Whilst it has become rather fashionable to promote one’s Sourdough credentials.., I know full well that many of our customers enjoy The Prior’s Flours in a breadmaker. I am also aware that it can take a little adjustment of the programmes and recipes provided with the breadmakers to get the best out of stoneground flours.
Why is this? Well, there are three main reasons – a) stoneground flours absorb a different amount of water to the ‘typical’ roller milled commercial flours that breadmaker recipes are created for and b) there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ stoneground flour, so each harvest / parcel of wheat we use is subtly different – as many of you will have worked out. And.. c) unless the timings of your breadmaker are adjusted, the dried / fast acting yeast gets very little time to get to work on the ‘heavier’ stoneground flour – there is more bran remaining in your lovely, tasty, quality Priors Flour!!
Hand bakers get used to adjusting the amount of water and times for dough proving because the results are visible and ‘touchable’ – you feel the differences when you work the dough. For our breadmachine colleagues, it is a little more difficult to work out when and how to adjust timings and quantities of water.
I have to confess that I have very little experience with bread machines myself, yet am often asked for advice. So, I have decided to turn to you, my wonderful customers to ask you to share your experiences!
Hanna, one of my customers has offered to share her tips and I would be delighted if you would do the same – if you’re happy for me to share them. Please share your top tips
Working with the Panasonic SX2550
Hanna uses Catherine Atkinson’s book “Brilliant Breadmaking” She tells me:
It is called a Malthouse loaf. The recipe calls for 500 gr. of dark malted bread. I chose to mix the The Prior’s Malted Multiseed and The Prior’s Dark Malt Flours:
1 tbsp malt extract
325 ml lukewarm water
25 gr. butter, at room temperature
250 gr malted multiseed priors flour
250 gr dark malted priors flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 fast action dried yeast. (I just use what i have dried yeast)
Wholewheat setting and medium crust.
The crust stays crispy which is also pretty fantastic.
Thank you in advance and thank you to Hanna for sharing her experiences!
Hi Jon,
I use the Panasonic ZB2512 bread machine, and I’m quite happy with the recipes from the user manual (without any modifications). I use either the “French bread” programme (based on 400g white, 300mL water) or the wholemeal programme when mixing the white flour with other flours in a 1:1 ratio (malted multiseed, Prior’s country blend, wholemeal, etc) – that’s based on 500g flour, 370mL water.
Both these programmes are long-running ones (5-6h). The quick programmes give decent results too, but not very different from cheaper flours.
I might try and reduce the amount of water, though – I always need to let the loaves dry an hour if I don’t want the bread to stick too much to the knife.
The spelt flour programmes also give excellent results, again following the standard proportions from the user manual.
Brioche is perfect too, although I use my own recipe (which works even better on Prior’s flours compared to the previous ones).
Your flours give consistent results and raise well in the bread machine every time – nothing like the organic flours I tried from big grocery shops.