Grain Gathering 2015: Dave Miller on milling and baking (revised)

Related posts:

• The Grain Gathering 2015
• Dave Miller's class formulas and levain-building process (coming soon)

Note: Revised on September 30, 2015 based on suggestions by Dave Miller.

Dave Miller of Miller's Bake House in Oroville, California, needs no introduction. A marvelous baker and dedicated miller, he has become a living legend in the world of bread. So I knew his workshop would be excellent (and mobbed) but I also knew that since he was planning to cover all the stages of whole-grain breadmaking starting with milling your own flours, I would only attend the first afternoon if I didn't want to skip pretty much everything else at the Grain Gathering.
Fortunately my friend Laurie Knuever of Ratio Coffee & Pastry in Vernon, British Columbia, herself a passionate and talented baker, did stay for the duration and took loads of notes and videos.  She generously agreed to share them with Farine. Thank you, Laurie! What wonderful reference tools for those of us who couldn't be there.

Milling
Dave Miller has been milling for 30 years (and milling his own flour for 28 years). While he once owned and ran a very big bakery, he now bakes once a week for the Chico farmers' market.
For the purposes of this class, he baked with three different varieties of wheat:

• Einkorn: Dave loves the flavor, his customers are crazy about it and it performs very well
• Sonora: It has a beautiful creamy color and usually a very good flavor (although not this year)
• Renan: A French variety grown in Mount Vernon, Washington

Considerations

• Different types of stones yield different qualities of flours. The larger the stone the easier it is to get the type of granulation you want. A 40" stone is pretty much ideal. Heat is a major concern and the coolness of the big stone takes away some of the friction heat.
• Granite is often chosen for millstones because it wears unevenly and stays rough for a longer period of time. However today composites are often preferred. They are popular with bakers because they self-sharpen (the natural stones don't).
• Another variable to take into consideration is the amount of grain fed at a time: the smaller the amount, the finer the flour. Softer wheat offer less resistance. Spelt and rye can be fed faster than wheat. Kamut has to be fed the slowest.
• The space between the stones is also an issue. You don't want to make it too tight or the flour will start tasting like ground stone. The two stones need to be very close but they can't touch. An adjustment may be needed every year but that isn't always the case.
• Dave dresses his own stones once a year but then he runs his mill seven hours a week, which isn't much. "Dressing a stone" means roughing up its surface. If your stones have become too smooth and you try to remedy the problem by bringing them closer to each other, you create more heat which leads to a loss of performance and nutrition. Also you don't want circular grooves in your stone (and they will happen if the stones don't get dressed regularly).
• Dave dresses his stones by feel (working where the smooth spots are).
• When milling, Dave doesn't go by temperature but by smell: if your wheat flour isn't aromatic right out of the mill, then the aromas won't be in the bread either. The temperature of Dave's flour is never more than warm.

Four basic qualities of flour:

• Light, fluffy and very fine. It offers no resistance when you put your hand in it. It is also very aromatic.
• Finely ground endosperm with large bran specks. It happens when milling softer wheat. Some millers will temper their wheat to get the speck. It is especially advantageous if you are bolting (good separation). Still fluffy.
• Sandy, kind of gritty. That is Dave's least favorite. It affects the functionality of the wheat. There is no good separation between the endosperm and the germ and much less bonding with gluten. Not contributing to the dough (the loaf will be denser)
• Overheated: which is what you get when you put more pressure on the stones in the hope of getting a finer grain. Loss of aroma and less nourishment. The biggest culprit is trying to feed too much wheat at a time. Ideally you want each berry to have as much contact with the stone as possible (which can't happen when the grain berries are all crushed together). Overheated flour behaves like a weaker flour.

Should you age your flour?

• No, with whole-grain flours aging doesn't bring about an increase in performance. The quality is good right off the mill.

Cleaning the millstone

• If your stone gets encrusted with flour (picture below), you need to scrape it off.

Dave cleaning up a flour-encrusted stone

That's it, readers. This is the extent of my notes and pictures for the class.  For the rest of the post, I am relying on Laurie Knuever's videos and notes. Again, thank you, Laurie, you saved the day!

Laurie Knuever's videos
Please note that these very informative videos are unedited. Watching them is pretty much like attending the workshop. Which is awesome.

• Dave Miller: Dressing the milling stone (8:55 min)
• Dave Miller: More dressing of the stone (27 sec)
• Dave Miller: Even more dressing of the stone (3:00 min)
• Dave Miller: Milling of flour (7:20 min)
• Dave Miller: Grain being fed into mill (13 sec)
• Dave Miller: Discussing einkorn (1:32 min)
• Dave Miller: feeding the levain for whole-wheat bread (5:45 min)
• Dave Miller: Mixing the Renan dough (22 sec)
• Dave Miller: Mixing of whole-wheat dough - part 1 (15 min)
• Dave Miller: Mixing of whole-wheat dough - part 2 (4:11 min)
• Dave Miller: Mixing of whole-wheat dough - part 3 (5:07 min)
• Dave Miller: Mixing of the Sonora whole-wheat dough (7:05 min)
• Dave Miller: Shaping very wet doughs (4:36 min) (problem with the orientation of the camera but excellent otherwise)
• Dave Miller: Shaping with water on the table (1:02 min)
• Dave Miller: More shaping (0:52 min)
• Dave Miller: Stitching technique (1:14 min)
• Dave Miller: Handling of the dough while shaping (6:13 min)
• Dave Miller: Scoring and baking (1:31 min)

Laurie Knuever's notes
Note: the text of Laurie's notes has been slightly adapted for the purpose of this post.

Pre-shaping wet doughs

• Use your bench scraper to make a ball at a steeper angle.

Shaping wet doughs

• Use just as much flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the surface of the table or use water on the bench if putting the dough into a sprayed pan.
• Build a little tension by doing a 4-fold – top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side and other side to side.  Smooth side goes  down on the table.
• For shaping an oblong, Dave does the four folds and makes a fairly rectangular shape. Top goes down to one third, then he dusts his thumbs generously, and quickly brings the top down over by gently rolling it to the bottom of the dough.
• Too gassy is if you handle the dough gently and the bubbles still break.  You have to be very careful with whole grain doughs – always handle them gently. Do not use a lot of force. It’s no disaster if the dough is too gassy when you are shaping it but you will not get as much volume when it bakes.
• Once the dough comes out of the retarder (15 hour bulk retard) at 47° F, it is divided right away, sits on boards for 3 hours. Then it is shaped and proved for 4 to 5 hours before being loaded into the oven.
• If all the steps had to be done at room temperature, the dough would be much more difficult to work with and the shaping method would have to be adjusted accordingly. Dave would back off the hydration in the formula and do more stretch and folds to help build strength.

Proofing

• The right amount of tension is the secret.  Not too much and not too little.  You want it to hold its form while it has proofed, but by the time it goes into the oven, you want it to relax a bit so it can swell as it bakes.  You want to dough to be relaxed just prior to baking to get the oven spring.
• It takes five hours to proof approximately.  Some people are getting great results with cold retarding and cold proofing prior to baking. It improves the crust.
• You can overnight cold ferment and proof the loaves just prior to putting in the oven.

Challenges

• Taking the dough temperature is really important.
• Different doughs/wheats vary in how much activity they show during bulk ferment. Sonora is an example: when they first worked with it for the class, it was really soupy after first mixing it. But after it fermented, it was too tight. It also needs more bulk fermentation.  The loaves will come out flat if you don’t do more bulk fermentation. 
• You need to learn to make judgement calls in the moment.  There are no simple answers, because each day is different. 
• To prevent molding, don't leave used baskets stacked for too long. Unstack them as soon as possible. The couche cloth should be hung to dry.
• Honey problems in dough: Some honey affects the quality of the rise of the dough.  Some honeys can kill the yeast.  Honey can also turn the crust liquid after baking which is called starch degradation.
• The levain may change with variations in temperature or weather: It may be getting more acidic.  Use taste and smell as tools to judge the readiness of the levain.
• Soakers can cause problems, especially in the summer (enzymatic activity).

How to perk up a culture

• Give successive feedings with shorter ferment times, catching it at a fairly young age to cut acidity.

How to strengthen dough without changing formulas

• Keep accurate records of dough temperature, room temperature etc..
• Mixing:  changing the number of folds, changing the time of the mix.
• More folds will help.
• More levain will help.
• Another pre-shape.
• Bulk retard or retarding shaped loaves to give it strength.

What if you have too much strength in your dough?

• Increase hydration. Sometimes aggressively mixing a dough made with high protein wheat can give better results - higher volume, more open crumb - if hydrated sufficiently.
• Decreasing the percentage of levain can help.

Loading the bread into the oven

• Score the loaves, pre-steam the oven, load the bread, steam again.

Jeffrey Hamelman: flatbread with chocolate and anise liqueur (Grain Gathering 2015)

Related posts:

• Grain Gathering 2015: five flatbreads by Jeffrey Hamelman
• The Grain Gathering 2015

I have eaten my share of anise flatbreads over the years (Moroccan bakers sell them at open-air markets in Paris) but I can't remember any as sinful as this one. With no anise seed in sight, the flavor comes from generous pre- and post-baking sprays of anise liqueur (Jeff actually used Pernod) and a melted dark chocolate filling. Make it at your own risk: by the time you have your second bite, you'll know you just got yourself a serious new addiction!
Jeff got the idea from a traditional Catalonian flatbread that Lot Roca Enrich from Harinera Roca baked for him at her family home when he visited last summer. Except that there was no chocolate in her version. Just anisette and caramelized sugar. I am pretty sure it was just as seductive though and I'd love to try it as well.

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients together to moderate gluten development. Alternatively, the dough can be mixed by hand (Desired dough temperature: 75°F)
2. Bulk ferment for 3 hours, with folds every hour. Give extra folds to hand mixed dough as necessary
3. Divide the dough into four 550g pieces
4. Round the dough pieces moderately and leave to relax fully
5. Stretch the dough into a long and narrow shape. If necessary, let it relax and then stretch again. The final length of the dough piece should be about 28"
6. Spritz half of the dough lightly with anise liqueur
7. Spread 45--50 grams of finely chopped chocolate over the spritzed surface and fold the remaining dough over this to cover the chocolate. Seal the dough well.
8. Relax the dough for 30--45 minutes
9. Brush olive oil on the surface of the dough. Sprinkle generously with white sugar
10. Bake with a soft live fire or after the rake-out of embers. Bake time is dependent upon the heat of the oven.
11. If the sugar has not caramelized, caramelize it with a propane torch
12. While still very hot, spritz the entire surface generously with anise liqueur. 

Tips:

• You can use Pernod (or any anisette liquor) or half-Pernod half-water (but Jeffrey says it won't be as good)
• Chocolate has to be 62% cocoa and cut into very small pieces.

Jeffrey Hamelman: Lebanese flatbread with savory filling (Grain Gathering 2015)

Related posts:

• Grain Gathering 2015: five flatbreads by Jeffrey Hamelman
• The Grain Gathering 2015

Jeff drew the inspiration for this bread from Man'oushé: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakery, a book by Barbara Abdeni Massaad with gorgeous photography by Raymond Yazbeck. The man'oushé is Lebanon's favorite flatbread and Massaad travelled all over the country to collect every recipe she could find. The book is an eloquent portrait of a people through its bread (and its tastebuds). Sit down with it if you can and allow yourself to be carried away to the land of milk and honey...

The dough
Yield: 30 little breads (or turnovers as Massaad calls them in the book)
(Jeffrey Hamelman used King Arthur flours: Sir Galahad all-purpose and Round Table pastry.)
Method

1. The day before the bake, mix the dough to moderate gluten development (desired dough temperature: 75°F)
2.  Bulk ferment for one hour, then divide in 75 g pieces
3. Round the rolls strongly and refrigerate overnight, covered
4. Next day, roll the dough pieces into circles about 5" in diameter
5. Place spinach filling in the center of each dough piece, being careful to leave a rim of dough about ½" wide all around
6. Lightly brush or spritz water onto the rim
7. Gather the dough into 3 equal segments, making a tight seam with each segment
8. Make sure the edges are well-pinched together
9. Let the dough relax for about 30 minutes
10. Brush each piece lightly with olive oil and bake for about 8 minutes
11. The dough should be pliable after the bake; take precautions not to overbake it.

The filling 

Ingredients (for  approximately 30 pies)

• 1035 g spinach leaves
• 45 g salt
• 260 g onion, minced
• 40 g sumac
• 70 kg lemon juice
• 207 g olive oil
• 175 g feta cheese

Method

1. Add the salt to the spinach leaves and rub thoroughly together. Let sit for 1 hour
2. Rinse well under cold water
3. Squeeze out as much water as possible (the spinach must be dry)
4. Chop it coarsely
5. Mix together all the filling ingredients
6. Put approximately 85 g into the center of each disc of Lebanese flatbread dough and finish as detailed in the recipe.

Tips:

• The dough might fight you when you try to roll it out, so do it in stages: flatten it some, let it rest 30 seconds while you flatten another one, pick it up again. It will have slackened.
• The triangle-shaping is a bit difficult to master. Once you have put some filling at the center of the dough disc and brushed the perimeter with water, the important thing to remember is to pick-up the edges of the dough at NE and NW (not E and W), so that you can bring the two northern edges together at the center then bring up the bottom part.
• Make sure the edges are well sealed.

I made the recipe yesterday here at my house and had no problem with the shaping. Of course the breads (Assaad calls them turnovers in her book and I guess they look more like turnovers than they do flatbreads) didn't turn out as pretty as Jeff's but then I didn't expect them to, especially on the first try and probably not ever! I did adapt the formula a bit. In the book Assaad says you can replace half of the flour with whole-wheat flour. I used about 70% whole-wheat flour. Here is my revised formula (for 12 turnovers):

Jeff also mentioned that the author was coming out with a new book. I looked online. The book is called Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate our Shared Humanity and it will be published in the United States in October this year. According to the website, all profits from the sales will go to non-profit organizations to help fund food-relief efforts for displaced populations.

Now you probably don't need another soup recipe (not even from contributing celebrity chefs and/or cookbook authors such as Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters, Paula Wolfert, Claudia Roden, Chef Greg Malouf, etc.) and even less another cookbook, but this is about feeding people who have been displaced from their home by horrific events and find themselves powerless to meet their family's most basic needs just as winter is coming.
Ordering Soup for Syria for yourself and/or as a present to the cooks in your life is an easy way to extend a helping hand. A hand holding a steaming bowl of soup. Imagine thousands of bakers' hands reaching out, holding bowls of steaming soup. With flatbreads on the side of course...

The Grain Gathering 2015

Jumma soft white wheat berries from Pie Ranch Farm in Pescadero, California

I just got back from this year's Grain Gathering (GG), held as usual on the beautiful grounds on Washington State University Extension in Mount Vernon, Washington. I have been attending the GG since its inauguration in 2011 (back then it was called the Kneading Conference West and changed its name only last year). I enjoyed each and every one of them. This year was no exception. Except that it was maybe even better than the four previous ones. Which came as no surprise. Like good wine, GG gets better as it ages.
Of course some things don't change. The setting is as lovely as ever...

...the bread good for body and soul...

...all other food beautiful and tasty...

 

...and I could wax lyrical about the good-natured atmosphere, the sheer pleasure of spending two and a half days in the company of others sharing the same interests and passion, the thrill of hearing big-name bakers and other experts in the field talk about their work and share their know-how, the excitement of catching up with friends and acquaintances but I have covered that angle exhaustively over the years and it is decidedly not fun to write the same thing over and over again (not to mention reading it!). Although if you do want to refresh your memory, you'll find the links here.
So I'll go straight to sharing what I saw and heard. Of course, this year like the other years, I had to choose between many appealing classes, workshops, roundtables and talks held concurrently, which means that that my account can only be partial and my outlook limited. I sure wish I could have attended everything. Hopefully other bloggers will cover some of the ones I didn't get to. For a look at the full schedule, click here.

What struck me as different this year may not be so much the level of energy (it is always tremendous) but how far we have come. Four years ago we were dreaming of bringing back local grain but wondering how farmers could be enticed to grow it if, for lack of local milling infrastructures, bakers had no way to get the flour. Well, today more more bakers are buying small mills to mill the grain themselves. With the help of experienced millers/bakers such as Dave Miller in Oroville, California, they are learning to work with freshly milled flours and clearly excited at the realm of flavors now open to them. Nary a white baguette was to be seen at the GG this year: whole-grain ruled and Dave's class was mobbed.

Cliff Leir of Fol Épi inVictoria, British Columbia -who seemed like the odd man out four years ago when he showed up with armfuls of wholegrain loaves and the plans to his mill- could be seen under a tent helping Scott Mangold of Bread Farm in nearby Edison, Washington, build his own mill and I heard many other bakers enquire about small mills or comparing notes on the ones they had just acquired. Independent mills are starting up too: Nan Kohler's Grist & Toll in Pasadena is one beautiful example. If flour can be milled, farmers can grow grain. With the help of The Bread Lab at WSU Extension, they are learning to select varieties which are not only well adapted to their climate, soil, etc. but offer the flavor and nutritional value craft bakers (and their customers) are looking for not to mention the functional properties required to bake a good loaf.
Still in its infancy, the movement is clearly growing. To most home bakers though, availability remains an issue: living as I do on California's Central Coast, the only locally grown grain I can get without going online is to be found either very occasionally at my neighborhood farmers' market or (until they run out) at the farm stand up the coast, in both case at a price that would make it difficult to bake with it everyday. So yes, we still have a ways to go but at least we are moving in the right direction and nowhere is it more obvious than at the yearly GG.  If all goes well, I am hoping to post (in various degrees of detail) about the following:

• Keynote addresses by Marie-Louise Risgaard and Lot Roca Enrich. Marie-Louise is a baker and teacher and co-owner of Skaertoft Mølle in southern Denmark. Lot is a miller who took over Harinera Roca from her grandfather 25 years ago. Her mill is located in Catalonia, Spain. A welcome look at some of the challenges of organic milling in Europe!
• Dave Miller's class on 100% fresh-milled whole-grain bread: I was only able to attend the milling part but with the help of a generous friend who took lots of videos, I will be able to cover more. Dave kindly sent me his formulas which I will post as well.
• Jeffrey Hamelman's flatbread class: five flatbreads, all baked in a wood-fired oven. Exciting international flavors. You'll enjoy reading all about it. My favorite was the socca (no formula but some tips and one or two pictures) and the anise-chocolate dessert bread (I got the formula for the dough but I think Jeff winged it for the topping, so you'll have to wing it too if you make it).
• Andrew Ross's presentation "The Skinny on Gluten."  The goal was to straighten out the facts. It was so packed with technical info though that I am not sure I can do it justice. But if my notes make sense, I'll share them and you can take it from there. 
• Conversation with bakers: a roundtable moderated by Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery in Seattle. Lively and thought-provoking!
• Hand-making whole-grain pasta, a demo by Justin Dissmore, pasta chef at Café Lago in Seattle. He uses Edison wheat and from the tasting we got, I sure wish I could get it where I live.
• And last but not least: Whole-grain artisan bread for the home-baker, a lively demo acted out (you'll see, there is no other word for it) by bakers Josey Baker (yes, that is his real name) of The Mill in San Francisco and Jonathan Bethony, resident baker at The Bread Lab, and by some accounts the baker with the best job in the world since he spends his time testing and baking with the stars. No formulas but plenty of tips!

So stay tuned (and please be patient as it might take some time).

The Grain Gathering 2014: (Mostly) Baking With Naomi Duguid and Dawn Woodward

Naomi Duguid, author (most recently) of Burma: Rivers of Flavor and Dawn Woodward, owner of Evelyn's Crackers in Toronto, Canada, make an excellent teaching team (and pair of friends, I suspect.) Both world travelers, both lovers of whole grains and both down-to-earth in their approach to baking and cooking, they held three workshops during the Gathering: Waste Not!; Toast: Whole Grain Pan Loaves; and Multi-Grain Baking: Cookies, Scones & Pie.

Naomi also delivered the first keynote address of the Gathering. Her talk was short on words and rich in images. Saying that she liked to think she traveled to cultures rather than countries, she proceeded to open our eyes to a wider world of grain beyond artisan bread as we know it in the West. She typically travels with her camera and a few lenses, most often with no interpreter or guide and relies on infra-verbal communication to connect with the people she meets. She takes almost no written notes, using her camera to record the ingredients and steps required for whatever dish or bread is being made in front of her.  As she writes in her blog, "Food is a thread that we can use to help understand others, in fact to help visualise ourselves in their place. Even as there are rocket launchers attacking, in Gaza or Syria, there are home cooks figuring out how to feed their families, and bakers heating their ovens to get the day’s bread baked. And that visualising of the daily food preparation, and family meals of others, in turn helps us remember that we are all on this planet together. It helps us have respect for the people we share the planet with, just as, when we were in primary school, we were all in the classroom together, with our differences and our difficulties, embarked on trying to understand what was going on and to learn." As each slide appeared on the large screen, Naomi commented on the person, the grain, the recipe, the location. She seemed to have total recall of each encounter and I marveled at the richness and diversity of the world she carries inside her head. I asked her for a few slides to share with you and she kindly sent the four I am posting below. Thank you, Naomi!

A woman making sushi in the village of Miyama, Japan...

A baker baking lavash in Masouleh, Iran...

Bakers baking sangak in Isfahan, Iran

Women crushing, grinding and winnowing barley to make a coarse bread which they will ferment to make thalla, a local beer, in Lalibela, Ethiopia

Dawn Woodward, aka Dawn-the-Baker, has impressive credentials as a baker (she was once head baker for Dan Leader at Bread Alone Bakery.) Watching her and Naomi at work, I was struck by their complementarity: for instance, Naomi is charmingly fuzzy about quantities (after all, most of the cooks and bakers she meets in her travels use neither scales nor cups or tablespoons) whereas Dawn weighs everything. But then Naomi is a writer and Dawn runs a cracker business. Naomi embraces variance, Dawn aims for consistency. No wonder they make a great pair of instructors.
Their first workshop was entitled Waste Not!. Being a firm believer in (and unconditional lover of) leftovers, I was looking forward to discovering new creative ways to use old bread. I don't know that I actually learned a lot (I am already using bread crumbs and croutons) but I had fun hearing what fellow leftover fans think up around the world.

Dedas Kharcho

Not all the recipes came out as expected. The one I was most interested in, Dedas Kharcho (old bread frittata) turned out a bit wet and (to me) rather unappealing looking even though the taste was mostly all right. Such are the hazards of cooking in the open with unfamiliar local ingredients in front of a crowd. In the write-up for the recipe, Naomi says: "This traditional recipe from Georgia transforms old bread into succulent eating. Quantities are casual. Cubes of dried bread are tossed in hot oil with onions, then simmered in added water. Once they are tender, whisked egg is stirred in, to make a kind of frittata. The recipe was given to me by Dali, a woman of eighty-five ... who had worked for years as a chemist in the Soviet era then found herself out of work with no pension after the breakup of the USSR. Her garden is a marvel, and so is her pantry, filled with shelves of gleaming preserves." That tidbit of information awoke a cherished memory: my first husband's Danish grandmother used to make a tasty omelet with whipped eggs to which she added a spoonful or two of flour and lots of chives (aeggekage). Inspired by this beloved staple of family vacations in Denmark, I sometimes add a spoonful or two of surplus starter to my own frittatas (as well as anything leftover veggies I have on hand). Although I love having a use for my starter, next time I will try old bread. In a spirit of kinship with Dali,  I'll make croutons and see how the frittata turns out (I may toast the croutons a while longer and hold back on the water a bit). Having had a wonderful old Georgian friend in my young adulthood (he had escaped from Tiflis by boat in a cage - sadly I no longer remember the details -  when the Soviets invaded Georgia after the Revolution and made it to Paris via Istanbul), I love the idea of adding a Georgian recipe to my repertoire.

Austrian Knudel (soup dumplings)

Check out the Waste Not! booklet for more recipes and flavors: I particularly like Dawn's m'hammara and fruit bars as well as the gazpacho, panzanella and garbure suggestions.

Kvass

I almost forgot to mention that Naomi and Dawn brought to class some kvass they had made with leftover rye bread from the Bread Lab and that it was excellent. Judging from some of the faces in the audience when the jar made the rounds (for sniffing purposes), not everybody agreed with my assessment. Naomi explained that she and Dawn had put chunks of rye bread in a bowl, poured boiling water over it and let it soak overnight. Then they had drained it through a sleeve, tossed the rye and poured the liquid (which by then had a gorgeous smell) into a glass jar, added a little starter (yeast and a bit of lemon juice would do too), honey, a few raisins and some blueberries (because some happened to be available). They had let the mixture sit, loosely covered with cheesecloth in a warm place for about three days.  After draining it into a jug, they passed tiny goblets around. The fragrance was divine (I could definitely get high on it) and the taste remarkable but rather fierce. Definitely not for the faint of heart. Although I will try my hand at it one of these days, I'll most likely be the only one in my household to partake of it. Where tastebuds are concerned, the Man is courageux mais pas téméraire as we say in French (courageous but not foolhardy).

The next workshop, Toast: Whole Grain Pan Loaves, was mostly Dawn's baby.

She had spent a week at the Bread Lab over the winter working with Jonathan Bethony (the baker in residence) "to create whole grain pan loaves that would be ideal for toast."

She had baked a batch of three different breads prior the workshop, was proofing another to bake in the wood-fired oven while she demoed the hand-mixing of yet another one, which explains why the photos show doughs and loaves at various stages in the process.

Since she targets the farmers markets with her whole-grain toasts, she has come up with a bunch of tasty toppings which can be varied ad infinitum, depending on what's in season and on hand.

I strongly recommend checking out the Toast: Whole Grain Pan Loaves booklet where you'll find the recipes for all the loaves as well as ideas for more toppings.

Dawn and Naomi taught their last workshop Multi-Grain Baking: Cookies, Scones & Pie under a tent near the process lab in front of another, smaller, wood-fired oven, the main one having been commandeered by the pretzel workshop (which attracted a big crowd).

Of the three workshops, it was probably the most fun because of the instant gratification factor: Dawn and Naomi made a huge variety of goodies and baked them on the spot, which means we went from naked ingredients to happy tastebuds in the course of ninety minutes. My favorite was maybe the rye savory galette.

It was actually so popular that I barely reached the table in time to take a picture (and snatch a small piece) before it literally vanished in front of my eyes. The filling was hard-boiled eggs, sautéed green onions and a large amount of cooked tarragon and spinach.

Using a sweet version of the same dough, Dawn made a gorgeous and flavorful apple pie.

Dawn and Naomi next mixed and baked Ancient Durum (Kamut) Ginger Cookies...

...Barley Scones with Coffee & Molasses...

...Red Fife Tart with Pinenut-Cardamom Filling...

...and, last but not least, Buckwheat Cream Scones...

The scones were very tender. I wish I had been hungry enough by the time they came out of the oven to eat more than a large crumb. They looked tantalizing spread with butter!
As a possible variation, Dawn and Naomi suggested using a combination of cornmeal, rye and Red Fife, which they described as stunning. The basic idea is to give a free rein to your imagination, using grain as a flavor. Thumbs up to that suggestion!
I will post the link to the Multi-Grain Baking recipe booklet as soon as I get it. Meanwhile enjoy the pics! And thank you, thank you, thank you, Dawn and Naomi! The workshops must have been a lot of work but they surely reached their goal and broadened our horizons.

Related posts

• The Grain Gathering 2014: In the garden of Eden
• The Grain Gathering 2014: Wood-Fired Artisan Bread with Richard Miscovich
• The Grain Gathering 2014: Pizza Porn
• The Grain Gathering 2014: Whole Grains Galore
• The Grain Gathering 2014: Building an Earth Oven with Kiko Denzer