My Mind Patch: Purple Wheat Wholemeal Bread 紫麦全谷吐司

I was attracted by the beautiful purplish artisan breads some of my Facebook friends baked. However, as I'm not a faithful fan of artisan bread, I sourced for the purple wheat flour and start experimenting using my Plain Wholemeal Bread. I was happy that the bread turned out well - nice purple and soft texture.

Yield: one loaf of bread

Raw dough weight: 584g

Bread Weight: 547 g

Pan size: 25x10x6.5cm loaf pan

Baking temperature & Time:

180°C for 15 minutes, then lower to 170°C for 35 minutes, at lower rack of an oven.

Ingredient A

For commercial/instant dry yeast witout natural yeast recipe, follow the green prints, or else follow the black prints. The suggested amounts given in green were based on estimation 😀 You may have to make minor adjustments based on the dough condition,

170g (195g) cold water 冰水*

25g raw sugar 黄砂糖

1/2 tsp salt 盐 ~4g

20g rice bran/veggie oil 米糠油/植物油

10g cold unsalted butter 冷无盐奶油

* You may reduce the water by 5 to 10g if you are not used to handling sticky dough

Ingredient B

200g (225g) Prima bread flour 百龄麦高筋面粉

60g Prima superfine wholegrain flour 百龄麦超细全麦面粉
30g purple wheat flour 紫麦粉*

12g milk powder 奶粉

* You can opt to replace 15g of purple wheat flour by same amount of spelt flour

Ingredient C

1/4 tsp (1/2 tsp) instant dry yeast 即发干酵母

50g active natural yeast (100% hydration) 天然酵母

This is the purple wheat flour I have used.

Bread flour, superfine wholegrain flour, purple wheat flour and milk powder

Directions

1. Feed active natural yeast with water and unbleached bread flour. Use the natural yeast about 1 to 2 hours after feeding.
Skip this step if you are using commercial yeast totally.
For growing natural yeast using grapes, please click here :)

2. Pour Ingredient A into the bread pan.

3. Mix Ingredient B before adding on top of Ingredient A.

4. Dig a hole in the centre of the flour mixture, and pour instant dry yeast of Ingredient C in.

Pour the natural yeast along the edge of the flour mixture.

5. Select "C-11 Ferment Dough" function and press start. Although the process will take about 1:30 hour to complete, stop the process when the countdown timer reads 0:45 hour after the kneading blade has made 7 turns to flip the dough.

1 minute before the kneading blade start to turn.

At the end of the 7th turn.

6. Stop the program, and transfer the dough to a plastic bag pre-coated with a little vegetable oil.

Squeeze out the air from the plastic bag and tie a loose knot.

To prevent moisture loss during refrigeration, keep the dough in a second plastic bag.

Finally, place the dough in a bowl and cover with a lid. Store the dough in the fridge for about 12 to 18 hours to undergo cold fermentation. I stored the dough overnight till the next morning, about 16 hours.

7. Transfer the cold dough out of the fridge. Remove the outer plastic bag, invert the dough, and let it thaw for about 1/2 to an hour in room temperature.

8. While waiting for the dough to thaw, apply a thin coat of butter on the loaf pan inner walls.

9. Cut open the plastic bag, and turn the dough onto a floured work top.

Wear a pair of disposable gloves to handle the slightly sticky dough.

Deflate the dough.

Fold in the four sides of the dough into a square shape. Flip over the dough, cover with a lid, and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

6. After the 15-minute rest, roll out the dough into about 1 cm thick. The width of the dough should correspond to the length of pan.

Flip over and roll up the dough.

Pinch to seal the edge.

Dust the dough with bread flour, and with the seam facing down, place it into the loaf pan.

7. Spray some water over the top.

Cover with a kitchen towel and let it proof in room temperature for about 85 minutes or till the dough rises 1 cm above the rim of the loaf pan.

8. While preheating the oven, you may create some patterns over the top of the dough using stencils and leftover dusting flour. This step is optional. Or, you can just sprinkle some bread flour over the top of the dough.
I bought the stencils from Daiso.