100% whole wheat 食パン (with Pâte Fermentée and Tangzhong)

Pâte Fermentée

Remove 100g of dough from any bread recipe and put it in a glass container. Cover it tightly and store in your fridge. Allow it to rest at least overnight (and up to 1 week) before using. Can be added cold to recipes or allowed to come to room temp.

When you open your container, smell the dough. It should smell like sex.

Tangzhong (makes enough for two loaves)

45g Whole Wheat Bread flour

120g milk

120g water

Mix together the flour and half of the liquid until smooth. Add the rest of the liquid and heat in a heavy pan over medium, whisking constantly and scraping the corners for about 5 minutes or until the mixture has thickened. If you don’t whisk constantly, you will get lumps and if you get lumps you have to start over. Don’t blame me if you get lumps! 

Scoop the tangzhong into a container. Cover with cling film and allow it to cool to less than 90F (~30C). This will last a week (covered) in the fridge. 

100% Whole Wheat Shokupan (with Tangzhong and Pâte Fermentée)

325g whole wheat bread flour*

120g milk (2%, warmed slightly to 90F or 30C)

120g tangzhong (about half of the recipe above)

100g pâte fermentée (you can omit this if this is your first time making this loaf, it will just be a bit smaller)

80g dark brown sugar

70g butter (melted)

50g egg

8g salt

5g instant yeast

You will need a stand mixer for this loaf. 

You could knead it by hand but there is a special technique for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=796ZupzMvoI&ab_channel=JacobBurton

I will try that myself later and get back to you on it. 

For this recipe, mix all ingredients in a stand mixer for about 15 minutes on medium. You will need to scrape the bowl down several times during this process. You can stop mixing when the dough forms a solid ball. 

Place the dough ball in an oiled bowl and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. This will take extra time because of all of the fat and milk and the whole wheat flour in this recipe. 

Take 100g of the dough out and save it for your next batch of pâte fermentée.

Shape into a loaf by pressing the dough into a long oval, then folding the short end over and rolling the dough up into a loaf. Pinch the ends and the seal the bottom, if you really want. Place into a high-sided loaf pan. I use a 1lb pullman loaf pan.

Proof again until the dough is at least level with the top of the pan. This step may take a lot longer than you expect but you must be patient. If you underproof, you will make a doorstop or get a gummy ring at the bottom of the loaf. 

When you get to the last 20 minutes of proofing preheat the oven to 350F/175C. When the bread is ready place it in the oven. You don’t need to brush anything on top as it will darken just fine on its own. 

Bake for 20 minutes, then put a tinfoil hat on your bread – you don’t want any alien messages getting into your bread (or burnt crusts). Bake for 10-20 minutes longer, checking the inside with a instant read thermometer every 5 minutes until the loaf is baked to 190F/88C. 

Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before cutting. 

Sandwiches to make with this bread: pretty much anything that’s supposed to be healthy, like my Turkey sando (which has potato chips on it!).

Qq

*This is kind of a specialty flour. It’s whole wheat flour (unsifted, contains all the bran and whatnot) which has a very high protein content and has been milled extra fine. You can purchase this flour from https://fairhavenmill.com/ – a 25lb bag costs about $50 after shipping. 

12 comments

  1. Thanks for this, Tim. Some of us are at a stage in which wholewheat will be a life-lengthener, and possibly a life-saver, down the road. If I can source this specialty flour I’ll try it. Working from home this pandemic has strengthened my baking game. That’s both a blessing, and a curse. I needed this.

  2. Cool, but I have to ask… Why this recipe? The uninitiated Philistines among us (like me) might be tempted to wonder what’s special about this particular wheat bread…

    Also, wow, what a clanger today. One of the worst games I’ve seen Arsenal play. I’ll have nightmares about Rob Holding advancing the ball: looking slightly different but the same every time, over and over again, playing on loop until I’m a broken, stammering mess.

    1. ‘what’s special about this particular wheat bread…’

      UHH.. it’s fucking excellent, that’s what’s special.

  3. We were awful today and deserved nothing from that match. A lightweight midfield against a scrapping, well-organised Championship club that was up for a scalp against southern softies. We were like a bread mix that failed to rise and deserves nothing but the bin. With these midfield options the next three fixtures look virtually insurmountable.

  4. Some tight deadlines imminent, so just want to say for now that I’m proud of Arsenal Football Club for their “No More Red” campaign. This is a big part of the Arsenal that I like and support. The Arsenal that touches base with the community around it. I get narked at the way it has treated some of its players of late, because the players — Ozil, Auba, Mustafi et al — have been the face of these community efforts.

    Would love to get my hands on one of those shirts. Nice job, designers. Great initiative. Shame that our play on the day did not match it. Coaching staff and players may not agree this minute, but today was far more than about the results on the field of play. All we lost was a ball game.

  5. Thanks for the recipe Tim.

    Did not watch the game but I was really surprised when i got off the plane and checked the result. Obviously very disappointed to crash out of the FA cup to the 17th place team in the Championship. I am sure someone will find a reason to blame Arteta but I can’t imagine his instructions to the players included a defensive minded handbrake type of game. He can’t walk out on the pitch himself and kick the ball into the goal himself and sometimes when the players don’t execute there is just nothing he can do. We have played really great in the last 6 games since Everton and some reversion to the mean is inevitable but hopefully this won’t be the start of a run of bad form.

    1. I was thinking about today’s post and I said to myself “I bet Bill just blames the squad”.

      lol

        1. Yeah, I cover that in today’s post. However, oddly, Arteta said that we did have the quality, we just didn’t have the motivation.

          Shrug ascii.

  6. It’s not simply about blaming the players or the coach, Bill. Perhaps you should watch a replay of the game before reaching a conclusion.

    Our performance was a combination of factors. Here is one. Saka has arguably been our main threat in recent games. He’s been lethal when cutting in from the right onto his left, or when linking up there with Lacazette and Odegaard. Whenever Saka got the ball, two defenders would swarm him and cut out his movement or pass to the left. Forest didnt let him play. TACTICAL. Score 1 for the Forest coaching staff.

    Cedric, who had a bad game, didnt give him much overlap help. PLAYER. Score one against Cedric.

    Forest RB Djed Spence, the game’s best player, man marked Martinelli out of the contest, ran Nuno so ragged, that his coach subbed him in the first half. Tierney wasnt as error prone, but got nothing out of Spence either. PLAYER. Score one for Spence.

    Eddie had a bad game. PLAYER. Score one against Eddie; but…

    Arteta didnt sub in Lacazette — who had been key to our good play recently — until the 69th minute. I think it’s fair to play Eddie in a cup tie against Championship opposition. But you could argue that one off cup games against full-strength 2nd division opposition (opposition that had eliminated Arsenal early before) are great levelers. With our absences, a callow midfield, and the fact that it’s a cup tie, it is a less asymmetrical contest than you’d think.

    Im not saying Mikel got it wrong… Im saying it’s more nuanced than you (always) make it sound. You can blame Eddie for missing a point blank header; but cant you also hold Mikel responsible for persisting with him when he’s having a bad game, and introducing Laca late? Did we muster a shot on target all game?

    Mikel made a statement by taking the rare step of yanking a player after half an hour, but it is the opposition that appeared to be more motivated after that. The players did not match Forest for urgency (which is on them), but clearly the coach’s drastic measure didn’t work.

    We got a tough break losing Xhaka to covid (again), and clearly that isn’t Mikel’s fault. But with the anticipated absences of Partey and Elneny at AFCON, we were already short in the midfield when we let AMN leave for Roma. Patino was invisible; and Sambi was languid and unprogressive. I dont blame them. The two young midfielders got a harsh lesson in cup football, but it was the club’s planning and catching an unlucky break on Granit that put them in that position.

    Beyond that game, we need a body in midfield, and we need it fast. If we break glass in case of emergency, Ben White can play there (I wont mention Calum Chambers there. Tim would probably excommunicate me 😄), but it means that we break up his decent partnership with Gabriel (White is still prone to error… he lost his man for the goal yesterday, but he is one of our best pair of CBs)

    I think there are areas in which you can say we lost the game, and areas in which you can say that Forest won it. Saying that the only factor in the outcome was the performance of our players minimises the opposition’s efforts; and two, fails to take account of the whole game picture. I’ll say it again… football isn’t binary.

Comments are closed.

Related articles