Whole wheat bread with milk
( Pane integrale al latte )

Recipe for whole wheat bread with milk

Preparation

• - First leavening.
  Mix 200g (7 ounces) whole-wheat flour with 70g (2 1/2 ounces) common wheat flour and sourdough powder in a large bowl or on a work surface.
  Add about 200ml (6 3/4 fluid ounces - 1/2 plus 1/3 cup) warm water, little at a time, to form a soft dough.
  Knead for some minutes to amalgamate all your ingredients well.
  Sprinkle your dough with flour and cover with a napkin.
  Let dough leaven for at least an hour or until its volume doubles.
  Meanwhile bring butter to room temperature.
• - Second leavening.
  Heat milk slightly.
  Prepare 500g (1.1 pound) whole-wheat flour, 230g (8 ounces) common wheat flour and salt.
  Mix all ingredients very well.
  Place them on work surface and make a large well in its center.
  Put in the well: butter cut into pieces, 30g (1 ounce) sesame seeds and risen dough.
  Begin to pour in warm milk, gradually, dissolving leavened dough and mixing it with butter.
  When your dough turns into a semi-liquid mixture, incorporate all flour around too.
  Add milk a little at a time.
  At the end you'll get a soft dough.
• - Preparation of bread rolls.
  Divide your dough into 24 rounded small portions as you can see in the photo.
  Make this step on work surface, slightly floured.
  Line some baking sheets with baking paper and sprinkle with flour.
  Arrange your bread rolls, well separated, on the baking sheets.
  ake small cuts on the top of every bread roll.
  Let them leaven in a warm place and away from drafts, 2 to 3 hours.
• - Just before baking: beat two quail eggs with a pinch of salt.
  Brush every bread roll surface with beaten egg with delicacy.
  Sprinkle sesame seeds on their top.

Cooking

• - Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• - Bake bread rolls until their surface is golden, about 15 minutes.
• - If you've made larger shape cook for more minutes.

Just before serving

• - Serve bread at room temperature.
• - If you freeze these bread rolls remember my tip: let your bread thaw at room temperature and heat in warm oven for a couple of minutes just before serving.

Note

Tips

• - Choose always wholemeal flour obtained by grinding whole grains and not those ones which are produced from refined flours and to which is added a certain amount of bran only after.
• - Make this kind of bread in advance. Even the day before.
• - Leavening does not always work in the same way. There are times in which your results will be good, other times a bit less.
• - The amount of water and milk are highly variable because they depend on many factors which can not be controlled. So my tip is to add them a little at a time.
• - Why double leavening? why not fresh yeast? I answer in "Healthy  eating", below!
• - I always have quail eggs at home. They are useful as in this case. An whole egg would be excessive to brush my buns.
• - You can keep this kind of bread for a few days. I typically freeze what we do not eat in the first two days.

Menu planning

• - This wholemeal bread with milk is rich in ingredients and so I recommend it especially if you have guests and you want to present a special bread with the unmistakable flavor of whole wheat flour. It is a bread for gourmets!

Healthy eating

• - Nutrition facts that is calories, fat, carbo and sugar of wholemeal bread refer to a single serving.
• - You all, even those who do not like the taste of whole wheat flour, know the enormous benefits associated with it. First of all your fiber intake. About 4 times higher if compared to wheat flour. Then you can play on fewer calories. And recent studies have shown that whole grains are protective against cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and certain kind of cancers.
  But in order to gain maximum benefits from whole grain flours, you need to choose the biological ones, obtained from cereals that have not been treated chemically. This is the case of this bread.
  But I want to emphasize that, given the presence of milk and butter, although very little, it is good to consider it a bread a bit special for your special occasions not for your daily menu.
• - Why a double leavening? in order to use less yeast and obtain a more crumbly, high-quality bread.
• - Besides I use powdered sourdough that works better than fresh yeast. Let's see the reason why.
  Fresh  yeast works too quickly. Your dough leavens but in reality the yeast acts incompletely and then this dough is not very digestible. Unfortunately this effect increases in proportion to the amount of used yeast. And lately, I see more and more recipes for bread and pizza dough with abnormal amounts of yeast that has the only purpose of speeding up the process but that leaves a recognizable aftertaste, very far from a natural leavening.
  The other important factor is related to acidity. The acidity is completely missing in your dough with fresh yeast and the lack of acidity does not allow the activation of the enzyme phytase. What is this enzyme? Phytase is an enzyme that is used to attach the phytin. Half of the phosphorus contained in grains is linked to this form. Phosphorus is a very important element in the daily diet. Have you understood the importance of natural leavening?

Loretta