Volkorenbrood in Toronto

Though we took lots of great pics of food in the Netherlands, I decided it would also be about time to post pictures of food that I made, or friends made, in Toronto.

This Volkorenbrood was made with a recipe from a supposedly famous bakery in Amsterdam. No, B's dad didn't give me his recipe. I pulled it off the internet and it goes something like:

Volkorenbrood (from About.com)

4 cups whole wheat flour (500 g)

2/3 tbsp salt (10 g)
1 1/5 cups cold tap water (300 ml)

1 1/2 tbsp live yeast (20 g)

Additional 1/2 cup (100 ml) water

olive oil

Sourced: http://dutchfood.about.com/od/breadspastriescookies/r/Wholewheatbread.htm

Somehow, I think I did something wrong - well, actually, I was forced to substitute the live yeast for normal active yeast and the bread was not as fluffy as I was hoping for. B thinks it is purely due to the lack of live yeast in my bread. I say I need to move to Amsterdam instead.

This is what I did:

Couldn't find live yeast so measured out an equivalent amount of active yeast, poofed it with some sugar and water and watched it bubble.

Then, I mixed the flour and salt on a clean work surface, made a well in the middle and added water slowly in the middle of the dyke of flour (thinking all the while that I was in NL and was building a canal of sorts). The recipe says that the well should measure about 8 inches across but I didn't really care and just made a well that worked.

Poured the poofed yeast water into the well and worked it in with the flour in a circular motion, watching all the time that I didn't make a hole in the dyke and create a river. Once the ingredients were combined, I stared to knead. And boy did I knead. Knead, knead, knead. I had to add a bit more water to get it going but within 20 mins, it seemed to work and formed a nice dough ball.

Once it got there, I wrapped it in a warm, damp tea towel and allowed to rise for 45 mins at room temp. Once the dough rose 1/3 its volume, I removed the tea towel and punched the dough down with my fists. Fun. Then, I formed it back into a ball, wrapped it up again and allowed it to rise for another 45 mins.

Preheated oven to 430 degrees F.

While waiting for the rising, I greased a bread tin with EVOO, awaited anxiously for the dough to complete its rising. Then, once the time was up, I removed the dough and flattened it on the wet work surface. I formed the dough into a sausage shape so that it was roughly the same length as the bread tin and placed it into the bread tin. I cover the tin with the warm towel and allowed it to rise for the last 30 minutes until it increased by 1/3 in volume.

Reduced oven temp to 400 degrees F and placed the bread in the oven. Baked for 40 mins. Removed the bread and voila!

Not too bad if you ask me (in terms of looks) but as I said, the taste and texture could have been better. B liked it though so I guess it passed his test!