The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book Part 15

Stir the salt into the flour. Make a well in the center, and pour the oil and the yeast mixture into the well. Starting from the center, stir with a spoon or with your hand until the dough incorporates all the flour.

Turn the dough out on the table and put about a half cup of warm water in the mixing bowl. Use this water instead of flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands and the table while you knead. You will probably be able to use up the water, ending with a soft, pliable dough that's very elastic. For best and lightest results, knead very well, about 20 minutes.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm, draft-free place. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn't fill in at all or if the dough sighs, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. The second rising will take about half as much time as the first.

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured board. Shape it into a smooth round (or rounds, if you are going to make two) and let it rest until quite soft. With floured or wet hands, pat it from one side to the other to press out all the acc.u.mulated gas. Keep patting and pressing-or flinging and twirling-being careful not to tear the dough, until it is the size and shape you need. The dough fills one large or two small pizza pans, or a 12 18 cookie sheet. Pull a little extra dough up around the edge to keep the sauce from spilling over; if the dough is too elastic for this, let it rest a few minutes, and try again. After it relaxes, it will stretch more easily. 18 cookie sheet. Pull a little extra dough up around the edge to keep the sauce from spilling over; if the dough is too elastic for this, let it rest a few minutes, and try again. After it relaxes, it will stretch more easily.

Mix sauce ingredients in blender or food processor or hand food mill until smooth.

Spread on the sauce, and let the bread rise again in a warm place for about half an hour, or until it is soft and spongy. Bake about 25 minutes in a well-preheated oven, 375F.

- SAUCE - 2 tablespoons olive oil - onion, coa.r.s.ely chopped - 1 clove garlic - 3 tablespoons tomato paste - cup chopped tomatoes, fresh or canned - teaspoon salt - teaspoon each, oregano and basil - teaspoon pepper Cheesy Pizza Use this recipe to make normal pizzas: they can be as authentic or homey as your mood dictates. Roll the dough thinner, making two rounds about 14 inches across. Brush with olive oil, and spread with tomato sauce. (If you like plenty of sauce, you will need about two cups, twice as much as the above recipe provides.) Add olives, green peppers, mushrooms, or what have you, and top with grated cheese. Mozzarella, about 1 cup grated cheese per pizza, plus grated Parmesan, is traditional, but if there is none on hand, jack (or cheddar even) will fill the bill for most occasions.

Sour Cream Biscuits - 2 teaspoons active dry yeast ( oz or 7 g) - cup warm water (60 ml) - 3 cups whole wheat flour (450 g) - 1 teaspoon salt (5.6 g) - 1 teaspoon baking powder (4.5 g) - teaspoon baking soda (1.5 g) - 1 egg - 1 cups mock sour cream* (300 ml) (300 ml) - 1 teaspoon honey, optional (5 ml) These are real biscuits with extraordinary flavor, very light because they rise not only from the usual baking powder and soda but from yeast as well. No one who's not in the know ever suspects that you can make such tender, tasty biscuits with so little fat. For best tenderness, use a medium-gluten flour, or part bread flour and part pastry flour.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Sift together the dry ingredients, returning any bran that stays in the sifter back into the mixture.

Beat the egg and mix it with the mock sour cream and the honey, if used. Add them and the yeast mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring as well as possible, and then kneading briefly until the dough sticks together.

Turn out on a lightly floured board. Roll with rolling pin to thickness of about inch. Cut with 3-inch biscuit cutter, dipping it in flour between biscuits.

Set the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and leave them for an hour at room temperature; or at least three hours, or overnight, in the refrigerator. Cover them to prevent their drying out.

Before baking, preheat the oven thoroughly, to 450F. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until delicately brown. Serve hot.

*If you want to avoid using the white sugar, many possibilities exist for subst.i.tutes: one would be to use ricotta or cream cheese sweetened with pale honey, applying it just before you serve the buns.*If you already have Laurel's Kitchen Laurel's Kitchen, you probably know about Mock Sour Cream, but if not just blend these ingredients well: 1 cup low fat cottage cheese, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 3 tablespoons mayonnaise, cup b.u.t.termilk. Makes about 1 cups.

Sprouts & Spuds SOME NATURAL DOUGH CONDITIONERS.

In our search for ways to make the home baker's job easier, we looked for natural equivalents for the dozens of chemicals bakers use, figuring that if professionals resort to such aids, surely there must be a few innocent additives that would be helpful in the home kitchen. We tried a lot of things that we read about, including ginger, garlic, crushed vitamin C tablets, slippery elm bark, and rose hip tea. None of them made much difference so far as we could tell, though we did produce some pretty flavorful loaves. Some time later, our cereal scientist friends told us that even many commercial additives don't have much effect when used with whole wheat.

In our researching attempts, some of the most interesting information we came across was in old books written for bakers-books published around 1920, when the local bakery still might or might not have a kneading machine. For example, one book suggested that adding a tiny amount of wheat germ to your white flour had an improving effect on the dough. The amount suggested was not too different from the amount that occurs naturally in whole wheat flour. The one additive that all the old books praised was potatoes, and of the things you can add to bread, we too like potatoes best. Potato bread recipes, and information about using potatoes, appear in the pages that follow. (By the way, we did finally include the rose hip tea; its fruitiness brightens and warms-and who knows? perhaps lightens-our Orange Rye Bread. See this page this page.) The additive you most often find listed on the side of white flour sacks is malted barley flour. It is incorporated when the flour has been found to be deficient in diastatic enzymes. Whole wheat flour is seldom supplemented in this way. If you would like to use dimalt (that is, diastatic malt flour) in your bread for sweetness, and you don't like the fancy prices they charge for it in the health food store, you can make your own; it is simple to do, as we explain in the pages that follow.

Some other ingredients that are an integral part of many recipes-soy flour, for example, or milk products-do condition and improve the dough; we have discussed their talents in their respective sections. The Great Granddaddy of all dough conditioners, of course, and a high-tech one at that, is yeast. But aside from lively yeast, the two essentials for light bread are basic: fresh high-gluten flour and plenty of kneading.

About Sprouting & Malting In the following pages, wheat is sprouted three different lengths of time to produce three very distinct kinds of sprouts. They are not interchangeable. They are not interchangeable. If the grain is sprouted only a little, it can be ground into dough to make airy yeasted bread. Sprouted longer before grinding, it will make a dense, caky loaf. Sprouted still longer, until enzyme activity is at its peak, the grain, ground and dried, becomes malt flour, or dimalt. If the grain is sprouted only a little, it can be ground into dough to make airy yeasted bread. Sprouted longer before grinding, it will make a dense, caky loaf. Sprouted still longer, until enzyme activity is at its peak, the grain, ground and dried, becomes malt flour, or dimalt.

The crucial element here is the timing. So much is going on so fast in those tiny powerhouses we call sprouting grains that there is very little leeway for using them in the recipes: one talent develops, peaks and fades, and another appears, only to have its brief flowering and also pa.s.s away. If your sprouts are at their best when you aren't, or vice-versa, put them in the refrigerator to use later in ca.s.seroles or salads; they are delicious. And by all means try again.

HOW TO SPROUT WHEAT.

Rinse the grain and cover with tepid water, letting it stand 12 to 18 hours at room temperature. Allow the longer period in cooler weather, the shorter period in warm.

Drain off the liquid, rinse the grain with fresh, tepid water, and store in a dark place with a damp cloth over the top of the container. Rinse at least every 12 hours for as many days as is specified in the recipe you are following, checking carefully on the progress of the sprouts themselves.

GRINDERS.

For making malt flour, any grain grinder that you would use for dry grains will work, providing it does not heat the flour above 120F.

If you want to use your sprouts without first drying them, you can chop them fine or coa.r.s.e with a knife, blender, or food processor, or in a meat grinder. Do not try to grind sprouts that are not completely dried in a grain grinder or stone mill that is not designed for wet grinding.

For the sprout breads use a food processor, a Corona-type mill that can accommodate wet grains, or a meat grinder. use a food processor, a Corona-type mill that can accommodate wet grains, or a meat grinder.

Malt In scientific texts you will see the diastatic enzymes referred to as amylases.

The sugar most abundantly produced in sprouting grains-with the help of an enzyme called diastase-is maltose. The flavor is our familiar malt. Commercial malt is almost always made from barley, but wheat, rice, and other grains can make malt too, though in smaller amounts.

Added in tiny quant.i.ties to bread dough, diastatic diastatic malt provides an abundant supply of fuel sugar to the growing yeast, with some to spare. It helps the bread rise nicely, taste sweet, and brown well in the oven, just as if there had been a small amount of sweetener added to the dough. All of this makes malt provides an abundant supply of fuel sugar to the growing yeast, with some to spare. It helps the bread rise nicely, taste sweet, and brown well in the oven, just as if there had been a small amount of sweetener added to the dough. All of this makes dimalt dimalt as it is called, a great boon to people who want to get away from the use of refined sugar. as it is called, a great boon to people who want to get away from the use of refined sugar.

Be careful though: if the quant.i.ty of dimalt added is too large, the bread turns into a gooey mess that will not rise or bake properly. There is a wide range of enzyme activity in the various kinds of malt. Our own, made from wheat berries, is a low-medium activity malt, but even so we would hesitate to add more than teaspoon per loaf's worth of dough. This amount gives roughly the sweetness you would expect from a teaspoon or two of honey. When you experiment with your own malt, start with teaspoon, and if you want to increase it, go gradually until you notice that your bread is gummy-then go back one step, and use a little less. Since the enzymes keep working throughout the rising times, use less dimalt for longer-fermented breads. We do not recommend dimalt for extremely long-rising doughs.

Our recipe for homemade dimalt calls for wheat because wheat is easy to get and barley is not. If you can get whole hull-less barley, it does sprout wonderfully and of course makes excellent malt. Be sure to rinse sprouting barley faithfully three or four times daily, as it tends to mold quickly. We don't recommend trying to use regular barley that has its hulls clinging to its sides because we know of no way short of commercial milling (which would remove the germ too) to get the hulls off, and they are truly unpleasant and indigestible.

To make dimalt: sprout the grain, dry it out, grind it up, and voila! voila! Here are the particulars. Here are the particulars.

TO MAKE DIASTATIC MALT FLOUR (DIMALT).

Prepare sprouts as described, letting them grow a total of about three days, until the sprout of the little plant-not the thinner rootlets, which appear first-is nearly as long as the grain itself.

Rinse and drain well, and dry very gently on a towel. Spread the sprouts on a baking sheet and keep them in a warm, dry, well-ventilated place at about 120F until the grains are completely dehydrated. This may take a day or two. To test them, chew one: it should be brittle, with no toughness.

Use a grain grinder to mill the dried sprouts into flour, taking care not to let them get hot as they grind or the enzymes will be destroyed. Store cool and airtight. One cupful of grain will yield about 2 to 3 cups of malted flour.

DIMALT WITHOUT FLOUR.

If you don't have a grain mill, you can use the sprouts-undried-to good effect. In an ordinary blender, puree cup sprouts with part of the liquid for a 2-loaf recipe. Alternatively, towel off the sprouts and use them whole or chopped as a sort of cracked wheat. In that case, since much of the enzyme will stay in the sprout and not enter the dough, you can use as much as a full cup per loaf of whole sprouts; cup chopped. The longer they are in the dough, the greater the effect on it, so gauge your timing to the quant.i.ty of sprouts you have in the bread. (By the way, when you eat bread made with whole sprouts, be wary of the ones on the crust: they will bake hard.) NON-DIASTATIC MALT.

Ordinary (non-diastatic) malt syrup, the kind we call for in some of our recipes, is used only as a flavoring and sweetener, not for any enzyme activity. Should you inadvertently overheat your sprouts so that their enzymes are destroyed-this happens at about 140F-they can still flavor bread or hot cereal in a malty way that is quite delicious.

Unyeasted Sprout Bread This "simplest of breads" contains only only sprouted wheat: nothing else. The commercial versions sold under the brand names Essene and Wayfarer's Bread (and perhaps others) have been very popular, but making them at home is pretty challenging: but here it is, a recipe that sprouted wheat: nothing else. The commercial versions sold under the brand names Essene and Wayfarer's Bread (and perhaps others) have been very popular, but making them at home is pretty challenging: but here it is, a recipe that does does work. If your first try is off in some way, either bland-tasting or else too wet, next time pay more attention to the timing of the sprouts, because that is the crux of it. The finished bread should be moist, flaky, dark, a little sweet-dense without being heavy. Its devotees consider it the purest of breads, and since it has no flour, no yeast, no salt, sweetener, fat, or dairy products, who can argue? work. If your first try is off in some way, either bland-tasting or else too wet, next time pay more attention to the timing of the sprouts, because that is the crux of it. The finished bread should be moist, flaky, dark, a little sweet-dense without being heavy. Its devotees consider it the purest of breads, and since it has no flour, no yeast, no salt, sweetener, fat, or dairy products, who can argue?

Use about a pound of wheat per loaf. Start with 2 to 3 pounds, about 6 cups of wheat: that will make three good-sized loaves. Choose hard spring or winter wheat. Soak it in warm-room-temperature water for 18 hours, then keep it covered in a dark place, rinsing it three times a day until the little sprout is one-third the length of the grain. This will take about 36 to 48 hours, maximum. If you fear that the sprouts may get away from you before you can grind them up, slow them down by putting them in the refrigerator toward the end of the time.

If the sprouts are too young, the bread will not be sweet; if too old, the bread will be gooey and will never bake out.

Remove the excess moisture from the sprouts by patting them with a terry towel. Grind them with a Corona-type mill or a meat grinder, or about 2 cups at a time in your food processor, using the regular steel blade. Make them as smooth as possible. What results from the grinding is sticky, but knead it very well, nonetheless. For this, mechanical help is welcome, and if you ground the sprouts in your food processor, just keep processing each 2 cups for about 3 minutes in all, stopping just before the dough ball falls apart. How long this takes will depend on the kind of wheat you use: watch carefully.

By hand or with a dough hook knead until the gluten is developed, somewhat longer than you would do with a normal dough. If you are kneading by hand, keep the dough in a bowl and use a hefty wooden spoon or dough k.n.o.b unless you want to abandon yourself to the ancient mud-pie method of squeezing it between your fingers until the gluten gets going and the going gets easier.

Whatever method you have used to get to this point, cover the dough and let it rest for about an hour or so, then shape it into smallish oblong loaves and place on a well well-greased baking sheet. Bake slowly, not over 325F for 2 hours or until nicely browned. (The bread does well in a solar oven, if you have one.) Cool the loaves and wrap them in a towel. Put them in plastic or brown paper bags, and set aside in a cool place or in the refrigerator for a day or two. This softens the leathery crust and gives the insides time to attain their moist flaky perfection.

VARIATION (and a big improvement): Grind cup of dates along with each pound of sprouted wheat. Other dried fruits can work well, too, but we like dates best by far. Raisins make a very sticky, very black loaf; it is too sweet unless you reduce the measure by half. (and a big improvement): Grind cup of dates along with each pound of sprouted wheat. Other dried fruits can work well, too, but we like dates best by far. Raisins make a very sticky, very black loaf; it is too sweet unless you reduce the measure by half.

Yeasted Sprout Bread This is a distinctive bread with lots of chew, lots of character, lots of appeal. We suspect that we should credit some of the goodness of our own version to the inefficiency of the third-hand (reformed) meat grinder that we use to grind the sprouts. It simply will not grind very fine, so the bread is quite coa.r.s.e and flecked with the bran. We like it that way, but if you can grind the sprouts really fine, you can make extremely fine-textured light bread.

To make this bread using your food processor, turn the page.

In developing this recipe, we had help from Al Giusto, who has been making sprouted wheat bread for the natural foods market in the San Francis...o...b..y Area for thirty years. His bread is featherlight, velvet-textured, excellent. For him, the secret is the extremely fine grind. Coa.r.s.e or fine, though, the bread is good.

In this recipe the trick is to sprout the grain just until the tiny sprout is barely beginning to show and the grain itself is tender-about 48 hours. If the grain is not tender, your grinder will heat up, making the dough too hot. But if the sprout develops long enough for diastatic enzymes to get going, you will have very gooey bread that will never bake through. It is because the grain is not sprouted long enough to develop the enzymes and be sweetened by them that the recipe calls for a generous amount of honey. Without it, the bread simply doesn't taste very good.

This recipe, as we mention above, is based on what we can make with our grinder or food processor. If you have equipment that can produce a really smooth grind with only tiny bran particles, the resulting dough will make lighter bread and so probably be more than enough for two loaves. You can either make a few rolls or buns with the extra, or reduce the quant.i.ties to what you would use for two normal loaves: 2 pounds of wheat, cup honey, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons yeast.

Sprout the wheat berries as described above, drain them very well, and cool them in the refrigerator for several hours.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Add the honey, salt, and yeast to the ground sprouts and mix together well. The dough will feel sticky but stiff. Add water if needed to soften the dough, but be cautious, it should be just right without it. Knead well. This is not so easy as with a normal dough, particularly if the grain is coa.r.s.ely ground; it takes plenty of work to develop the gluten fully. Knead until the dough is really elastic, considerably longer than the usual amount of time.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm draft-free place. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn't fill in at all or if the dough sighs, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. If the dough is cold, which it may be unless your grinder warmed it up, the first rise will be fairly slow, but as the dough warms up, the rising will telescope.

Divide in half and gently knead into rounds. Use water on your hands to prevent sticking, and keep the b.a.l.l.s as smooth as possible. Let them rest until they regain their suppleness while you grease two standard 8 4 loaf pans, or pie tins, or a cookie sheet. Press the dough flat and divide in two. Round it and let it rest until relaxed, then deflate and shape into loaves. Place in greased loaf pans and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough slowly returns a gently made fingerprint. Bake about an hour at 350F, though if your bread rises very high, it will take less than that. 4 loaf pans, or pie tins, or a cookie sheet. Press the dough flat and divide in two. Round it and let it rest until relaxed, then deflate and shape into loaves. Place in greased loaf pans and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough slowly returns a gently made fingerprint. Bake about an hour at 350F, though if your bread rises very high, it will take less than that.

- 6 cups hard spring or winter wheat berries, (2 lb or 1135 g), a little more than 3 quarts sprouted, weighing about 4 lb (2 k) - 2 teaspoons active dry yeast ( oz or 7 g) - cup warm water (60 ml) - cup honey (80 ml) - 4 teaspoons salt (22 g)

SPROUT BREAD IN YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR.

- FOR ONE LOAF - 3 cups hard spring wheat berries (1 lb or 575 g), (about 6 cups sprouted) - 1 teaspoon active dry yeast ( oz or 3.5 g) - 2 tablespoons warm water (30 ml) - 2 teaspoons salt (11 g) - 3 scant tablespoons honey (40 ml) Sprout bread makes excellent use of the talents of food processors. The steel blade grinds the sprouts and kneads the dough too-a big contribution with this bread, which is hard to knead by hand. The result is a flaky-textured bread with incomparable flavor, easy as pie.

The honey and the water with the yeast make just enough liquid for the processor to work the grain into dough.

Sprout the wheat berries as described, then refrigerate until they are cool, overnight or longer (but since they still grow in the refrigerator, not more than a day or two.) Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Put the regular double stainless steel blade, not not the dough blade, in a standard-size processor and measure just over 2 cups of the sprouted wheat, a third of the total, into the bowl. Pour about 2 teaspoons of the dissolved yeast liquid, a scant tablespoon of honey, and about teaspoon of salt over the wheat in the bowl. To protect the yeast, use separate measuring spoons for each of the ingredients. the dough blade, in a standard-size processor and measure just over 2 cups of the sprouted wheat, a third of the total, into the bowl. Pour about 2 teaspoons of the dissolved yeast liquid, a scant tablespoon of honey, and about teaspoon of salt over the wheat in the bowl. To protect the yeast, use separate measuring spoons for each of the ingredients.

Process until the ground wheat forms a ball, about one minute. Sc.r.a.pe the sides of the bowl, and process about two more minutes. Stop processing before the ball completely falls apart; if your wheat is not exceptionally high in protein a minute and a half might be all it can handle. If it falls apart, check the time, and with the next two batches, stop a little sooner.

Repeat with the remaining two-thirds of the ingredients, in two parts. Knead the three dough b.a.l.l.s together.

For the rising and baking, proceed as with the recipe on the previous page.

VARIATIONS.

Once you have perfected this bread, you may want to vary it by including another grain, or several grains, along with the wheat when you sprout it. If you want light light bread, be sure that the mixture stays at least three-quarters spring wheat. Other grains will be available at your natural foods store: triticale, barley, rye, corn, buckwheat. Use a light hand with the last two. bread, be sure that the mixture stays at least three-quarters spring wheat. Other grains will be available at your natural foods store: triticale, barley, rye, corn, buckwheat. Use a light hand with the last two.

If you like, you can also sprout lentils, limas, soybeans, garbanzos, or any other bean along with the wheat. Again, start with a small spoonful, and work up from there. If you include more than just a few soybeans, add 2 tablespoons oil or 1 tablespoon b.u.t.ter per loaf when you mix the dough.

BASIC WHOLE WHEAT BREAD WITH SPROUTS.

Knead to 1 cup of sprouted grain about three days sprouted into any good strong plain whole wheat dough. The sweetness of the sprouts makes additional honey or other sweetener unnecessary, and they hold moisture too, so the bread is plenty moist without oil, and keeps well. It will be a little dense but amazingly flavorful. Allow extra baking time-more sprouts, more time. For best results, pat the sprouts dry on a towel before adding; for lightest bread, add them after the second rise.

This bread is to be chewed with circ.u.mspection. The grains on the outside of the loaf will be fairly crunchy, and the ones that failed to sprout will be tough, whether inside the loaf or out. Watch out for them lest you damage a tooth.

Brian's Bread - 4 teaspoons active dry yeast ( oz or 14 g) - cup warm water (120 ml) - 6 cups finely ground whole wheat bread flour (900 g) - cup full-fat soy flour, very fresh (14 g) - teaspoon dimalt*

- 2 teaspoons salt (11 g) - cup orange juice (60 ml) - 3 tablespoons honey (45 ml) - 1 cups warm water (355 ml) - 2 tablespoons cool b.u.t.ter (28 g) Our friend Brian, the das.h.i.+ng nutritionist and savant, developed this recipe from a commercial bakery formula, using natural equivalents for their chemical additives. It makes a high, light bread that tastes like commercial bakery bread-only better.

The recipe is ideal for making buns.

Dissolve the yeast in the cup water.

Mix the flours, dimalt, and salt in a large bowl, making a well in the center.

Mix orange juice, honey, and warm water, and stir into the well in the flour, mixing first in the center until you have a smooth batter; add the yeast to this and continue mixing until a supple dough is formed. Add more water or flour if necessary, but keep the dough soft.

Knead 20 minutes by hand, or until the dough is extremely stretchy. It should remain soft. Toward the end of the kneading, add the b.u.t.ter in cold bits, then continue kneading until the dough becomes l.u.s.trous, soft, and silky.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Being sure that there is plenty of room for the dough to expand (even triple), cover, and keep in a very warm (90F), draft-free place. After about an hour gently poke the center of the dough about inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn't fill in at all or if the dough sighs, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. The second rising will take about half as much time as the first.

Divide the dough into two, and using a rolling pin, gently press out all the gas. Round the halves and let them rest, covered, until they relax before you shape them into loaves. Try to avoid using much dusting flour on the board. Place the shaped loaves in greased 8 4 loaf pans, and set in a very warm place (90 to 95F) to rise. Protect the loaves from drafts and provide some humidity if possible, either by putting the loaves in a puffed-up plastic bag with a spoonful of hot water in it, or by putting a pan of hot water near the loaves as they rise. Proof the loaves until the dough returns slowly from a gentle touch of your wet finger. 4 loaf pans, and set in a very warm place (90 to 95F) to rise. Protect the loaves from drafts and provide some humidity if possible, either by putting the loaves in a puffed-up plastic bag with a spoonful of hot water in it, or by putting a pan of hot water near the loaves as they rise. Proof the loaves until the dough returns slowly from a gentle touch of your wet finger.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 45 minutes, or a little longer. Cool before slicing Cool before slicing-this one is far too poufy to slice before it is cool.

Sea Biscuits These are delicious crackers, with a flavor similar to commercial Rykrisp, only better. The recipe was developed by our good friend Alan Scott when he was a s.h.i.+pboard chef, but it's tasty under any circ.u.mstances.

Sprout the wheat for 2 to 4 days but not so long that there is any green in the shoots. Grind fairly fine. Mix in the oil, salt, soda, seeds, and enough rye flour to make a stiff dough. Form into golf-ball-sized rounds, then roll out on a well-floured board as thin as possible, not thicker than inch. Bake on a dry griddle on low heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or in a medium-low oven, until very slightly brown.

- cup wheat berries - 1 tablespoon oil - teaspoon salt - teaspoon baking soda - 1 teaspoon caraway seeds - cup rye flour, about