I don't have much experience with buckwheat flour, so this bread was a bit of an adventure. To be fair, the dough was still mostly composed of wheat -- and just plain old all-purpose flour at that -- so it was fairly easy to handle and well-behaved. Still, it was a nice way to ease into buckwheat and give it a try.

The final bread came out with a nice structure that slices and toasts well. The colour is quite dark (even though only ~1/3 of the flour used was buckwheat). And the whole grain gives it a nice flavour as well. I might try using some of it to make a strata for breakfast tomorrow.

NB: This recipe produces more sponge than required to make the dough! You get ~3 c. of sponge, but the recipe only requires 2 c. Be prepared to use the rest in another recipe! Alternatively, make 50% more dough and make some rolls or an extra loaf of bread.

Clayton advises that this recipe makes ~4 lbs. of dough and suggests making four small (1-lb.) loaves in either 7x3" (18x7.5cm) loaf pans or 1-lb. coffee tins. I don't have any 1-lb. pans, so I opted for two large loaves instead and used a 9x5" (23x13cm) and a 8.5x4.5" (21.5x11.5cm) pan. This seems to have worked well and gave me nicely shaped and sized loaves, although I think two 8.5x4.5" pans would have been ideal.

Buckwheat Bread

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 2 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 2 c. (~240g) all-purpose flour¹
• 1 Tbsp. (~17g) coarse sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. (~13g) sugar
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)

Dough

• 1 1/2 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 1/3 c. skim milk powder
• 4 Tbsp. (~50g) brown sugar
• 2 c. buckwheat flour²
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tsp. (~12g) coarse sea salt
• ~4 c. (~480g) all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 1-2 Tbsp. cream

Directions

1. Combine the water, flour, salt, sugar, and yeast for the sponge.
2. Mix well, cover, and let stand at room temperature overnight. Alternatively, feed up an established starter and use that once it's nice and active and bubbly.
3. The next morning, transfer 2 c. (~450g) of the sponge (or active starter) to a large mixing bowl.
4. Add the water, milk powder, sugar, and buckwheat flour and stir to combine.
5. Add the yeast and beat/mix for 25-30 strokes (or ~1 minute with the flat beater of an electric mixer).
6. Add the butter and salt and mix for ~200 strokes (or until the batter starts forming ropey strings in the bowl of an electric mixer).
7. Working with ~1/2 c. at a time, mix in ~3 c. of the flour (switching to a dough hook for mixing if using an electric mixer).
8. If mixing by hand, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes, working in the remaining flour as you go. You may not need all of it! (If using an electric mixer, keep adding flour a little bit at a time until the dough clears the sides of the bowl and forms a smooth ball.)
9. Shape the dough into a smooth ball and place it in a covered bowl to rise. Allow to rise at room temperature for ~1 hour.
10. Turn the dough out and knead for a few strokes to press out the gas bubbles.
11. Shape as desired and place into greased tins (if using).
12. Brush the tops of the loaves with the melted butter, cover, and let rise at room temperature for ~45 minutes.
13. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 30-40 minutes (the timing will vary depending on the size and shape of the loaves).
14. Brush the tops of the loaves with cream and return to oven. Bake for another 5-10 minutes.
15. Turn loaves out of pans and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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¹ I was running low on AP flour, so I used a mix of AP and hard whole wheat flour for my sponge. I think I had a slightly scant cup of AP flour + a slightly generous cup of WW. Next time I might try using my regular WW starter and 100% WW flour in the sponge. The overnight fermentation would give the bran time to properly hydrate and it would be nice to have a higher proportion of whole grains in the bread. If that goes well, I might try replacing some of the AP flour from the main dough with WW as well. And I can experiment with changing up my mixing technique. If I'm going for something closer to 100% whole grain, then it might make sense to switch to something more closely matching the Laurel's Kitchen approach. Anyway, that's all just notes for future me and not really relevant to the present version of the recipe. ^Back
2 Sorry, I forgot to weigh the buckwheat flour! I'm guessing that it probably would've been somewhere between 250g and 300g, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll try to remember to weigh everything next time. ^Back