How to make good no knead artisan bread with Indian Atta flour

Flour is a flour is a flour.

Right?

That is not right!

While professional bakers use their own system of grading flours, for the home bakers among us, we are typically happy with whole wheat flour and white bread flour to choose from.

But there is a whole world of flours out there and we invite you to explore it with your LoafNest, for different flavors of bread. 

In this article we talk about one such flour that you might want to try. It is called the 'Atta flour'.

If you are familiar with Indian bread, you already know what is Atta flour. Atta is a whole wheat flour that is used widely in Indian cuisine to make unleavened flat breads like Roti, Chapati and Paratha. While it is whole wheat flour made from hard wheat, it is different to normal whole bread flour in the various ways.

• Atta flour is very smooth and fine in its texture. Even though it is whole wheat, the texture of the flour is more close to unbleached white flour.
• It is made with a special way of stone milling as opposed to the roller milling used for bread flours.
• The milling breaks down the starch in the wheat more. Atta has about 15% starch damage compared to 4-5% starch damage in bread flour. This makes the flour and breads taste somewhat sweeter.
• Atta has relatively high level of ash (burnt starch) at about 1% which gives the flour a unique flavor and a slightly darker color.
• Because of the high starch break down, the flour can absorb significantly more water than a bread flour.
• Atta has high gluten that holds the dough together even when rolled into very thin breads.
• The wheat for atta is cultivated only in certain geographies giving a unique character to the wheat and the flour.

For all this reasons the atta flour is great for making unleavened flat breads. But when it comes to bread making, there is a catch. Atta is notoriously difficult to make bread with.

Atta is notoriously difficult to make bread with.

Normally breads sold in India and neighboring countries is not made with Atta. It is typically made from maida, the white flour equivalent of atta. Even leavened Indian breads like Naan are always made with maida.

Home bakers who have tried to make bread with atta typically find that the loaves are dense, gummy and quite unpalatable. So, how can one make excellent artisan quality bread with atta?

We thought this was a challenge worth taking up with LoafNest. We are quite happy with what come out of the LoafNest.

Love Indian Food? Check out our Panache Tava Griddle pan that we made specially for great Dosa, Rotis, Chapati and a lot more! It is a durable, high quality and premium product built to last long and delivery great cooking performance.

Recipe

Ingredients

• Atta flour: 500 g (see notes below on picking the right flours)
• Water : 500 ml
• Salt : 8-10 g
• Instant dry yeast: 0.5 g
• Chopped Almonds : 25 g (optional)

Method

As ever, we will use our no-knead, no-mess, no-shaping LoafNest flow for this bread too.

• Mix water, salt and yeast in a large bowl
• Add flour and mix well with a fork. You can mix half of the chopped almonds with the flour at this step. There is no need to knead.
• Cover the bowl with a plate or cling film and set it at room temperature (~20 C) for 12-18 hours.
• After the flour has doubled in size, smells very sour and is full of bubbles, it is ready to be baked.
• For baking, pre-heat the LoafNest casserole at 230C (450F) for 45 minutes.
• Carefully remove the hot casserole from oven, place the LoafNest liner into the casserole and pour the dough into LoafNest. You can top the dough with remainder of chopped almonds.
• Cover the LoafNest and return it to the oven and continue to bake at 230C (450F) for 50 minutes.
• Remove the loaf and peel the liner.
• The loaf is ready to cut when it has completely cooled down and does not feel warm to touch.

Notes

• Note that atta flour absorbs a lot more water than a typical bread flour. Hence the amount of water in this recipe is same as that of wheat.
• A Indian/South-Asian store is the best place to get atta flour. You can also try online stores if you do not have a local store selling atta. In some places non-atta flour is labelled and marketed as atta flour. To be sure that you are getting the atta flour, make sure it is made in India or Pakistan and made with traditional stone grinding milling. It is also recommended to go with known brands of atta flours like Aashirvad, Annapoorna, Shaktibhog or Pilsbury.

Results

We were happy with the atta loaf we made!

The flavor profile was quite different than a typical whole wheat bread. The unique flavor of the atta flour was really distinctive resembling that of a freshly made roti. This was in addition to the complex flavors of long fermentation. The crumb was airy and on par with a typical whole-wheat flour bread. The crust had a nice crunch on par with typical whole wheat bread too. The crumb had a smoother texture, and not big airy holes, which might be due to very fine texture of the atta flour.

Overall, with LoafNest we were able to make atta bread that had all the wholesome good qualities of a whole wheat loaf with the uniqueness of a smoother crumb texture and a nice atta flavor. We surely think it is worth a shot!

Let us know in comments about your atta bread adventures!