Texas Flood Bread

This one is compliments of my brother Carl, who lives in Houston.  This is what he is doing while he waits for the streets to become passable after Harvey.  I cut and pasted from an email because his writing made me giggle.  Pepitas are roasted pumpkin seeds.

TEXAS FLOOD BREAD

 I start with about 2 cups of water, 1 1/2 t yeast, 1 T salt and about 5-6 cups of high quality whole wheat flour, King Arthur preferred. I mix it with a spoon and let it sit.

Then, while the rain falls, I let it sit.

And then, as the street fills, I let it sit.

Two days later, as the water comes up under the house, I smell it. If it smells like beer, it's time to go to the next step.

I add about 3/4 cup of UNSALTED pepitas (roasted) and an additional 3/4 t yeast, then start adding unbleached white flour or bread flour (both have higher protein/gluten levels). I knead it, either with my KitchenAid processor or, if the electricity has gone out by then, by hand. Once it feels right, I take it out and let it rise to 2-3 times its size, about 1 hour if it's hot or about 1.5 hours if a hurricane has lowered the temperature outside.

Divide into two equal balls of dough, and put into two bread pans lightly coated with olive oil. These should rise about an hour, until they are about twice their size.

For a nice crust, paint on an egg yolk/cream mixture. Then I either put sunflower seeds or large crystal sea salt over the top.

Bake for about 50 minutes at around 410. 

If, however, the gas is out because of a hurricane-related emergency, then prepare the entire ball of down on a cooking mat with cornmeal between mat and dough, let the dough rise into a large single loaf, about 1 hour. Preheat a cooking stone on the grill to around 400--CAREFUL, the stone is hotter than the air around it, so you can burn the bread if you get it too hot. Gently slide the cooking mat onto the cooking stone (if it collapses a bit, don't worry, it will come back). Cook for about 40-45 minutes, but check periodically to make sure that it doesn't start burning.

Update: 3/28/18:  I made this today, in a cold, initially low humidity day in Colorado (it's lightly snowing now).  To make it work properly, I needed to add water to the dough, which I did a little at a time until it seemed moist enough.  I also increased the rise time for the first rising to around 2 1/2 hours.