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I adapted Maurizio Leo’s Hop Miche recipe and will be baking them for this Saturday (21 December) at COGS of Coventry.
The special sauce in these loaves is freshly milled organic wholemeal rye flour that is scalded in stout beer (I’m using Brewdog’s Black Heart). The scalding — or tangzhong — pre-cooks the rye flour and the flour gelatinises which means it is able to carry more liquid (in this case beer!) than it would otherwise. The scald softens the crumb beautifully and gives the loaves a malty sweet tang and rich dark brown colour.
My nephew Finn got to try my first go at the bread and his words? “I think that’s the best bread I’ve ever tasted”. Take that Greggs.
Here are some pics. They show (rather misshapen) round boules (I cooked bigger loaves at home for fun) but for Saturday I’ll make batards that weigh 750g before baking. I call them Merton Stout and they’ll be £4.50.
