It's been a long time but the loaves keep coming!

It's been SUCH a long time since I posted on this blog... but I have been busy baking almost every week since the start of 2013! Granted most of my baking, although yeasty and bread-based in nature have NOT been loaves... I've made doughnuts, tortillas, pancakes, bagels, pizza (every week without fail - both conventional yeast & v successful sourdough), pain au chocolat (a HUGE hit!!). I have regularly made seeded malt loaf, and a non-yeast soda bread with seeds and spelt flour (so quick and easy I can rustle one up in the time it takes a pot of lentil soup to cook!). But not much in the way of new loaves.... until this....

Dan Lepard's 5-Grain Loaf

I make mine with a rye leaven rather than the white that Dan specifies, for no other reason than I seem to have a rye starter on the go at the moment for pizzas, etc.. it's a feisty resiliant starter that can stand going a couple of days in between feeds if I'm not baking.. probably due to the fact that it's been cold here!!

This is the oddest recipe, which begins with mixing cooked grains (I've been using a pack of pre-cooked Food Doctor or Merchant Gourmet grains depending on what's in the cupboard!), millet, and oatmeal, with the leaven, honey, molasses, water, yeast, and oil. Smells revolting!!!! This is then mixed with white, wholemeal and rye flours. Once lightly kneaded and rested several times, it's left to prove before shaping and a final prove.. baking produces this....

and, on another occasion, this....

I LOVE this loaf! Complex flavours, lots of "bite", wholemeal and grainy without being too heavy. A definite contenter for "perfect loaf" :-).