Kuban Bread
Description
Baking is prepared simply and quickly. Important: follow all stages of dough fermentation and the baking temperature regime. No matter how much you want to cut off the hot, crunchy crust, let the bread cool completely, as the baking process continues until it is fully cooled. It can be served with tea or coffee.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
Prepare the necessary ingredients.
- 2
Step 2
Add wheat starter and pressed yeast to room‑temperature whey; the whey can be replaced with regular water. This recipe uses the starter “levito madre”; if you don’t have this starter, you can use regular yeast, then increase the amount of flour by 35 g, the amount of water by 30 g, and the amount of yeast by 5 g.
- 3
Step 3
Sift all types of flour – hemp, barley, and wheat – into a bowl.
- 4
Step 4
Add salt, sugar, sunflower seed kernels, pour in one tablespoon of sunflower oil.
- 5
Step 5
Knead the dough, cover it with a towel or plastic wrap, and let it rise for one hour in a warm place. After that, perform a stretch‑and‑fold, which means “stretch and fold” into an envelope shape; it is advisable to repeat this procedure twice, spaced 30–40 minutes apart.
- 6
Step 6
The dough should increase in size.
- 7
Step 7
Dust the tabletop work surface with a mixture of bran and flour, and place the dough on it.
- 8
Step 8
Gather the edges of the dough toward the center, rounding it.
- 9
Step 9
Flip the piece seam side down and round the dough into a ball again.
- 10
Step 10
Prepare a proofing basket; if you don’t have a special one, you can use a regular bread basket, lining it with a towel generously dusted with a mixture of flour and bran.
- 11
Step 11
Place the bread dough seam side up.
- 12
Step 12
Cover the bread with a napkin at the ends. Leave it in a warm place for 1 hour.
- 13
Step 13
After an hour, the dough has significantly "grown" and increased in volume.
- 14
Step 14
Place the bread dough onto a baking sheet or directly onto the pan seam side down, that is, simply carefully tip it out of the basket.
- 15
Step 15
Make cuts so that the gases formed in the dough can find an outlet. Do this either with a very sharp knife or a regular razor blade.
- 16
Step 16
Bake the bread in a preheated oven, having first spritzed it with water, for 10 minutes at the maximum temperature of 250 °C, after which open the oven, release excess steam, and bake for another 50 minutes at 150 °C. Remove the finished bread onto a rack and let it cool completely, as the baking process is not yet finished.
- 17
Step 17
The finished bread should be completely cooled.