1c, they say, but closer to 1 1/2 c)
• Extra Water
• Extra Flour

W&T don't actually tell you how much 4 pkg of Active Dry Yeast is.  Anywhere.  So I went to Beard's book, and used what he says -- but that turned out to be WAY too much.  And I neglected to do the smart thing, which is (a) ask myself, have I made this loaf before, and how much yeast did I use? or (b) look it up on the internet.  Probably the entire failure of this loaf is due to the excessive amount of yeast I used.

I have made this loaf before, and although I was disappointed THEN with how they sagged, this time was even worse. 

The Method:

Add 1 TBSP of the honey to the warm water and sprinkle with yeast.  Lest stand until frothy.

Put 1/2 flour and salt into large bowl.  Stir remaining honey and oil into yeast mix.  Beat into flour mixture. 

it is not dough yet, just a very wet batter

Cover and rise in warm place, 30 minutes.

Stir remaining flour and wheat rem into mixture.  Knead until smooth and elastic.

Very gooey.  Too gooey to hold the camera steady for a good shot.

With wet hands and using a pastry scraper to stretch and fold, this eventually comes together.

Still quite a wet dough

Cover and rise to dough, 30 min.

I knew that this dough would rise into the plastic, so I covered the bottom part of plastic with oil

Knead well.  Shape into 2 loaves.  Place on baking sheet.  Cover and rest 15 minutes while preheating oven to 400 degrees F. 

Just like last time, I didn't knead this anymore, just did some stretch-n-folds.

Slash loaves.  Brush with water, sprinkle with flour.

Bake 50 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped.

My Experience:

Everything was going fairly well until the final 15 minutes of rest while the oven preheated.  The loaves at this point just unfolded and fell apart.

When I went to paint them with water and sprinkle flour on them, they simply deflated.  When I scored them, you could visibly see  them fall, as if they were balloons being stuck with a pin.

I sprinkled a wet cracked wheat and whole wheat flour mixture on the loaf on the left

Hope springs eternal, and I put the dough as-is into the oven, trusting for some miraculous oven spring.  Of course, that expectation was dashed.  In keeping with the rather flat focaccia loaves I've made this week, these loaves came out of the oven flat as well.

I cracked into them right away to try it -- what was the use of waiting for the crumb to set, since the steam was already escaping from where they touched each other on the baking sheet?

steamy loaves

I have to say that the taste is wonderfully nutty.  If I could ever get this dough to actually stand up on the baking sheet, this might be the best tasting whole wheat bread ever.

Notes to Myself

• Better would have been to paint them BEFORE the final rest, and make sure that they have a floury, gluey surface that will somehow contain them.  In fact, it probably is better if they go directly into the oven before they have a chance to fall apart.  Shape them, then score them and paint them, and send them directly into the already-preheated oven.
• In fact, try shaping them with wet hands, and dip them in water, then flour, just before putting them on a baking sheet.  Score them, but don't wait 15 minutes - just put them in the hot oven immediately to see if that works.
• Use 10g of yeast only
• Search your own blog before you try a recipe. You might have already made it, and you might have already come up with some ideas that might prevent a failure.  After all why are you writing anything here?