Pumpernickel round 2

It's been a while since I baked some bread so it was good to get back to that. I've been with my Dad who was back in the hospital and then moved to a rehab center. In all this his appetite is way down and for a while I thought I'd missed my window. But happily he reports that now he's off the bad cancer drugs, his appetite is coming back. Yay!

So as soon as I got home, I wanted to try the pumpernickel again. My cuisinart did better with a single loaf and got it partially kneaded. But it bogged down again. Luckily at a much later stage. This time it may have been my fault for not adding enough flour prior to trying to knead. I seem to have misjudged when one can consider this dough to be riding the blade and cleaning the sides of the bowl. The recipe called for a 15 minute rest before kneading and after that the dough no longer seemed like it had enough flour. I also used less wheat bran but I'm not sure how much impact that had.

Anyhow I just finished it up by working in the remaining bread flour as I kneaded it by hand. Had a very nice rise. This time the texture was different. Can't decide if it was better. There was more gluten development and the bread was more open and less grainy. So I don't think I really need to try the recipe adding vital gluten. I just need to make sure and knead it fully and allow a full rise. It didn't have that problem with feeling like there was too much bran, but it also seemed much more like a generic pumpernickel rather than a black russian bread. Possibly that was because I reduced the onion powder (i found it a little overpowering before). Probably because I cut the wheat bran in half. I think it would still be worthwhile to try it using All Bran cereal, rather than the plain wheat bran.

On to round 3.