Golden struan

I'm fond of checking out baking books at the local library (which is incidentally a wonderful resource, staffed with helpful people!) and one book I waited for for a long time is Peter Reinhart's series on making bread. The one I'm currently reading is Artisan Breads Every Day: Fast and Easy Recipes for World-Class Breads. Because, even as a mostly stay-at-home wife, my time isn't unlimited, my plan of "attack" for this book is to tackle only "straight doughs" (i.e. recipes that don't require preferments like bigas and sourdoughs) and only recipes that make use of the flours and ingredients I already have on hand.

The first recipe I tried from this book is a struan loaf. The final product looked quite different from the tall, airy loaf pictured in the book, but tasted extraordinary as well, from the first bite to the last. The loaf stayed relatively light and moist, the crumb didn't go rock-hard. H and I liked the golden colour.



The recipe is available here. I didn't stray far from the basic recipe, but did substitute wheat germ for the wheat bran, and yogurt for the buttermilk. Since I had no honey on hand, I added a large spoonful of brown sugar to the mix instead.