Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts for ED Stamina

ED pager

And now for one month of emergencies. I brought home the RED pager last night, still turned on. This is a most godawful device. An RSS feed of tragedy. For twenty minutes I let it chirp from my bag its stream of reports on the strokes and overdoses people were having around town. A twitter of doom. If I were at the hospital, I would be expected to find and help these people. But here at home it is only a foreshadowing of what I will be scrubbing into the next day. At the point when I could no longer stand to hear it, I wondered out loud to Karl-Peter with the RED pager beeping in my hand, “This must be an inkling of what God feels like. So painfully aware.” And then I did what God cannot; I turned off the thing crying out and went back to my pretending that bad things were not happening out there to strangers, a necessary suppression for the sake of dinner, and sleep. Thank you very much, had enough of that for tonight! I suppose God must also hold the other (infinite) pagers of babies born and 50th wedding anniversaries and children adopted and lotteries won. So maybe it all balances out. I still gladly agree with the simple reminder written on the Post-It note on the refrigerator in my childhood home, “There is a God. You are not Him.” I shall try to remind myself of this Post-It when I inevitably head down the Why road of questioning after one too many pages on one too many shifts.

pane al cinque cereal

Pane al Cinque Cereali con Noci

Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts

Adapted from The Italian Baker

1 ½ cups sourdough starter

3 cups water

3 ¾ cups white flour

1 ¼ cups oat flour

1 cup and 2 TB rye flour

1 cup and 1 TB wheat flour

¾ cup brown rice flour

1 heaping tablespoon of honey

1 generous TB salt

1 ¼ cups of shelled walnuts

Stir the starter into the water, add the honey, and slowly add the flours. Continue to knead and add the salt.

Continue to knead on a smooth surface for 8-10 minutes.

Form a ball and let it rise in an oiled bowl, covered, for about 2 hours.

After this time, take the dough out, punch it down, split it into two rounds and knead the nuts into, the dough making the folds while shaping. I chose to do a boule and a batard, with varied scoring on top.

Let rise again on parchment paper, covered with saran, for 1 hour and a half, until doubled.

Form cuts on the surface and bake in a preheated oven at 40-45 minutes with a pan of water in the oven to keep moisture. Cool on a rack.

pane al cinque pane al cinque wheat score

 

3 thoughts on “Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts for ED Stamina

  1. So if we want to ‘tartine’ this one we just take the whole of flour and use that weight to discern percentages? Looks completely delicious…still wondering why you and your boyfriend don’t weigh more?

    1. Yes– you would consider the weight of flour 100% and then, in grams, use 75-80% water and 2% salt. You know the drill. Call me with questions. I’m tartining right now.

  2. Wishing you much peace and hope as you journey through this ED season with your new red accessory! The bread’s stamina-giving qualities will surely help 🙂

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