Multigrain Struan Bread Extraordinaire

Back when I lived in Sonoma County, and Brother Juniper’s Bread was a way to “eat local” long before anyone actually said those words, Peter Reinhart’s (Brother Juniper) Struan Bread was one of my favorite breads to buy at Food 4 Thought Natural Foods Grocery Store (which of course got bought by Whole Foods long ago).  I know.  Pretty soon I’ll be telling you how I walked to school, barefoot, in the snow.  Except that I grew up in sunny Southern California.

I digress.  This week’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge bread was the new and improved version of that same struan bread.  The improvement being made by Peter himself.  And it is soooooo good!  Has anyone told Peter that I love him, yet?  Once I got over thinking he was a hippie, anyway.  His Struan/Multigrain bread is impossibly chewy from the brown rice, quinoa, and oats, crunchy from the millet and polenta, sweet from the brown sugar and honey, and tangy from the buttermilk.  In other words, it’s a loaf of bread holding the tension of the opposites.

The dough gets started by making a soaker of the grains and some water one day before you wish to make the bread.  Simple, right?  Also, make sure you cook some brown rice that first day, because you need 3 tablespoons of cooked brown rice for this dough.  And let me tell you, some people have had success using the microwave to make a small amount, but me, not so much.

On the second day, the soaker is thrown in with the other ingredients, and it all gets kneaded until the dough is silky smooth.  A normal 90 minute rise (although my kitchen was warm and the dough doubled in 60 minutes that day), then the dough gets shaped into a loaf and plopped into a 9 x 5 loaf pan.  Another rise, and into the oven it goes.  After baking and cooling, you’ll have a loaf like no other.  If anyone had told me back in the day that I’d be making struan bread, as good as Brother Juniper’s, at home someday, I would have laughed.  For a really long time.  Too bad we ate it all.  I could use a piece of toast right now!

You can find the recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice here.  I didn’t use the poppy seeds on top, obviously, because I prefer the bread without them.  And I used 1 tablespoon coarse cornmeal (polenta), 1 tablespoon millet, and 1 tablespoon quinoa instead of using 3 tablespoons of coarse cornmeal.

Tagged as: BBA Challenge, Brother Juniper's Bakery, multigrain bread, Peter Reinhart, sandwich bread, struan bread