Hearth bread

Several months ago Gold Medal replaced its Better for Bread flour, in the yellow sack, with Harvest King bread flour, in an earth-tone sack reminscent of Al Gore’s earth-tone alpha-male campaign wardrobe in 2000. It’s not just a cosmetic change; this is a different flour, the same one previously available only to professionals and favored by many artisan bakers.

This flour is unbleached and unbromated, like King Arthur, but in terms of strength, it’s somewhere between KA’s all-purpose flour, at 11.3% protein, and KA’s bread flour at 12.7%. Gold Medal told me, via email, that Harvest King “has a protein level between 11.3 and 12.3 percent to provide optimum baking characteristics and to deliver the desired crumb structure and crust texture.”

I like this flour. It produces great loaves with a clean taste. This rustic hearth bread, which is the recipe on the sack, uses a touch of whole wheat flour and a bit of honey; the crust and crumb are wonderful. This is a straight-dough bread, no starter or sponge.

The recipe is by the master baker Rose Levy Beranbaum, who is now affiliated with Gold Medal. She wrote about this flour and recipe on her site, providing many, many tips that are especially helpful to newcomers to bread making. One tip we can all use is her timetable for making this on a weekend. She also provides a slightly different version of the recipe and the most important change affects those using measuring cups. She specifies the dip-and-sweep method, at 156 grams per cup, so she lists only 3 cups instead of her 3 1/2 on the sack, which says to lightly spoon it into cups.

For those of us who use scales, Gold Medal told me the weight of a cup of this flour is 128-135 grams. I’ve been allowing 130 grams in all recipes with success and, by weight at 130g, the variance between the two hearth bread versions is almost nil.

Rose’s Hearth Bread

Adapted from Gold Medal and Beranbaum

3 1/2 cups / 455g / Harvest King bread flour
1/4 cup / 30g whole wheat flour*
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 1/4 cups / 11.25 oz water, room temp
1 tsp honey

*I used King Arthur Organic White Whole Wheat

By Processor: Put dry ingredients into work bowl and pulse to combine. Add honey and, with motor running, add most of the water and process 10-15 seconds, until dough begins to come together in a ball. Check for dryness and, if necessary, pulse in remaining water. Process 45 seconds, turn out into a greased bowl and proceed as below.

By Hand: Stir together dry ingredients. Stir in water and honey. Place dough on lightly-floured work surface and knead until smooth and springy, but still somewhat sticky, adding small amounts of flour or water as needed. Place dough in oiled bowl, turning to coat.

Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place in warm, draft-free place for about an hour, until doubled and an indention made with your finger remains.

“Punch down” the dough by deflating it with your hand, turning it onto itself. Shape into a ball and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment that has been sprinkled with corn meal. Cover the dough again with plastic wrap and let rise another 45 minutes, until doubled.

Place an oven rack in the lowest position and one above it. Place a baking stone on the lower rack. Preheat the oven to 475 F /240 C /Gas Mark 9. Slash an X into the dough and spray with water. Place baking sheet on the baking stone and 1 cup of water in a shallow pan on the other rack.

Bake for 10 minutes then lower temperature to 425 F/ 220C /Gas 7. Bake an additional 20 minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. [alternatively, bake to an internal temp of 200 degrees and/or tap the bottom to see if it sounds hollow. ella]

Move to a rack and cool completely.

Ella’s Notes: Although I did spritz water onto the bread before it went into the oven I did not use a baking stone or the water in a pan. If you read my post About Bread Baking, you know I no longer try to mimic the powerful blasts of injected steam in professional ovens. Also, this bread has no fat and will stale within a day or so. Leftovers make good croutons, bread crumbs or stuffing.