Baby Steps … to Bread

Cotswold Crunch & Bob’s Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour

Cranberry and White Cheddar Inclusions

The Story

As with a lot of sourdough junkies, I spend quite a bit of time on Social Media watching how others bake and looking for ideas to try on my own. One of my favorite content creators is “The Sourdough Journey”. The science of sourdough resides there, and I enjoy every new post. Recently, I noticed they were routinely using Bob’s Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour as the high-protein component of various bakes. We were shopping at a Sprouts Farmers Market and came across this flour I could never find elsewhere.

As to the other flour in the equation, Cotswold Crunch, I’m a big fan of Elaine Boddy from Foodbod Sourdough and she plugs this flour routinely. I was very excited when it became available on Amazon, so I had to order a five-pack to try. So far, I’ve been very impressed!

The end result:

The Recipe

• 400g Bob’s Artisan Bread Flour
• 100g Cotswold Crunch Flour
• 50g Rye Stiff Starter
• 325g Water1
• 10g Water2
• 1 Tbl Diastatic Malt Powder
• 10g Redmond’s Real Salt

The Process

• Combined all ingredients, including the Starter. No autolyse
• Performed a lot of upfront dough development…three sets spaced five minutes apart, right from the start, to include:
  • Slap and Folds,
  • Pinch and Folds
  • Rubaud Method Mixing
• Stretch and Folds every 30 minutes for 7 hours, until the start of Cold Retard
• Cold Retard in a Wood Pulp Banneton
• 30 minutes of freezer time before scoring
• Open Bake on Cooking Steel using a Brod & Taylor Baking Shell
  • 2 pieces of parchment underneath and 2 Ice Cubes
  • Misted the loaf and the underside of the Baking Shell

Notes

From the start, this flour combination appeared very strong. I had no concern with wetting my hands for every set of folds, as I felt the dough could use a little extra water. The Cotswold Crunch is a whole wheat based flour, so I’m sure it required more water than I’m used to. Towards the end, I would only do Coil Folds to help preserve the gasses built up after a long bulk ferment.

Conclusion

I think this combination is a winner! This loaf stood proud and refused to budge during scoring. I open baked, and it still popped tall with good oven spring. No complaints at all. Often times, I just want to crank out a reliable loaf of sourdough for friends or family. I don’t have time to experiment at the same time and come up short. This is the combination I will remember for those occasions. Nothing fancy, just your standard recipe, but made with outstanding flour!

By the way, the two loaves you see in the background are both Marbled Rye, using the recipe in the King Arthur Big Book of Bread. The taste was fantastic, but I’m not too crazy about all the Caraway Seeds on the outside. You might see more on this in my next blog update. 😉