Chile bread pt 1

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
½ cup Sourdough starter (whatever yours happens to be)
½ cup Water
1 cup Whole wheat flour
1¼ cup Water
2 teaspoons Honey
1 teaspoon Yeast (NOT fast-acting yeast)
1 cup Bread flour
1 cup All-purpose flour
½ cup Corn meal (preferably coarsely ground)
1 teaspoon Cumin seed, crushed or ground (preferably toasted first)
1 tablespoon Freshly ground dried chiles of your choice (i used guajillos), about
¼ teaspoon Ground cayenne
¼ teaspoon Ground dried habanero
½ teaspoon Ground dried oregano
2 teaspoons Commercial chile powder (mostly for color)
2 teaspoons Salt
½ cup Pumpkin seeds, roasted
¾ cup Warmish water
1 teaspoon Yeast (NOT fast-acting yeast, which defeats the purpose here)
1 cup Whole wheat flour
½ cup Unbleached bread flour

Directions

SPONGE

DOUGH

REMAINING INGREDIENTS

NONSOURDOUGH VERSION

i just munched a thick, toasted slice of this for breakfast while reading the breakfast thread in the digest....

this is an adaptation of the whole wheat chile bread in mark miller's *flavored breads* (pp. 50-1). i converted the recipe to one for sourdough (if you're not a devotee of sourdough, there's a nonsourdough version below***) and tinkered with the seasonings. this isn't the final version, but since this list is filled with other tinkerers, i'll go ahead and toss this out as a point of departure for others. despite appearances, this really is not a complicated recipe and can be adapted to a variety of breadmaking approaches. for those who'd like to toss everything in a bread machine and be done with it, check miller's book for instructions. i don't truck w/ BMs in my kitchen, for reasons explained below.=A0 a preliminary note: in breadmaking, time equals flavor, and you have several opportunities in making this bread to slow things down and increase the flavor: using cool or cold water and decreasing or eliminating the use of commercial yeast (but be sure to use sourdough if you eliminate it entirely!) will result in longer proofing (rising) times and much better flavor. e.g., if you make the nonsourdough version using ¼ t. yeast dissolved in cold water, the sponge might need to develop overnight but will contribute much better flavor to the finished bread than if you used a full teaspoon of yeast in warm water and proofed the sponge for 2 hours.

and unless you absolutely have to have bread ASAP, DON'T set the dough to rise in a warm place--it's not necessary for the action of the yeast, and it diminishes flavor by speeding things up. it might seem that a bread containing as many additional flavoring ingredients as this one could get by just fine on fast-acting yeast and a bread machine--and it can: get by, that is. that's why so many bread machine recipes rely on additional ingredients: to contribute the flavor that the bread itself is lacking. but flavorful ingredients don't really make up for tasteless bread, while flavorful bread catalyzes and intensifies the flavors of whatever you add to it. you really should taste what happens when all the added flavors in this recipe combine with those of a well-developed, flavorful-in-itself bread dough--the rounded complexity of flavors is complete and deeply satisfying.

to make the sponge, mix the water into the starter then stir in the flour.

if your flour has a high water absorption rate, you might end up with a dough you can knead; if your starter is fairly liquid, the mixture might be sticky. either way is fine. (see below*** for the nonsourdough version--after this step, both versions are the same.) cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature until risen and puffy. this can take anywhere from an hour or two to half a day, depending on the liveliness of your starter. the nonsourdough version will probably go faster, unless you reduce the amount of yeast--see above).

NOTE: for sourdough purists, omit the yeast and allow more time for the finished dough to rise.

DOUGH: stir the honey into the water, then sprinkle the yeast over the surface and let stand for a minute or so. stir to dissolve. add this mixture to the sponge and stir or squish together with your hand to combine. then

continued in part 2

Related recipes