Pain de Son

This is not exactly wheat bread, but French bread that has bran flakes, so, shall we say, the bread has wheatishness. The old-dough addition provides some acidity and flavor to what would otherwise be a more typically bland bran bread. Very tasty, and powerfood for the pipes if you happen to have a jazz band rehearsal. 

Pain de Son

Bran Bread

Adapted from The Village Baker

1 ¼ cups warm water

1 tsp active yeast

1 ½ cups pain ordinaire dough (4 hours old is best)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups wheat bran

1 ½ tsp sea salt

Dissolve pain ordinaire dough in warm water and stir until creamy. Start adding flour and bran slowly, until all but one cup has been added, and then add the salt and knead by hand on a work surface, adding the remainder of the flour. Let rise for 1 ½ hours, punch it down and let rise again for 30 minutes.

After the second rising, divide dough into two pieces and flatten each piece, square the edges, and roll it into a log. On what would be the last fold, don’t seal it entirely, and allow to rise seam side up, covered, for another hour. It will open up like a hotdog bun, but when baked, will look, well, unfortunate. I don’t know why this is the recommended/traditional wheat bran shape. Hypotheses? 

Place on a baking stone in a 450 degree oven, seam side up, and bake for 35 minutes.

Had an experience this morning which reminded me why I call the bobbin trap on the sewing machine the cryhole. I have two sewing machines, both mid-twentieth century Singer models, each with its own dramatically different threading procedure. The Sounders play today, and KP wanted his flag finished to fly in the front yard. Last year we did the first side of the flag in Portland, where my mother is an expert on the surger. Mom was unavailable by phone today, and so I had no one to hand my botch jobs to. Without the wheat bran, I would not have had the stamina with the cryhole to finish the thing.