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Cooking Healthy: Easing the route to whole-grain breads
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Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread is a good way to introduce the taste of whole-wheat flour to the family. While the benefits of whole-grains are well known, the taste and texture are often hard to get accepted at the kitchen table.
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Published: October 8, 2008
Although the health benefits of whole grains are well-known, plenty of people still can't get over the taste.
Accustomed to the puffy softness of white breads, some people balk at the strong flavor and chewy texture that comes with whole grains, especially in whole-grain breads. There are easy ways around this.
First, try baking whole-grain bread at home, where you have more control over the consistency of the final product. Second, try a transitional recipe, one that blends whole-wheat and white flours.
Peter Reinhart, a baking instructor at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, has developed an innovative technique that makes it relatively simple to produce whole-grain breads with rich flavors and pleasant textures.
Reinhart uses a two-day method where he creates two "pre-doughs" that separate the functions of flavor development and leavening. On the second day, the two doughs are combined into a final dough, which then is formed into loaves and baked.
This technique gives you more flexibility. Traditional bread must rise several times, then be baked without delay. With Reinhart's method you can create the two predoughs, called the soaker and the starter, in little time, then hold them in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before combining them into a final dough for baking.
The recipe below looks daunting but requires less than an hour of hands-on time.
Toasted walnuts or pecans give this bread an extra-rich feel, but are optional. To toast nuts, spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast them in a 400-degree oven, checking them often, until they begin to brown, about 7 to 10 minutes.
Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads (Ten Speed Press, 2007).
For the soaker:
2¼ cups whole-wheat flour
⅝ teaspoon salt
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk
1⅓ cups raisins (optional)
For the starter:
2¼ cups unbleached bread flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
¾ cup milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk, at room temperature
1 large egg, slightly beaten
For the final dough:
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
⅝ teaspoon salt
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey or 4 teaspoons sugar
¼ cup melted butter or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup cinnamon sugar (3 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon)
1. To make the soaker: In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and milk. Mix for 1 minute, or until all the flour is hydrated and the ingredients form a ball of dough. If desired, add raisins and use wet hands to knead them into the dough.
2. Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours (or refrigerate from 1 to 3 days). Remove it 2 hours before mixing.
3. To make the starter: In a second large bowl, mix bread flour, yeast, milk and egg until they form a ball of dough. Using wet hands, knead dough for 2 minutes in the bowl. The dough should feel very tacky. Let dough rest for 5 minutes, then use wet hands to knead it for another minute. The dough will become smoother, but still be quite tacky. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 3 days.
4. About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, remove the starter from the refrigerator.
5. To make the final dough: On a lightly floured counter, use a metal pastry scraper to chop the soaker and the starter into 12 smaller pieces each. Sprinkle the pieces with flour to keep them from sticking together.
6. To mix by hand, combine the soaker and starter pieces in a large bowl with the whole-wheat flour, salt, yeast, honey, butter and cinnamon. Stir vigorously with a large spoon or knead with wet hands until all of the ingredients are well-mixed, about 2 minutes. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky; if not add more flour or water as needed. To use a stand mixer, in the mixer bowl combine dough pieces with the flour, salt, yeast, honey, butter and cinnamon. Mix with the paddle attachment (preferable) or dough hook on slow for 1 minute to bring the ingredients together into a ball. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium-low, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until everything is well-combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add more four or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky.
7. Dust a work surface with flour, then roll the dough in the flour to coat. Knead by hand, incorporating only as much extra flour as needed, until the dough feels soft and tacky, but not sticky, 3 to 4 minutes. Form the dough into a ball and let it rest on the work surface for 5 minutes while you prepare a clean, lightly oiled bowl.
8. Resume kneading the dough to strengthen the gluten and make any final water or flour adjustments, about 1 minute. The dough should have strength, yet feel soft and supple, and very tacky. Form the dough into a ball and place in the prepared bowl, rolling it to coat it with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap ,and let the dough rise at room temperature until it is about 1½ times its original size, about 45 to 60 minutes.
9. When dough has risen, lightly coat 2 (4⅓-by-8-inch) loaf pans with cooking spray.
10. Dust the work surface with about 1 tablespoon of flour and gently transfer dough to the work surface with a plastic bowl scraper (try not to rip or tear the dough).
11. Divide the dough in half, then roll each piece into an 8-inch square about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle each square with some of the cinnamon sugar. Tightly roll up each square. Place the loaves into the prepared loaf pans.
12. Mist the tops of the loaves with cooking spray, then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the loaves crest above the pans, about 1 hour.
13. Meanwhile, heat oven to 400 degrees. Place pans on oven's middle rack, lower the heat to 325 degrees, and bake 20 minutes. Rotate pan 180 degrees and continue baking, until loaves are a rich brown on all sides, sound hollow when thumped on the bottom, and register at least 195 degrees at the center, 25 to 40 minutes.
14. Transfer loaves to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 1 hour before serving.
Makes 2 loaves.
Nutrition information for a 1 ½-ounce serving: 113 calories; 2 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 6 mg cholesterol; 21 g carbohydrate; 3 g protein; 2 g fiber; 106 mg sodium.
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