BBB Bran Bread ~ 100% Whole Wheat
Recipe From Lien: from the sisters Margherita and Valeria Simili
Yield: 2 loaves or 1 pullman
While this is a tricky bread to explain; it is an easy bread to enjoy. Lien’s goal with this bread, I think, was a super healthy bread that tasted really good. I think she succeeded exceedingly well. There is a lot of bran in this bread and you really never really think “bran” while you’re eating it.
I believe I did a number of very small things wrong that together left me feeling this loaf missed something, missed a spark and yet we both of us kept going for another slice. The loaf was gone in three days. This loaf had great texture and very good crust. I short changed on raisins and nuts, use more next time. I very often cut down and often eliminate sugar, I think perhaps this was the spark that I missed; use some sweetening next time.
Would I make this again … I’ve got my ingredients ready to mix a starter tonight.
STARTER FOR SLOW RISE
250 grams whole wheat flour
450 grams water
75 grams wheat bran
2 pinches active dry yeast
DOUGH
110 grams whole wheat flour
150 grams whole sprouted wheat flour
20 grams rye flour
160 grams water, used water raisins soaked in
30 grams honey (omited first baking** must add next baking)
2 grams active dry yeast
30 grams butter
9 grams salt
50 grams instant skim milk powder
1 tablespoon diastatic malt flour
75 grams walnuts (next time make at least 100 grams)
75 grams raisins (next time make at least 100 grams)
Directions:
1. STARTER: Mix white whole wheat, wheat bran and yeast with water. Cover and let sit over night. (Elizabeth used crushed malted rye berries also; I wish I’d had some.Next time: try some rye flour, rye flakes or malted something.)
Starter after the overnight rise.
2. NEXT MORNING: Soak dried fruit in water. My initial call was to use cranberries but Gorn wanted raisins (98% of the time). I should have used at least 100 grams of either. Another time I might use apricots.
Mix starter and all dough ingredients – holding back walnuts and dried fruit. I used the water I soaked the raisins in – why throw away flavor?
3. KNEAD not really. I mixed and let it sit about 20 minutes. I added a little more flour and it still didn’t really knead. I wasn’t willing to add more flour, in retrospect I probably should have because it never reached kneading consistency.
4. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and press or roll it out flat in a big oval. Add nuts and/or raisins over the dough, fold the dough in two, press or roll out again and sprinkle on the remaining nuts/raisins. Roll the dough (jelly roll style).
5. Heavily butter pullman pan and sprinkle liberally with walnut crumbs.
6. I rolled the dough roll into my pullman pan. Sprayed the top with water and put the pan cover on sliding it closed short of half an inch.
7. 45 minutes later I had a really nice rise.
8. Preheat your oven to 200ºC (400ºF).
9. Make slashes in the dough (maybe if I’d added more flour). Check the temperature of the bread (95ºC/200ºF) to be sure it is cooked.
Baked uncovered 50 minutes. Internal temp at 201 when taken out of oven.
Take the loaves out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
There is no bitterness in this bread so often associated with all whole wheat breads. I never felt like I was being made to eat this bread because it was good for me; this is easy eating bread.
MyKitchenInHalfCups 
June 16, 2016 at 11:11 pm
I like that you radically added rye flour. But what’s this?? No flax seed?
I didn’t add any sugar or honey either – just malted rye berries – and I too thought that the bread lacked a little something, that it was a little flat. (Granted, the loaf I made was physically flat too….) I put raisins (but not very many) in half of the loaf and they helped the flavour a lot. I think next time – if there is a next time (I don’t deal with failure very well…) – I’ll add dates instead of raisins. And I’ll presoak them and use the soaking water instead of regular water.
June 17, 2016 at 1:43 pm
More raisins would add more sweetness, too, but honey sounds good Like the smiley face 😉
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June 17, 2016 at 5:34 pm
You know me, I added more sugar than it called for! But only less than a tbsp more. 😉 A pullman is on my wishlist of baking pans. Your interior shot reminds me of my results for the sprouted wheat bread challenge. In a good way! Nice and moist. And good! I actually got a cute little loaf out of that one on the second try. I think I will make this again and use a portion of orange juice for the liquid since it is supposed to offset the bitterness from the whole wheat in baking. Loved this as toast and I love your swirly toast picture!
June 17, 2016 at 11:25 pm
Very nice. That crumb looks so moist!! I didn’t taste any bitterness either.
June 18, 2016 at 5:13 am
Glad you liked it. I’m curious why you didn’t knead it, I think it would give an airier loaf . The amount of water was very tricky, because the bran and flours soak up different amounts, I myself found that hard to predict. My second loaf was a lot wetter too. Adding raisins doesn’t make it a sweet loaf (like you wouldn’t put cheese or slices of meat on it) for me, just helps the flavour of the bread, a bit like salt really. But as tastes differ you can try all kind of different things… I was thinking dried figs myself.
June 18, 2016 at 10:31 am
Really couldn’t knead it, way too wet. I should have added more flour but didn’t.
Figs would be great and now I’ve started thinking about blueberries. About to take 6 days for a California trip for Dad’s 100th … unreal.
We really did enjoy this both times I made it. I only added a tablespoon honey but somehow it was enough to give it something extra. I did add a little more flour the second time but I was very happy with texture and all the first so I just pretty much did some folding.