This month the Babes went Swedish!
Our Kitchen Babe of the Month was Görel and since she is a Swedish Babe we invited us to bake something from her home country.

This is what she told us about the bread:

Brunkan is a nick name for Brunkebergs bageri (the bakery of Brunkeberg, situated in Stockholm), and ”långa” means ”the long one”. When they bake this bread at the Brunkeberg bakery, it is more than two feet long – hence the name.
The owner of this bakery is Heléne Johansson, an IT consultant who decided she needed a career change and thus started her own bakery in 2002. This proved to be very successful, and she has now started a second bakery and also taken on catering as a business. A true babe, isn’t she?
This bread is from the book ”Bröd” (Bread) that Heléne published last year and which contains the most popular breads in her line.
And, dear ladies, now it’s time to do some sourdough baking again!

Sourdough! Yes! Graham flour! Strike!
About to years ago you could have seen me running away pulling my hair when you’d have told be to bake with sourdough! Thanks to these sweet ladies named the Bread Baking Babes Í love sourdough now. Four sourdough residents are living in the back of my fridge now: Sundance, Harry, Sally and “the new one for this bread who has no name yet”.

When I was a child I loved “Grahamweckerl” (longish buns made of Graham flour) from our local bakery. So I was excited to read that we would bake with Graham flour.

The sourdough used here is very easy to make and is ready to use in only 3 days from scratch!
Mine went bubbly the second day and was very active by the time I used it for baking.
Maybe this is the reason why my bread always refused to bake with a smooth surface and the crust always cracked open on various places…
Nevertheless, let me tell you: I LOVE THIS BREAD!!

So Here we go:

Graham flour* sourdough:

Day 1, morning:
Mix 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour
with 120 g/120 ml/0,5 cups water.
Cover with cling film and leave at room temp.

Day 1, evening:
Add 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix, cover with cling film and leave at room temp.

Day 2, morning:
Add 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix. By now, the sourdough should be a little active (bubbly). If not, add a teaspoon of honey, some freshly grated apple or a teaspoon of natural yoghurt. Leave at room temp.

Day 3, morning:
Feed the sourdough with 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix, cover with cling film and put in fridge.

Day 4
By now, the sourdough should be ready to use. If you don’t want to use it right away, you can keep in the fridge if you feed it as above a couple of times/week.

*Graham flour can’t be found everywhere. If you want to recreate an exact substitute, here’s what to do, according to Wikipedia:

Graham flour is not available in all countries. A fully correct substitute for it would be a mix of white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ in the ratio found in whole wheat. Wheat comprises approximately 83% endosperm, 14.5% bran, and 2.5% germ by mass. For sifted all-purpose white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ having densities of 125, 50, and 80 grams/cup, respectively, one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2/3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1/3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ.

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Brunkans långa
The tall loaf of Brunkebergs bageri

2 large loaves (I halved the recipe below)

Ingredients
600 g/600 ml/2,5 cups water
1125 g/2,48 lb high-protein wheat flour (I used spelt)
375 g/13,2 oz graham sourdough (see above)
20 g/0,7 oz fresh yeast
150 g/5,3 oz dark muscovado sugar
25 g/0,88 oz honey
30 g/1 oz sea salt

Day 1
Mix all ingredients except the salt. Work the dough in a stand mixer for 10 minutes or by hand for 20. Add the salt. Knead the dough for 5 minutes more. Put the dough in a oiled, plastic box and put the lid on. Leave the dough for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes: fold one side of the dough against the centre of the dough, then fold the other end inwards, finally turn the whole dough so that the bottom side is facing down. (Bare with me, I’m going to try to find out the proper terms for this…) Put the plastic box with the dough in the fridge and let it rise over night.

Day 2
Set the oven temp to 250 C/480 F. Leave the baking stone in if you use one.

Pour out the dough on a floured table top and divide it lengthwise with a sharp knife. Put the dough halves on a sheet covered with parchment paper. When the oven is ready, put in the sheet or shove the parchment paper with the loaves onto the baking stone. Put a small tin with 3-4 ice cubes at the bottom of the oven. (The water releases slowly which is supposed to be better.) Lower the oven temp. to 175 C/350 F immediately after you have put in the loaves.

After 20 minutes, open the oven door and let out excess steam.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the loaves have reached an inner temp of 98 C/208 F.

Let cool on wire.

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Wanna bake with us and be a BBB Buddy?

All you have to do is bake this bread and post about it on your blog.
Then email the link and photo to Görel no later than September 29th, and you will get the Buddy badge and be included in the Buddy roundup.

*pssst* I think it is really worth a try!! I baked it 5 times so far and loved it every time!!

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Bake My Day – Karen | blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth | Canela and Comino – Gretchen (Babe on Hiatus) | Cookie Baker Lynn – Lynn | Feeding my enthusiasms – Pat | Grain Doe – Gorel | I Like To Cook – Sara | Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya | Living on bread and water – Monique (Babe on Hiatus) | Lucullian Delights – Ilva | My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna | Notitie Van Lien – Lien | The Sour Dough – Breadchick Mary (Babe on Hiatus) | Thyme For Cooking – Katie (Babe on Hiatus) | Wild Yeast – Susan

Thinking of you with Love: Glenna (Alumni Babe) | Sher (Angel Babe)

Bread Baking Babes Bread Baking Buddy