Wheat Bread with Buttermilk

Still in a busy summer schedule I made this 100% wheat bread that can be made on a single day if you don't use sourdough or have enough around and don't have to start it the previous day. Has some oat flakes and cracked wheat. Most of the breads I make contain at least some, if not all rye flour. The original recipe actually doesn't call for any sourdough, but I decided to replace some of the flour/water with it to make it more interesting.

Sourdough

• 40g (1 3/8 oz) all purpose wheat flour 
• 30ml (1 oz) water 
• 7g (1/4 oz) wheat sourdough starter 

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well. Cover and let rest for 14 hours at room temperature. In order to speed up the recipe you can also make it without sourdough, just increase the wheat and water amounts in the main dough by the above numbers.

Main Dough

• Sourdough
• 460g (1 lb 1/4 oz) wheat flour (500g if not making with sourdough)
• 50g (1 3/4 oz) cracked wheat
• 50g (1 3/4 oz) oat flakes
• 25ml (7/8 oz) water (55ml if not making with sourdough)
• 325g (11 3/8 oz) buttermilk
• 15g (1/2 oz) fresh yeast, or 2 tsp Active Dry Yeast, 1 tsp of sugar and 52ml (1 3/4oz) of water, mixed and let stand for about 10 minutes
• 10g (1/4 oz) salt 
• 10g (1/4 oz) sugar

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and knead with the dough hook on low speed for 5 minutes. Increase speed to 2 and knead for another 10 minutes.

Cover with air tight lid and let rest for 2 3/4 hours at room temperature. After 1 and 2 hours put the dough on a lightly floured surface, fold the edges into the center and press in a little. Go around the dough (once or twice) until it ends up in round shape again, then put back into the bowl and cover.

Put dough onto lightly floured surface, quickly and firmly knead it by hand and then form into elongated shape with seam down; try to form pointy ends. Transfer into an air tight container and cover or wrap it with plastic wrap. The original recipe suggest to place the dough on parchment paper before covering. I didn't really know how to do that with plastic wrap so I didn't.  Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

When you use plastic wrap be careful when you take it out, make sure to remove the wrap carefully and don't rip off the outer layer of the dough.

Preheat oven to 250 °C (485 °F).

Cover baking sheet with parchement paper (if you didn't manage to do that in the previous step) and carefully transfer the dough onto it.

Place onto middle rack of the oven, spray a lot of water in and bake for 10 minutes. Then open the oven door to let out steam, close again and reduce temperature to 190 °C (375 °F). Bake for another 40 minutes. Open the oven door a little bit for the last 5-8 minutes to get a more crunchy crust.

Let cool on cooling rack.

Original recipe (German language) without sourdough in "Das Brotbackbuch" by Lutz Geißler, published by Ulmer Eugen Verlag.