Whole Wheat Walnut Boule

Bread baking is my passion... yeast bubbling, flour flying in my face! It's like creating a living organism. One with an insatiable sweet tooth that feasts on sugar, resulting in a bad case of gas. It's the yeast expelling carbon dioxide that causes the dough to rise. Yeast happens to be a finicky eater. For example, it will only tolerate its beverages at certain temperatures (ideally between 85 and 99 F). Too cool and it won't grow, too hot and it dies. Talk about particular. Like I mentioned before, it loves sugar, and isn't as fond of salt.

Yeast can be brutal on the novice baker. But once you've got down the basics, you can conquer bread. Nothing makes me more satisfied than pulling out a high-rising loaf of golden brown bread or batch of pillow-soft rolls. If I had to live on one food alone for the rest of my life, it would be bread. No question. In fact, I wish I could live on bread alone. I can't get enough of it.

Most of you know, I try to use as much whole wheat in my baking as possible. It's 100% healthier than the white variety. It can make the process trickier though. I've had a lot of success with King Arthur's 100% White Whole Wheat Flour and I recommend you try it. It improved my bread a bunch!

This is a free-style loaf. You shape it into a blob and let it rise. It bakes into a crunchy-crusted round with a soft savory inside. I love the subtle walnut flavor from the oil and bits of toasted walnut baked right in. The only hiccup I ran across in this recipe was that my dough deflated when I tried to cross-hatch the top. I had to let it re-rise and it never reached its former peak. So I'll skip that step next time. (And be very gentle when brushing it with the egg wash.) The less you mess with risen dough the better.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup warm water
3 Tbsp. natural cane sugar
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (1 packet)
1 Tbsp. toasted walnut oil
2 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup bread flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
cornmeal, for dusting
1 egg white
1 Tbsp. milk

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Add yeast and let sit for 10 minutes until foamy.

2. Add walnut oil, salt, and 1/2 cup bread flour. Mix to incorporate. Add in the whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding more flour if necessary, for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Place dough inside a bowl coated with cooking spray, cover, and let rise for approximately 1 hour, until doubled in size.

3. Punch dough down and knead in walnuts. Shape into a round and place on a large baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal or a on a piece of parchment paper. Cover and let rise for approximately 1 hour, until doubled in size.

4. Preheat oven to 350 F. Uncover dough. Whisk together milk and egg white. Gently brush the mixture over the dough. With a sharp knife, make perpendicular slits in the top of the bread (optional- this caused mine to deflate so I'll skip it next time). Bake in preheated oven for 15-30 minutes, until browned/the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Remove form the oven to cool on a wire rack.

NOTE: You can also bake this loaf on a pizza stone for a more artisinal quality. Preheat pizza stone in oven to 350 F. Allow dough to rise on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal and transfer the whole thing to the oven, placing the parchment paper directly on the stone when ready to bake.

Makes 1 loaf.

(Adapted from Cooking Light)