Deliciously beautiful bread made with freshly milled grain
One of the great things about artisan food is that every day, or every batch, is just a little bit different. And while the Country Multigrain Bread (formerly known as Country Miche) is always really good, every once in a while all of the many elements involved conspire in the best possible way to yield an exceptional loaf. For that to happen, the weather, the grain, and the culinary spirits over on the Southside come together to create a loaf that is over the top, amazingly good!
I had one of those especially excellent breads last Friday evening. It was from the bigger, 4-pound loaf, which comes as a round miche (French for “loaf”)—which, to my taste, offers an even deeper, more complex flavor and moister interior crumb than the smaller size. It had a beautiful super dark crust like I like—the darker crusts have far, far more flavor thanks to the caramelization of the natural sugars in the grain, aka “the Maillard Effect.” The crust, the crumb, and the salt level were so terrific that they made me want to write about it here and remind everyone just how darned delicious this bread is.
The Country Multigrain Bread might be a near-perfect manifestation of French food writer Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat’s statement in History of Food: “… really good bread makes you feel happy just to smell it, look at it, bite, chew and swallow it.” It is one of the breads that debuted after we began the wonderful work of milling our own grain at the Bakehouse in 2018. It’s a blend of four grains: Regionally grown and stone-milled organic hard red spring wheat, organic rye and organic spelt from Janie’s Mill, and organic buckwheat from Natural Way Mills. While the first one is slightly sifted (i.e., high extraction flour), the other three are whole grain flours, all capturing the true essence of the grains they come from. Like I said above, the quartet comes together to make for a compelling set of flavors.
The Bakehouse’s Country Multigrain Bread is so exceptionally marvelous it would be wholly at home in a top-notch French country bakery circa 1880. Beautiful chestnut-colored crumb with big holes (which artisan bakers are always working to make happen) with lovely flecks of bran. The aroma is lively, slightly sour, substantial but not strong, and comforting. The bread’s flavor is big, almost meaty, very wheaty, complex, and fascinatingly full. I love it simply as is, toasted with great olive oil. Perfect for sandwiches. It’s terrific with the Creamery’s Cream Cheese, olive oil, and our 5-Star Black Pepper blend. Being naturally leavened (with nearly 20 hours of rise time), the Country Multigrain stays marvelously moist for days.
If you’re feeling stressed these days, good bread could be a big help. As the great Spanish scribe Cervantes once said, “All sorrows are less with bread.”
