Andrew Whitley's Spicy Buns

Related post: Daily Bread - An Andrew Whitley Workshop

If you have been reading Farine for a while, you probably know that I am not a huge fan of anything sugary but these buns truly make the cut: the recipe calls for very little white sugar, most of the sweetness coming from dried fruit. Moreover they contain a healthy amount of wholewheat (55%) and they are leavened by what is apparently called a flying ferment, a lovely British term I had never heard before. It basically means a quick milk-based ferment that makes for a more active dough than when the yeast is simply added to the flour at mixing time.
I adapted the recipe somewhat, increasing the flour a bit (American all-purpose flours, while not as strong as Canadian ones, still seem to require more water than their British counterparts), replacing part of the raisins with dried cranberries (both for their tartness and their cheerful color) and adding dried orange peel (from Penzey's Spices).
Andrew's recipe calls for soaking the fruit in water, juice or brandy. In Victoria, Diane Andiel (who helped organize the workshop and was in charge of the ingredients) had been kind enough to pre-soak them for us in Grand-Marnier and the taste was exquisite. I opted for orange juice this time but I might go for the Grand-Marnier at holiday time, especially since the orange-cranberry bouquet of flavors make these buns excellent candidates for a Christmas breakfast, brunch or tea.
Those of you who would rather follow Andrew's original recipe will find it in his book, Bread Matters, on page 254.

Ingredients (for six buns):

Flying Ferment

• 70 g wholewheat flour (I used Cedar Isle Farm flour kindly brought to me from Agassiz, BC, by my friend breadsong)
• 10 g sugar
• 3.3 g instant yeast (a scant teaspoon)
• 140 g milk

Fruit mix 

• 40 g dried cranberries
• 90 g raisins
• 5 g dried orange peel (you might want to use the grated zest of an orange instead)
• 50 g orange juice (if using freshly grated orange zest, you will need only 25 g of orange juice)

Final dough

• All of the above flying ferment
• 130 g white flour (you may need more or less depending on the flour you use. The best way to proceed might be to start with 100 g and adjust as needed)
• 55 g wholewheat flour
• 7 g baking spice (I used Penzey's which I can't recommend enough as the blend of Ceylon cinnamon, mace, anise and cardamom yields an irresistibly delicate flavor). Please note that I have zero financial interest in the company and no incentive to blog about it! It just happens that there is a Penzey's store in Seattle and I like the fact that most of their spices are available in 4-oz resealable plastic bags that can be stacked flat in the freezer. Stored that way they keep their flavor almost indefinitely
• 5 g salt
• 15 g sugar
• 25 g butter (at room temperature, diced)
• 25 g egg (about half an egg)
• All of the above fruit mix (don't squeeze the fruit but don't go overboard with the liquid either. Your best bet is to use the leftover liquid for another purpose. I added it to the plum sauce that was simmering on the stove)

Method:

1. Soak the fruit with the juice, water or brandy and allow it to hydrate for at least an hour, longer if you can, stirring from time to time (Andrew advises putting it in a plastic bag, sealing the bag, shaking it so that all the fruit get wet and if possible occasionally repeating the shaking during the soaking period)
2. Mix the pre-ferment and allow it to ferment for about one hour in a warm place (it should rise and drop)
3. Mix all the dry ingredients together then add the butter, the egg and the flying ferment (do not add the fruit mix at this stage)
4. Mix until the gluten structure is well developed (I started mixing by hand but the dough was too soft and I soon transfered it to the Kitchen Aid mixer: I mixed it on 2 for two minutes, then on 4 for a couple more minutes, at which point I took it out of the bowl, put it on the floured bench and folded it a couple of times. It came together beautifully)
5. Stretch the dough into a rectangle and carefully press the fruit into it, then roll it as you would a jellyroll, tucking in all the fruit that might escape
6. Turn the "jellyroll" 90 degrees and roll it again
7. Then return the dough to the bowl, cover it and let it rise until it no longer springs back when you palpate it with your finger
8. Divide in six and shape into fairly tight rounds
9. Put the rounds 5 cm apart on a parchment-lined half sheet pan, slide the pan into a clear plastic bag, blow once in the bag and tie it shut
10. Set to rise in a warm place until they are almost touching
11. When the buns are ready (the dough no longer springs back when you palpate it with your finger), decorate the top if desired (I sprayed them slightly with water then sprinkled some pearl sugar on them), bake them in pre-heated 350°F/180°C for 15 minutes (I steamed the oven first) then check their doneness. If necessary, bake another 5 minutes
12. Cool on a rack
13. Enjoy!

Andrew Whitley's Spicy Buns are going to Susan for YeastSpotting.

Daily Bread: An Andrew Whitley Workshop

When Andrew Whitley was invited to speak at the Kneading Conference West 2012 in Mount Vernon, Washington, Victoria-based writer  Rhona McAdam (who had attended an Andrew's Whole Grain Baking workshop in Scotland earlier this year) knew she had to jump at the chance to have him come to nearby Vancouver Island, BC and teach. So she put together a weeklong program of teaching and discovery for him (neither Andrew nor his wife Veronica had ever been to Canada) and I was lucky enough to be able to participate, at Diane Andiel's suggestion, in Daily Bread, the baking workshop which Andrew led on Saturday, September 22 at the Royal Oak Middle School in Victoria, BC.
Not only was I very excited to get to learn from Andrew, if only for a day, but Victoria holds a special sway on my heart and imagination as a city where the local food movement is alive, well and bold. I have yet to read, Digging the City: An Urban Agriculture Manifesto, the book which Rhona just published (I have it on pre-order for my e-reader and should get it by mid-October) but I already knew that beyond the bright flower baskets, the colorful totems and the ceaseless ballet of roaring seaplanes over the harbor, not to mention the upscale and touristy afternoon teas at the Empress hotel,  there was a vibrant city pulling itself by its roots so to speak, with urban farmers raising chickens, energetic young gardeners biking around to pick up compostable waste and citizens growing their own fruit and vegetables on their balconies or their decks or in their backyard.

On the night I arrived in Victoria, I went straight from the Clipper terminal to a lively panel discussion on alternative ways to support a local food economy: Andrew Whitley was there, making a case for community-supported baking (CSB) and explaining that CSB can take many forms: providing capital to buy equipment or rent premises; contributing labor or offering administrative support; helping out with product distribution, etc.
Another panelist,  fisherman Guy Johnston, described the community-supported fishery (CSF) he had established. Now in its second year, the CSF had gone from 65 members the first year to 130 today: the members buy a share of the crop (prawns, octopus and salmon) ahead of the season, providing fishermen with guaranteed income from sustainable fishing. Knowing pre-season how much fish they should bring back made a huge difference (I was reminded of that fact when reading in the New York Times earlier this week that many fishermen in Spain couldn't keep up the payments on their vessels).
Another panel participant, Angela Moran, an urban farmer, explained how she had successfully enlisted her neighbors' help in managing her flock of chickens: everyone took turns in caring for the chickens and in exchange got a share of the eggs they produced.
Andrew Whitley - who lives and works near Edinburgh - said that food was a powerful connector to help weave social traffic and that the emerging community schemes in the Victoria area reminded him of Nourish Scotland, a movement which existed "to reconnect producers, growers, retailers, consumers and all who care for local, sustainable food in Scotland" and which aimed, among other things, to change local food economies. A key element of food security was the resilience stemming from the knowledge that these local networks could not be bought: built on human relationships, they were based on the desire to relate, which wasn't for sale.

Teaching bread-baking can also be a way of generating interest in this form of local economy as people learn to bake, "produce more than they can eat, share the surplus with others and so take the first step into commercial and community baking". And in fact among the people attending the workshop the following morning were grain growers, local chefs, homebakers and farmers, some of whom were already making bread for their communities.
I wish I could show you pictures of Andrew demonstrating how to make bread (especially his fascinating air-kneading technique) but he had outlawed photography and so my camera remained in my backpack. Rhona was allowed to click away for a while however and she was kind enough to share her pictures so that you can at least have an idea of the setup:

As you can see, space was limited (which meant no notebooks on tables either) but it all worked out  (note to self: great networking opportunities are to be found in tight quarters!).
Andrew had us bake four different kinds of breads:

• A 100% wholewheat no-knead bread (straight dough) which some of us shaped in a braid
• 33% wholewheat rolls for which he had prepared an overnight sponge
• A plain sourdough 100% rye (from his book Bread Matters, pp. 160-166)
• Pre-fermented 55% wholewheat spicy buns (from the same book, pp. 154-155)

Plain rye sourdough

Andrew has developed his own method for maintaining a rye levain and I will describe it in details in another post as soon as I make his sourdough rye at home (which should be very soon as the rye culture is already bubbling away).
A lively instructor, he kept a running commentary that made for instructive and entertaining baking. As you may already know (especially if you have read his book), he is a big fan of whole grains, high hydration and long fermentations. He thinks that commercially available white flour is dead flour and even though his baking repertory does include white bread, back home he uses a stoneground flour that retains more of the nutrients. Baking a loaf with a super airy crumb isn't clearly not his top priority: as he puts it, "big holes in a crumb means white flour and no nutrition."
Of course he had access to none of his regular flours in Victoria and I believe he was slightly puzzled by the way the unfamiliar (to him) Canadian flours handled themselves: they required more water than their British counterparts and yielded a dough that was more difficult to manage. At one point he had his assistant, Barbara, wash a piece of dough under running water until only the gluten strands remained. They were tightly packed and the whole thing looked rather like an used chewing gum. It was a striking sight (I wish I could have taken a picture!) which brought in sharp relief the true nature of gluten (which should surprise no one since its name is derived from the Latin word for glue). Andrew said that trick was a good way for the baker to evaluate the protein content of a flour when the information wasn't readily available otherwise.

No-knead wholewheat bread

Generally speaking the breads didn't come out as plump and golden as they could have and I believe that beyond the flours (which would have benefited from a pre-workshop test but there had been no time for that), the ovens were also rather a disappointment: the class took place in an home economics classroom equipped with homestyle stoves and steaming wasn't an option. But it really didn't matter. Bread matters and in that respect, Andrew's knowledge, passion and commitment are stellar; they made for a memorable workshop. Thank you, Andrew (for teaching the class), Rhona (for organizing it), Diane (for generously helping out with the ingredients and the pre-ferments) and Barbara (for making the whole thing run smoothly)!

Related post:
Andrew Whitley's Spicy Buns

Farming in Greater Victoria: other images

Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters

What you'll find below is a summary of the keynote address delivered at the Kneading Conference West 2012 by Andrew Whitley, author of Bread matters: the state of modern bread and a definitive guide to baking your own. It is based on the notes I took as he was speaking. Any error or inconsistency is my own as I couldn't write quite as fast as he talked (although I tried hard!)

Baker Andrew Whitley started his professional life as a broadcaster in the BBC Russian Service. He attributes his choice of a new profession to the deep influence of four writers on his world wiew: Leo Tolstoy, who challenged people born into privilege to work out for themselves what constituted a good life, extolled the dignity of labor and urged a reconciliation of the work of the brain and that of the hands; Anton Chekhov, who had little time for people paralyzed by hereditary guilt; John Ruskin, for whom artisan work was a creative response to the availability of raw materials grown in nature, not torn apart by excessive processes; and Rachel Carson, whose impeccable science and elegiac evocation of nature in Silent Spring led him to finally change his life for ever.
Coming as he did from a privileged background, Andrew was nevertheless a firm believer in the dignity of labor; he knew he wanted to actually do something about the problems identified by Carson; he also felt that working with whole grains (as opposed to the reconstituted flours sold in England under the label "wholemeal" which are often white flour with the bran added back in) was a search for vitality and connectedness that said something about the integrity of one's personal and professional life. So he started growing wheat on an allotment in the middle of London. While the occupation was morally satisfying, he quickly realized that it wouldn't allow him to pay the mortgage and when he heard of a watermill being restored in Northern England, he jumped at the chance of buying its flour and becoming a baker.
First he needed to figure out how to make bread. The learning curve was steep, especially because the local wheat was wildly unpredictable. Also, nobody was familiar with the kind of bread he was striving to make. As he put it: "I went to a part of the country with almost no population to make a product nobody asked for with a grain that didn't have the right properties." Against all odds, it worked and for this, he credits his early customers who were both encouraging and steadfastly supportive.
Bread matters to us as individuals because it is part of our nourishment. In certain developing countries, it is the main staple and people are still enormously dependent on it. In Great-Britain, the bread culture can be characterized by irreverence or indifference. There is no consideration for the nutritional quality and digestibility of wheat grown for human consumption. Poor choices have been made in terms of plant breeding since World War II,  the goal being always to maximize yield through chemical and mechanical means. But the way we make bread as a society has huge consequences for the soil, agronomical methods and choice of seeds as well as for the distribution and consumption of the product and its disposal (in the United Kingdom, up to 30% of bread is thrown away untouched, still in its unopened plastic bag). 
Agronomy has an interesting effect on the quality of grain: nitrogen is applied to the wheat after flowering (late nitrogen method) to boost the protein content. But what is the quality of this protein? Tests have shown that organic wheat with a protein level of 11% has the same baking properties as non-organic wheat checking in at 13% protein and that wheat treated with late nitrogen contained twice as much gliadin (for more info on the link between gliadin and coeliac disease, click here). In another experiment, scientists compared the nutritional quality of wheat coming harvested at the same time and from the same fields but milled differently: half was stoneground, the other half roller-milled. The stoneground flour contained many more nutrients than the roller-milled one.
Due to the combined effect of new wheat-growing technologies, milling methods which take much more out of the grain than traditional ones and the acceleration of the baking process itself, the industrial construct of water, flour, salt and additives that is now eaten by most people in the UK may be called a loaf but it should never be dignified by the name of bread. Although choices appear deceptively wide at the supermarket, the fact remains that, beyond superficial differences, all British loaves are actually very much the same.
When a baker allows flour to ferment for a significant amount of time especially in the presence of sourdough, changes happen in bread that seem to make it more nutritional. It is hard to research digestibility scientifically but anecdotes are reliable stories about how people feel when they eat something. The Real Bread Campaign - which Andrew Whitley helped launch -  was born of the desire to make bread better for ourselves, our families, our communities and our environment. It calls for honest labeling of all ingredients and processes. The bread industry accuses the campaign of seeking to drag it down. But isn't its coming clean as to what it does and uses a reasonable thing to ask? The industry refuses to list the enzymes it uses routinely, for instance. Why?
A fervent believer in the need to re-localize the food chain, Andrew seeks to be an agent of revitalization of the local supply chain for grain and flour. Most of the grain grown in Scotland - where he now lives and works - goes to the commodity market where it is subject to investors and speculators. Andrew himself owns five acres of land on which he grows several varietals with the goal of evaluating their baking properties. He is involved with a project run by Martin Wolfe of the Organic Research Centre to produce multiple varieties of seeds and combine them in order to help them resist pests and other adverse conditions. He hopes that one day he'll be able to bake from wheat entirely grown in Scotland.
He seeks to encourage community-supported baking through a system of donations or through novel forms of community funding, for instance 'loaf loans" under the terms of which 7.5% of the interest due is paid in bread vouchers; or "bread basket" systems under which one customer buys one basket of ten loaves, gets one free and sells the other nine to colleague and friends, making it possible for the bread to reach people who would otherwise never think of walking into an actual bakery.
The cultural context needs to evolve: dietary changes will come from a combination of changes in regulations and actions at the individual level. Minimum nutritional standards should be set for minerals and vitamins in flour. No additives should be allowed. The pressure should go all the way from the consumer to the breeder. Last time the UK tried to raise the standards for bread was during World War II when it instituted the "national loaf". Today's bread, based on the values of simplicity and common ownership, could be rebranded and promoted as the "common loaf".
In fermenting dough, many transformations come together to yield a flavorful and healthful bread. At the time of the French Revolution, "le pain se lève" (the bread is rising) was both a password and a call to arms among the insurgents who prepared to storm the Bastille. Today British consumers still have a long way to go to free themselves from large corporate interests that do not have their best interest at heart. As Andrew sees it, the move towards real bread is light-years ahead in the United States. Events such as the Kneading Conference are an essentiel ingredient in the fermenting process. The bread is definitely rising!

A field of heirloom wheat at WWU Mt Vernon Research and Extension Center
with orchards in the background and the snowy peak of Mt Baker in the distance
(the Center is the seat of the Kneading Conference West)

Related posts:
Kneading Conference West 2012
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time

Kneading Conference West 2012

Don't you love it when you find yourself in a crowd of people and experience an overwhelming feeling of togetherness and belonging? I know I do although it doesn't happen to me very often because outside immediate circles of intimacy, love and friendship, I am usually an outsider looking in. Having now lived in the United States for as long as I have lived in France, I am truly bicultural. In practical terms it means that due to the twin sets of references I carry in my head and heart, I never completely blend in on either side of the Atlantic. Truth be told, I cherish (and maybe nurture) this internal divide: exile is very much my country of choice and I have come to rather enjoy the exquisite ache of nostalgia and longing, especially in today's connected world where the other side is only a click away.

Still I love to belong as much as the next person and at the Kneading Conference West, this  year as last year, I found myself both part of a larger whole and at one with it. Loosely defined, the Conference (co-sponsored in part by the Bread Bakers Guild of America) is a gathering of bakers (both home bakers and professionals), millers, growers and brewers all interested in bringing local grains back to their communities. Last year we mostly talked about reviving cultures which had thrived in the Pacific Northwest since the nineteenth century before agribusiness decided it would be more profitable for these grains to be grown on a massive scale in the Midwest. This year, we discussed moving forward and finding ways to sustain the renaissance of local grains overtime, be it wheat, barley, rye or spelt, to name only a few.

Having grown up on local food (my grandparents grew, raised and foraged for a large part of what we ate, not to mention the hunting for small game that went on in the fall in the nearby woods), I have a deep respect for terroir and man's connection to the land and I love it that there is a movement afoot in America away from industrial and processed food. I still remember my shock when we moved to New York in 1979 and I first saw baguettes at the supermarket. I picked one up from the bin where it stood, wrapped in plastic, among several other pale companions, I lifted it out. To my surprise and consternation, it bowed deeply forward and remained that way all the way home. Due to the then-prevalent preference for overmixing and fast fermentations, bread was generally mediocre in France at the time we moved, so it isn't as if I had left behind a continent of fragrant and crusty loaves. Still I had never seen such pliable bread and it was depressing. It took many years, the publication of Nancy Silverton's Breads of the La Bread Bakery and my discovery of levain before we had baguettes on the table again on a regular basis.

So the local theme is one which resonates with me but it wasn't until keynotes speakers Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters and Naomi Duguid, co-author (among many other books) of Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas - a book I own since 1997 and still always open with a sense of wonder - started talking about their experiences that it all coalesced in my mind. Nancy Silverton and many other talented bakers after her taught us traditional French methods of bread-baking focusing on gentle mixing and long fermentations. Such baking is mostly based on a type of flour that offers reasonably consistent results because it comes from a blend of grains chosen for their baking properties, that is to say commercial white flour.

If we want to use more local grains (and we do or we wouldn't have been attending the Conference), we must accept the fact that our bread may not turn out exactly the same day after day. To get as close as possible to the crumb and crust we like, we need to learn how to compensate for the variability built in local wheat. The good news, as Scott Mangold cheerfully put it during his excellent workshop on test baking local whole wheat flours, is that, in the process, we will become better bakers. But growing to love the taste and texture of these local breads as much as those of the white baguette we may still hold as a gold standard will require keeping an open mind and educating both ourselves, our families and our friends (in the case of the home baker) and our customers (in case of the professional baker). As we slowly incorporate more local whole grains into our baking, the payoff will be huge however in terms of flavor, diversity, nutrition and the environment.

The way I suddenly understood it, our new role, as bakers, is to build upon our knowledge of traditional French bread-baking to help strengthen and sustain our communities here in America. What could possibly induce a deeper sense of finally belonging in this French woman who emigrated from her native Paris years and years ago and now bakes in the Pacific Northwest?

Of course I am lucky to live in a part of the country where (although much remains to be done), grains are already being grown, milled and made accessible to local bakers and brewers. If such is not the case where you live but you have access to a spot where you can grow what you like, you may want to read Growing Small Grains in Your Garden by Bob Van Veldhuizen. "A summation of many years of agronomic research into growing grains in Alaska scaled down to the typical home garden," it might give you some ideas on ways to get your family to kick off the white flour habit, even if you only have a balcony and your crop yields one tiny loaf... Should you decide to embark on that particular project, you may also want to read William Alexander's 52 Loaves, the lively account of a home grower/miller/baker's odyssey.

This year as last year, the Conference took place on the charmingly bucolic grounds of Western Washington State University Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center. Chaired by Stephen Jones, the Center's Director, it offered many different lectures, classes and workshops, not to mention evening tastings of local beers and ciders and, on the very last afternoon, a tour of the Hedlin Family Farm, BreadFarm Bakery and Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill. I didn't do the tour but I took as many classes and attended as many lectures as possible and I will report here on what I saw and heard. So please stay tuned!

Related Farine posts: 
Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters (keynote address)
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time (keynote address)
Kneading Conference West 2011
Scott Mangold: Test Baking with Local Wheats for Home and Bakery
Finnish Barley Bread (ohrarieska) (a Naomi Duguid recipe)

Other related posts:
By breadsong : Kneading Conference West - Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3
By Floyd Mann (The Fresh Loaf): Kneading Conference West - Part 1 & Part 2
By Naomi Duguid: Notes from the Skagit Valley
By Rhona McAdam: Kneading with a k
By Teresa Greenway: Kneading Conference West - Part 1 & Part 2

After I throw in a couple of flatbread and cracker recipes, not to mention the formula for the powerfully seductive barley-cheese-and-aged cheddar bread baked at the Conference by Andrew Ross from a British recipe adapted by Hannah Warren, my hope is that you too will want to answer Naomi Duguid's call to bakers: "Go back to your home or bakery and add at least two products than contain whole grains to your repertoire as well as at least one item made largely with a grain other than wheat"... It may not sound like much but if we all do it and buy our grain locally, seeds of change will germinate in our communities and grow to make a real difference.