PANE CASERECCIO CON GRANI MISTI E SEMI DI CHIA

HOME-MADE BREAD WITH MIXED GRAINS AND CHIA SEEDS

Leggi In Italiano

This bread was born from a call with my friend, Vanessa.

During calls with friends, there are those who talk about fashion, art and more: I SPEAK OF BREAD.

In other words, it makes a little laugh perhaps, but cooking in general is always one of my favorite topics when it comes to friendship and in a certain sense, with the friends I love most, I don’t know how, but I find it easy to talk of food and my passions, just because I know they can understand me.

Having said that, I also have other topics eh, it’s not that all day I only talk about loaves. Type photography ahahahahah

Have pity on me, but in this period, if you don’t talk about this, what do you want to talk about? the colors of the walls of our house? I would also say no. And therefore, bread daje!

Vanessa has celiac children, all three of her children, so she has to find a thousand ways to always reinvent new recipes and I must say that she does it great.

Two years ago, right at the beginning of her career with Molino Grassi, Vanessa allowed me to participate and I had the pleasure and honor of attending a course on spontaneous fermentations with the king of this baking method: Christian Zaghini.

I understood from that course that the baking was going to enclose all my past and it was going to tie it viscerally with my present and future.

Until then Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Biology, had only been my university exams. Now they found space in a kitchen branch that fascinated me.

I remember that course was on a particular day, the day of my grandmother’s loss. I was there.

Coincidence? I do not believe.

I think he wanted to show me the way, in his own way, a somewhat strange and sad way, but he wanted to say “do what you love, even when the storm, above all, when the storm overwhelms you”.

With no little emotion, I leave you the recipe for this bread and a reflection on how everything intertwines and reaches us, just when we need answers.

SEED GELATINIZATION OR COLD GELATINIZATION WHAT IS IT?

It is a very simple method that exploits the ability of some seeds to transform water into a kind of gel: an example of this is linseed, quinoa and Chia seeds.

Just soak them with about 5 parts of water with respect to their weight, at least 6/12 hours before the dough and then filter the gelatinous water obtained; only later at the end of the dough will it be possible to insert the seeds previously discarded so as not to ruin the gluten mesh.

The water or gel will be used to knead, instead of normal water and the seeds will be used, therefore, as an addition to our bread in a secondary phase (I add them at the end of the dough or during the rolling).

It is a process that I often use, also simply for the taste that guarantees the bread we are going to prepare but there are some situations in which the use of this technique is most recommended: and more precisely

• the presence in the recipe of flours with little gluten like those of ancient grains or even gluten free like corn, buckwheat etc etc
• the use of flours with little enzymatic activity to help the yeast task (it could be an alternative to baking malt)
• to increase the softness of a bread over time
• to give structure to the bread

In this case, I used a type 1 flour together with buckwheat and then I helped the buckwheat flour with a gluten-rich flour. But this would not have been enough to give volume to the bread and above all softness to our bread. So I chose to add the result of the chia seed gelatinization to my dough to get the result you see in the picture.

There are cases in which, the pre-gelatinization of the seeds is used as a method of “spontaneous fermentation”, therefore as the only means of fermenting and then raising the dough. This is not the case, because I, although in very small quantities, have also used licoli. Certainly the gel obtained from the seeds will help the activity of the yeast, but it is not the only source of fermentation for my dough.

But coming to us, and leaving out less technical notions, the reason why I used this technique is all enclosed in the flavor that this mixture will take on.

For some time I have noticed how it has come to look at bread more as an activity related to aesthetics rather than goodness.

I’m not saying that aesthetics don’t count. Like all beautiful things, looking at a beautiful, and also good, bread is still an additional and advantageous side for what is being produced.

I wondered, however, about how much the shape, sometimes, counts more than the substance.

I have always argued and will always argue that, first of all, a bread must be good and, in a second moment, also beautiful.

But its functionality is not only in the beauty, it is not only in the super open alveoli, it is not in the mere vision of a “perfect” bread (which is perfect for whom?). The function of bread is to FEED. To do this it must have flavors, aromas and fragrances, different but all pleasant textures.

Seeking perfection in the bakery business is something truly relative and is something that serves above all to increase the idea of ​​performance. Not that it is wrong (I would be hypocritical to say this, working with photography and always looking for beauty) but it must not become an obsession with achieving certain results.

Chasing success must always be the engine that brings to light our best activities, it cannot simply be the aim of our activities.

When I look for perfection in my dough, I look for a good consistency, a perfume that makes me fall in love every morning when I take out a loaf of bread and a structure that indicates that I have done a good job.

 

Dough characteristics:

hydration 70% (not considering the percentage of water contained in the licoli)

Rising characteristic:

overnight in the fridge for 15 hours

Ingredients FOR LIQUID MOTHER YEAST REFRESHMENT:

100 g liquid mother yeast starter + 100 g water + 100 g TYPE 1 flour

FOR SEED GELATINIZATION:

As I said before, the ratio between seeds and water that I prefer to use is 1: 5, this means that if I want a hydration on the dough (liquid part) of 70% I will have to have 350 grams of water on 500 g of flour. Having decided on the water I will need, I can calculate the seeds I will need, with a simple calculation or proportion: 350 g water / 5 which will give me 70 g of seeds

• 70 g of chia seeds
• 350 g of water

MIX INGREDIENTS:

• 200 g type 1 flour W400
• 200 g spelled flour
• 100 g buckwheat flour
• 50 g mature and active liquid mother yeast (licoli)
• 350 g of water / gel (which we obtained from gelatinization)
• All seeds obtained by gelatinization *
• 10 g of salt

* they will weigh slightly more because they will be wet, so do not be afraid if they are no longer exactly 70 g

Preparation for step

Preparation of the gel 12 hours before

In a bowl mix the amount of seeds and water well and cover with plastic wrap. Leave for 12 hours to rest. After 12 hours, with a strainer, separate the seeds from the gel obtained in the most meticulous way possible, and set aside until use during the dough.

Refreshment of yeast

Mix all the ingredients listed in the liquid yeast composition above in a jar and keep a warm place for 3 to 3.5 hours at 25-26 ° C. This will depend on the strength of your yeast and how you usually “look after” it. The yeast will have to double in about 3 hours if it is strong.

autolysis

This autolysis will not feature water and flour but the gel obtained from gelatinization and flour. Add all the gel to the required flours and mix for 2 minutes. Using your hands, or a planetary mixer, mix the ingredients until there are no dry residues of flour left. Cover and keep somewhere at room temperature until ready to start the dough for half an hour.

dough

Start kneading and after 2 minutes add the ripe yeast (you will notice it because bubbles will form and it will have become double). Add the salt. The salt must be inserted when we begin to see that our dough “pulls”, that is, it starts to string. Stir everything until it comes together in a homogeneous mass, but still full of wrinkles. At this point, when the dough is completely stringed, add all the seeds three times. Work for 2-3 minutes. Then, turn the bowl over on the work surface and proceed with a type of dough called “slap and fold”. Work it like this until it has a smooth and homogeneous appearance and until it detaches completely from the surface. Based on how you will feel the dough, you will decide whether to knead it again or not. Alternatively, the first few times, you can keep the dough in the bowl and do a series of stretches and folds towards the center, with one hand while you rotate the bowl. Do this for about 7 minutes (it all depends on the strength with which you work the dough, so this is subjective. It is important, for this reason, to be able to “feel” the stringing of the dough). At the end of this process, your dough should be more toned.

Rest and Lamination

Let the dough rest in the bowl for half an hour, after which proceed with the rolling.

Fold the dough on itself and give it a light pirling and place in the bowl and after 45 minutes begin the folds.

Fermentation OFF FRIDGE and folds

In this case, I kept my dough 1 and a half hours out of the fridge, waiting for the leavening to start. WITHOUT FORMING IT. During the fermentation in the bowl, I made 1 series of “stratch & fold” folds, after an hour.

Pay attention also to the fermentation hours in the fridge.

Leavening and refrigeration overnight 15 hours

We cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight at a temperature of about 4 ° C.

Dividing the dough and pre-forming the next morning
About an hour before, acclimatize your dough that has been in the fridge all night and when it is at room temperature (approximately) lightly dust the work surface and turn the contents of your bowl upside down. Sprinkle the top of the dough with the flour and, using a tarot, divide the mass in half, if you want two smaller loaves. Dusting the flour on the dough will allow you not to stick the tarot to the dough. Do pirling turns with the tarot and do a light pre-forming, without touching the dough too much with your hands.

Let stand half an hour on the table (or cutting board) covered with a dry cloth.

Formatura
Dust the baking basket with white flour.

Shape your bread. I have tried a new technique, which I have seen, it turns out to give more tone to my dough. I leave you here the video I followed to learn: video forming

Proving at room temperature (about 3 hours – indicative time)
Cover each basket completely with a dry cloth, after having thoroughly dusted the bread at the top and let it rise. The duration of the second leavening is 2 hours. It really depends on the environment you are in, so based on the temperature you will have to adjust with the “finger rule” to understand when it is ready.

10. Bake in the oven (I cooked in the pot, then pre-heat the pot at least 40 minutes before)
Preheat the oven to 250 ° C for 1 hour.

Pour the dough on parchment paper and using a straight cut razor blade, give a clean cut to the bread.

Bake for 60 minutes: the first 30 minutes with a lid at 250 degrees, the remaining time without a lid at 200 degrees.