Beard's William Melville Childs' Health Bread Variation #2

The Official Whole Wheat Version of Wm M. Childs' Health Bread
and a loaf with a Kamut variation

The last bread I made was a disaster and got fed to the chickens.  So I needed to bake some bread to take to work.  I decided to make this 'Health Bread' again, this time with the proper whole wheat ingredients.  The last time I made it, I used some all-purpose flour.

I was going to grind my own wheat here and use only fresh ingredients, but I had another idea and tried that instead.  I still intend to try the freshly milled approach the next time I make this.  Here, however, I wondered what the bread would taste like if I added some kamut flakes and kamut flour to the mix.  I made one batch that was completely whole wheat flour and oatmeal, and one batch that was half-kamut, half-whole-wheat flour, and half oatmeal, half kamut flakes.

I haven't done much baking with kamut, so I really don't know the grain. I didn't have enough ingredients to bake entirely with the kamut, so I used half whole wheat.


The Ingredients:

• 20g yeast
• 280g warm milk
• 4g sugar
• 434g boiling water
• 402g oatmeal (Kamut version has 202g oats, 200g kamut flakes)
• 776g whole wheat flour (Kamut version has 388g wwflour, 388g kamut flour)
• 258g dark molasses
• 20g butter
• 14g salt

Kamut version is to the left of the spoon

The Method: What was supposed to happen.

Proof the yeast in the warm milk and sugar.  Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and freshly ground whole wheat, and allow to sit until it is 98 degrees F.  Warm the molasses, butter and salt in a saucepan and add to the grain mixture.  Add the milk-yeast mixture and mix with your hands.

Kamut version:

Whole Wheat version:

Allow to rise to double, then knead until the dough is smooth and satiny, about 10-12 minutes.  Divide into 2, place in pans, and let rise until doubled.  Bake 350 degrees F for 1 hour.

What actually happened:

I left the dough in the bulk fermentation phase far too long.  I expected it to rise more, and it just didn't.  I should have just gone ahead when I returned from walking the dog, but I waited a few hours more, waiting for the dough to 'double' when it probably already had.

Thinking that there was not going to be much more rise, I didn't divide the kamut dough after kneading it.  I just put it into a single, slightly larger pan.  The Kamut dough felt a bit runny, but it was hard to knead at the same time.  The kamut flakes had not absorbed as much water as the oatmeal had.


Kamut version:

The whole wheat dough felt like it might have some rise and spring to it, so I did divide it (although not in half: I felt that the dough wouldn't double again).  I took away 1/3 of it and formed some balls with it, thinking that these would turn into buns.

Whole wheat version:

After an hour, the tins were overflowing.  All because I did not 'believe'.

the 'buns' had melded together

the dough had expanded and left ugly surface marks on these loaves

Whole Wheat and Kamut loaves both over-flowed the tins

I took the overflowed dough and made a few small bun-balls with them.

Results:

The kamut bread tastes a little different.  The colour is from the molasses, I think.  The smell when it was freshly cooked was unusual, to say the least.  I kept sniffing it, trying to identify the scent.  Cinnamon?  No.  Cloves?  No.  What is that scent?  Sniff sniff.

I will have to eat a few more pieces to decide whether I like it, it is so different.  The crunchy texture of the crust and the crunchiness of the kamut flakes complement each other.  But I'm not really sure what sort of toppings a bread like this can use.  It is a bit sweet due to the molasses.  I tried it with some cheddar this morning, and that wasn't the right topping.  I guess I have to figure out how to eat it.  It can be sliced thin like pumpernickel, but it is not a thing like pumpernickel.

I guess I will just have to have these question marks all over my head as I eat it.

Notes to Myself

• Next time you make this, try grinding your own flour. 
• Next time you make this, try dividing the dough.
• Next time you make this, try soaking the kamut a bit longer in the boiling water.
• Next time you make this, try using some OJ instead of all that molasses.
• The top crust is actually kind of nice, with that ugly texture.  You could emulate it by making a wash of cracked wheat, and I bet that would be nice.  Or what about a wash with Kamut flakes?  (Put just enough boiling water over some kamut flakes to release the gums and starches, and then paint it on top of a baking loaf.)

Beard's "William Melville Childs'" Health Bread

"William Melville Childs'" Health Bread

This bread was "perfected" by a Baltimore resident for a benefit cookbook put out by the Walters Art Gallery.  William Melvill Child's Health bread is supposed to use whole-wheat berries that are ground into course meal.  I haven't done that here, but if the bread is wonderful, I may decide to do so, next time I make it.  I wanted a fast bread that could be made in one day, and this one fit the bill.

James Beard's book, "Beard on Bread" includes a version of the recipe in the section on Whole-Meal Breads, and I jumped right in to making it without understanding the recipe and its variation; without actually reading all the ingredients first, to be honest.  In his discussion of the bread, Beard says "His variation on this recipe which follows, uses absolutely no white flour and has a somewhat denser texture; but also more flavor."

"That's for me," I thought, and I started measuring out the ingredients.  But I didn't realize that the truly 100% whole wheat version -- the one I wanted -- was the variation that Beard includes after the one I make here.

Beard does use some all-purpose flour in his version of the recipe.  By the time I got to that ingredient in the list, I just groaned and continued to follow Beard's recipe as faithfully as I could, all the while thinking, "He lies, he lies".  I really didn't get it, until I started putting the notes together for this blog entry.

Next time I make this (if ever I do), I will make the 100% whole wheat variation.

Here are the weights I measured as I made the (2) loaves:

• 23g Active Dry Yeast
• 177g Warm Milk
• 15g Granulated Sugar
• 533g boiling water
• 201g quick-cooking Oats
• 540g whole wheat flour
• 193g dark molasses
• 29g butter
• 20g (sea) salt
• 538g all-purpose flour

Hydration Math
I never know how to calculate hydration in a bread like this.  Does one add the molasses to the water and milk, since it certainly does add some liquid to the whole?  Does one add the oats to the flours, when calculating everything that, in baker's math, totals to 100%? 

Let's do it for every case:

Adding the milk, water, and molasses together as the liquid, and both flours, this bread is 84% hydrated; if you add the weight of the oats to the flour, consider it 71% hydrated.  Or, if you don't want to exclude the molasses as part of the hydration, the values are 66% (without oats) or 56% (with oats).

Method:

 The yeast is proofed in warm milk and sugar.  It expands and multiplies quickly. 

 The boiling water is added to the whole wheat flour and oats;

 when the temperature here is relaxed somewhat, the warm mixture of salt, molasses and butter is stirred in,

 as well as the yeast mixture. 

 Finally, the all-purpose flour is added, all but about one cup, which later gets kneaded in anyway.

The dough rises to double,

is kneaded for 12 minutes, the rest of the flour incorporated,

before kneading

five minutes of kneading

ten minutes of kneading

and it is divided and placed in pans. 

Again the dough is expected to double,

the loaves are scored,

and then it is baked for an hour at 350 degrees F.

When shaping the loaves, I tried two different techniques.  The loaf on the right was shaped as a boule, and then slightly elongated to fit the narrow pan.  I didn't worry about pressing it down into the end corners.  The loaf on the left was pressed flat, and then rolled up tightly before fitting it into the pan.

The boule-shape, the one I was slightly more gentle with, saw a greater rise while proofing., and filled out into the corners of the pan all by itself.  The other dough, the one I rolled up tightly, was perhaps a bit overhandled. 

I also slashed both loaves differently.  The one on the right got two slashes, the one on the left was slashed once, lengthwise.  In my opinion, the one that was slashed twice was deflated more because of it.

I used a pan of water to make steam during the initial part of baking.

Results

This is a typical sandwich style loaf, fairly sweet.  There are enough oats to see some some of them in the crumb, but not really enough to change the taste or structure of the bread.  I'm still not completely sold on molasses as a sweetener, but it does complement the natural bitterness of the whole wheat, so I can see why it has been traditionally used.

 

Notes to Myself

• This bread uses a lot of sugar (both granulated, and in the form of molasses), and a lot of yeast.  I was frankly alarmed at how much yeast I was using.  Two tablespoons!  Of course my dough rose quickly, especially when I put it in the other room near the wood fire, where things are nice and toasty.
• 
  I could use a lot less yeast in this dough and achieve the same results over a slightly longer time, I'm sure.  I might not get the same sort of amazing rise in the loaf if I did this, but I would feel better about it, and no doubt the taste will be superior, I'm sure.
• Next Time: use 1 Tbsp Yeast.  Use the Whole Wheat variation of the loaf.  Use less molasses.  Use a longer proofing time.
• Use a tight boule shape before putting this dough into the pan.
• Before baking, give it one quick slash along its length.

James Beard's Norwegian Whole Wheat Bread

 JB's Norwegian WW Bread

D'oh!

Here is another bread failure that was not ultimately fatal. In other words, I lived to tell the tale of this error-bread that stupidity wrought.  Which follows from a maxim I've recently developed:

"Any loaf you can eat when you are done baking cannot be a total failure. "

In other words, it can always be worse, unless the result of the bake is only an inedible blackened and charred mass of carbon, or  unless you have burned the house down...

I have been switching from working nights to working days, and after sleeping most of the day Friday, I was awake most of the night with the prospect of having no bread for Saturday.  So shortly after midnight, I decided to make bread, even though if I had been thinking clearly about it, I would have realized I wasn't thinking clearly about it.  My timing was bad.

I had just been making a soaker and a sourdough starter build for a 'real' loaf I would make the following day.  But the idea of being without homemade bread for the morning of Saturday began to gnaw at me, and the old pull of the addiction to the exorphins took hold, and I decided to make a fairly quick bread.

Now, when I talk about quick breads, I don't mean quickbreads made with baking soda: these days, for me, any bread that is made without a soaker or a starter that requires an overnight build or two is quick, in that it is a made straight without any extra steps or fuss.  These are the kind of yeast-raised breads that James Beard popularized in his book, "Beard on Bread".  This book contains a number of whole wheat breads that use a bit of all purpose flour.  I haven't made all of them, not by a long shot.  So I just opened the book at random and found this recipe.

Mis en place

I made one change to the recipe: I added 2 1/2 tsp of my own homemade yeast, to give the loaf an extra boost.  I had made this yeast using Nils Schöner's instructions in his book "Brot".  It is really just dried sourdough.

Here is a list of the ingredients, as I weighed them:

• 2 1/2 tsp Instant Dried Yeast 11g
• 2 c Milk 499g
• 4 c Whole Wheat Flour 619g
• 1 c Rye Flour 122g
• 1 c All Purpose Flour 160g
• 3/4 tsp Sea Salt 4 g
• 2 1/2 tsp My Homemade Sourdough Yeast 6g

 Before Proofing yeast

 After Proofing Yeast

 Very dry mix: time to put away the spoon and try to incorporated the flour by hand

Beard warns twice on the single page recipe that this dough is particularly "stiff and difficult to knead", so I halved the recipe to make a single free-form loaf.  I did not half the time I kneaded it, though, in fact, I kneaded not 12 minutes but 15.  It did get silky, but never elastic, as he describes.

I don't particularly like the scent of this bread as it is being kneaded.  It smells like chemicals.  But what chemicals?

 At about the 10 minute mark of kneading

 Kneading done, about 15 minutes

The dough did soften up quickly and rose fast in the buttered bowl, which surprised me.

 Stiff dough is finished kneading, ready for bulk fermentation

 It attains this size quickly, but I give it an extra 30 minutes to be sure

I pounded it down and kneaded it a bit more.  I probably should have just pounded it down and folded it and then formed the final loaf.  Although it had softened a bit, the action of pounding it down made the dough tight again, and kneading was again problematic.

 Final kneading and forming is done

 before the final proof

 after the final proof

scored and ready to bake

Anyway, I formed a boule shape the best I could, and I set it on a cornmeal-filled baking tray for its final rise.  I would give it 2 hours here, and then bake it for another hour, according to the recipe.

But when I took it out of the oven, I realized right away that somehow, I had turned off the oven just as I was putting the bread in, after pre-heating at 375 degrees F. for half an hour.  This is what happens when your brains are addled from exorphins and lack of sleep, I guess.

Of course, I will also blame it on the oven, a Whirlpool, which my wife recently bought.  This oven is poorly designed.  It also works haphazardly and unevenly.  I really hate this oven, it is without doubt the worst oven we have ever owned.  I will never buy another.  We've tried to get some replacement parts for it because it doesn't work properly, and we have had nothing but grief from their service department.  We have never gotten satisfaction from the oven or the company who made it, and when the time comes when we can afford another oven, this one is going to sit on the curb outside the place where we bought it, so they can deal with the garbage.

Don't get me started on the oven.  Suffice it to say that the buttons that turn off the timer also cancel the baking elements, and this little 'feature' has ruined many a meal.  I am usually watchful now that I don't do this, but I guess I was overtired.

 What happens to bread when placed in a cooling oven

So after baking for an hour in a cooling oven, the bread was obviously not cooked, had sagged sideways and split, so I stuck it back into the oven for another 45 minutes, 15 minutes of which were required even to get the oven preheated.

The result: a saggy, split, tasteless loaf.  And a sleepy man who got to bed at 4:30 am, hoping to get to yoga by 9:00.

I slept in, missed yoga, and now I'm cranky.

But at least I have some bread to eat.  Maybe once those exorphins hit the bloodstream, I will begin to mellow a bit.

Umm, bread.

Slices ok, looks ok, tastes blah

crumb: the money shot

Notes to Myself

• Bake when you are well rested.
• Get a new oven.
• Find out what that chemical smell is, when you are kneading whole wheat dough made with milk.  I don't think that it was my homemade yeast, but try this bread again without it.
• Increase the amount of rye, omit the all purpose flour, and add some cracked rye that has been boiled and soaked overnight to this, to give it some taste.  
• Save your wrists, let the breadmaker machine knead this dough.