Back of the packet

A query has arrived from Lindy; she says:

“I have enjoyed various rolls and breads in England called "granary", and seen "granary" flour for sale there, but not here (USA). It seems to be a proprietary brand name, and I'm having a hard time finding out what's in it, beyond malted wheat flakes. Do you know if there is any other essential ingredient? I've found the wheat flakes at Baker's Catalog (King Arthur Flour's online sales outlet) and I'm going to put some in my next loaf, but I've been wondering. As I recall, the flour was brown, but not really a whole wheat?”

The great thing (perhaps the only good thing) about the arrival of bread making machines is that the supermarkets now have lots of interesting flours for home breadmakers. Granary flour has been available for a good while and it is sold by a number of the good flour brands. Wiktionary defines granary bread as “bread made from white or brown flour that contains some wheatgerm and whole grains”.

I would say that it usually has a soft texture, it isn't wholemeal, but it has some malted grains in the mix that seem to add a definite sweetness and malty flavour.

According to the back of the packet the only extra ingredients are malted wheat flakes, which have the characteristic soft nutty flavour, but you could add some extra wheatgerm too. The same company – Hovis – that markets the flour also makes a granary loaf, but the contents are considerably more varied than the flour!

Malting is the controlled germination of cereals which allows the grain to partially germinate. The germination process is then stopped by the application of heat. It is a process mainly associated with brewing and distilling and bread made with added malted grains will have a hint of a familiar beery back flavour. For much more about malting go to http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12.html

Angela at A Spoonful of Sugar has a really good post on granary breadmaking and I can’t do better than point you in her direction. Her loaf looks really excellent.