#1: Transitional Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

The first recipe in the challenge is a transitional loaf, one that uses both white and whole wheat flour rather than all whole wheat to "transition" the baker over to whole wheat. This is a recipe that I've made before, so I was a little sloppy and didn't notice that I needed to cut the oven back when the loaf went in. As a result, I didn't get much oven spring from the loaf and had a much shorter cooking time. It was still a usable loaf but not great.

As a consequence, I went back and made the loaf a second time and got it right this time. Rather than use a loaf pan, I made a free-form loaf using a Romertopf lid like a cloche. Basically, I fill the inverted lid and let it soak while the oven preheats. When I place the loaf on the baking stone, I cover it with the (drained) Romertopf lid for about 15 minutes. Then I carefully remove the lid (it is very easy to get scalded by the steam from under the lid) and finish baking the loaf. With this approach, I don't need to bother with a steam pan and I find I get much better results.

This is an interesting recipe as the soaker and the biga are about the only thing going into the loaf. I used buttermilk which seemed to work well. There were some minor difference in the soaker from one loaf to the next. The first was more liquidy than the second. Still the recipe worked well and the results were fine.