Ocean bread

The idea for this bread was inspired by an amusing coincidence: the proportion of salt needed for good bread is 35 g of salt per litre of water, which just happens to be the exact concentration of salt in the Atlantic Ocean. So it's possible to make bread using sea water to provide all the salt needed, rather than normal fresh water. Not only does it work, the resulting bread is excellent!

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Baking
Breads


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For1 Ocean bread 2 Oceans bread 3 Oceans bread

MeasuresMetric

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For 1 Ocean bread, you will need:

300 ml sea water
125 g leaven
500 g plain white flour (French Type 65)
½ teaspoon yeast

Nutritional information:

Whole recipe

Calories

1979

99%

Proteins

56g

22%

Carbohydrates

421g

40%

Fats

Per 100 g

Calories

213

11%

Proteins

Carbohydrates

45g

Fats

<1%

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Recipe seen 73,557 times
Commented 4 times

Rating

Already noted 4 times
Average note : 2.3/3

% are calculated relative to a Recommended Dietary Intake or RDI of 2000 k-calories by day for a woman (change to a man).

Times:

Preparation : 17 min.
Resting : 4 hours 10 min.
Cooking : 40 min.
Start to finish : 5 hours 7 min.

Preservation : Several days in a towel bag.

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How much will it cost?

For 1 Ocean bread : 0.93 €

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Next message on 2015-02-01

Step by step recipe:

1 Filter 300 ml sea water to strain out any little impurities it might contain.
2 Pour the sea water into the food processor bowl, add 125 g leaven and mix briefly.
3 Add 500 g plain white flour (French Type 65) then ½ teaspoon yeast and knead for 5 minutes on minimum speed (1), then for a further 5 minutes on speed 2. You could also chech the dough by trying the window-pane test.
4 Tip the dough into a large clean bowl and cover with a plastic sheet. Leave to rest for 10 minutes.
5 At the end of this resting time, take a wooden spatula or a dough cutter and lift the dough, stretching it upwards...
6 ...then fold it over on itself. Give a quarter turn to the bowl and repeat the operation. Continue like this until the bowl has made at least one complete turn. In French this kneading manœuvre is called a "rabat". Cover the bowl again and leave to rest in a warm place for 20 minutes. This sequence of "rabat" + 20 minutes resting should be done 3 times. Note: The "rabat" technique is rather hard to describe, so you can watch it in the video on the right.
7 Cover the bowl and leave to rest in a warm place for 2 hours. After resting, tip the dough out onto your worktop.
8 Shape it into a nice round ball by folding the edge under until the top becomes a smooth dome.
9 Put this ball into a banneton (rising basket), dust with flour, cover and leave in a warm place for 1½ to 2 hours.
10 Preheat the oven to 240°C (460°F). Turn the loaf out of the basket, slash the top and bake for 30 to 40 minutes (see these hints for advice about cooking, and in particular, steam).
11 When the loaf comes out of the oven, see how crunchy the crust is and how light the loaf is inside.

Remarks:

This recipe only works well with ocean water (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian); the water from the Mediterranean is too salty, so needs to be diluted with a little fresh water.

In spite of the name, there's no "sea" flavour to this bread. Delicious as it is, you'll not find any trace of the slight iodine taste of the sea (no doubt this disappears during cooking). To get this flavour, you would need to add seaweed extract or other seafood.

Source:

Home-made, but warmly dedicated to Clairette and Tom-Tom who are sailing somewhere between the Azores and the Canary Isles.

Last modified on: October 3^rd 2014

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Nota: Rollover photos with your mouse to see recipe title.

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Your 4 comments or questions on this recipe:

- - -

Hello,
Could you please provide the recipe for the particular levain that you are using? Thank you.

Comment #1 posted on november 7^th 2010 at 12:12 by dolores.

Hello,

Sure, just click on "leaven" in the list of ingredients.

Comment #2 posted on november 7^th 2010 at 17:07 by jh.

Thank you, I found the link, as per your instructions.
Best regards,Dolores

Comment #3 posted on november 9^th 2010 at 03:34 by Dolores.

Fascinating...I'll be saving this link to share with my visitors on the east coast. Just think, all the time I lived on Long Island, New York, I could have been baking this bread. Of course, you know, I'm not much of a baker:)

Thanks for sharing, jh...

Comment #4 posted on november 25^th 2010 at 17:21 by Louise.

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