Bread Blogging

Yesterday I baked a great loaf of bread: Multigrain Bread Extrordinaire from Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This bread is a mix of corn meal, oats, wheat bran, brown rice, and flour, sweetened with just a bit of honey and brown sugar. It's made using the "soaker" method, where some of the ingredients (corn meal, oats and bran in this case) are soaked in water overnight to activate some of the critical enzymes which deepen flavors. Also, I used a cup of amaranth flour in place of regular flour, my first use of this grain ever. End result? Killer bread. The corn meal, even though it was softened via the soaker, still lent a noticable crunch to the loaf. Plenty of rich flavors, a beautiful crust and dense crumb. It makes wonderful toast, too. Reinhart's book really is a terrific resource if you're a bread lover. The opening chapter on the intricacies of what happens during the bread making process may seem intimidating, and the recipes themselves seem complex, but everything actually makes sense after you've read it and have baked a loaf or two. The instructional style of the book is a great help, too -- but this isn't a surprise since Reinhart is a long-time baking instructor. Most importantly, the recipes work and make great bread! (Unlike Leader's Bread Alone, which seems to be full of tempermental or flat-assed wrong recipes.)