#35 Whole Wheat Brioche

Note: Recipe #34 call for spent grains. Thus far, I have not been able to locate this ingredient. Once I have done so, I will return to that recipe. But for now, I'm moving on.

The whole wheat brioche is a repeated recipe for me, so I elected to do the optional Kugelhopf form of the recipe. Compared to most brioche recipes, this is a remarkably easy loaf to make. The almonds didn't want to adhere to the pan, so I just pressed them into to the dough. Other than that, there were no problems.

While the recipe doesn't produce the decadent loaf you might expect of a brioche, the results are quite tasty. The bite of the whole wheat is more than off-set by the added butter. So while not exactly a desert loaf, this isn't a stogy whole wheat loaf either. Overall, a good loaf. Dust with powdered sugar!

#33 Steamed Boston Brown Bread

First, this isn't bread, this is dessert. This recipe produces a very soft, sweet bread that is more like a cake or a muffin than a traditional bread or even a fruit bread.

For the most part, the recipe is straightforward. It calls for cooking the bread in a coffee can (whatever that is). I found an old charlotte mold and used that instead. The bread cooks for three hours, so if you make this bread, plan accordingly. But it is made on the stove top.

Still, when all is said and done, it is a delicious bread and worth the effort. Reinhart mentions using other fruit, but I can't help wondering how well walnuts would work?

#31 Whole Wheat Mash Bread and #33 Multigrain Mash Bread

Frankly, this was another set of loaves that I had my doubts about. It should be clear that I'm not really a whole grain kind of guy. I'm doing this challenge to broaden my horizons and see what I might like and what I don't like. And occasionally, there are a few surprises along the way. But these loaves didn't look that promising to me.

Creating the mash for these breads is an involved processes so I decided to make both loaves at once. To create the mash you take flour or grains, add hot water, and then bake it in a low oven (150 degrees) for one to three hours. If your oven won't go that low, Reinhart suggests cycling the oven on and off every 10 minutes. Fortunately, my oven did go that low although I needed to use an oven thermometer and play with the settings. The dial was not particularly accurate in this range. But that a lot better than cycling the oven every 10 minutes.

For my loaves, I cooked the mashes about two hours. After that time, they turned into gelatinous gruels that looked even less promising than the original recipes sounded. I created the soakers and let both sets sit out over night. Forming and baking the loaves was straight forward and uneventful. As can be seen, I elected to use loaf pans rather than make freestanding loaves.

And the results? These were two excellent loaves, if somewhat nondescript. (I brushed both with butter and that helped their appearance somewhat.) But the flavor was excellent. Really! Typically, my tastes run to multigrain over whole wheat, but in this case I preferred the whole wheat loaf. Live and learn.