50% Sprouted Red Wheat Fishcakes Sourdough

The one thing I don’t like about whole grain bread is that it’d never be as chewy as white bread. That’s why I thought of putting springy fishcakes into the bread for added texture. Please hear me out before you turn away from this nonsense: fishcakes bread isn’t as strange as it might sound! If you don’t know this already, there’s actually a kind of popular Japanese-style fishcake bread. See? It makes total sense :)

50% Sprouted Red Wheat Fishcakes Sourdough

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Sprouted red wheat flour

90g        30%       Whole red wheat flour

60g        20%       Whole Red Fife wheat flour

For leaven:

8g         2.67%       Starter

31g       10.3%       Bran sifted from dough flour

31g       10.3%       Water

For dough:

269g      89.7%       Dough flour excluding flour for leaven

160g      53.3%       Water

100g      33.3%       Whey

70g        23.3%       Leaven

9g              3%        Vital wheat gluten

5g          1.67%       Salt

Add-ins:

60g         20%        Fishcakes (I made my own using frozen tilapia fillets)

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304g        100%       Whole grain

295g       97.0%       Total hydration

Sift out the bran from dough flour, reserve 31 g for the leaven. Soak the rest, if any, in equal amount of whey taken from dough ingredients.

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until doubled, around 4 hours (27°C).

Roughly combine all dough ingredients except for the leaven and salt, autolyze for 15 minutes. Knead in the reserved ingredients and ferment for 15 minutes. Fold in the fishcakes then ferment for 3 hours longer.

Preshape the dough and let it rest for 25 minutes. Shape the dough then put in into a banneton. Retard for 10 hours.

Preheat the oven at 250°C/482°F. Score and spritz the dough then bake straight from the fridge at 250°C/482°F with steam for 15 minutes then without steam for 25 minutes more or until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 208°F. Let cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

Since I was too impatient again, the crumb hadn’t quite set when I cut into it. It thus looked kind of compressed… The fishcakes gave rise to some interesting textures: the ones exposed on the surface puffed and crisped up slightly, while those buried inside stayed moist and bouncy.

The flavor of this bread is on the sweet side. It’s fruity but only slightly tangy thanks to the sprouted red wheat.

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