I’ve been making sourdough breads for 13 years. They are a source of great gratification. I just reached a new milestone last week. After examining the Excel spreadsheets which hold my bread logs, I chose two recipes that I had ranked the best, and I duplicated them. They were even better than the original versions, so I want to establish them now as my “go-to” breads, the standards of what to bake unless I want to experiment.

The first one is made predominantly with white bread flour. I call it 80/20, because the 20% of non-white flours are a combination of whole wheat, rye, and spelt. It’s my favorite “white” bread. The 20% makes it more flavorful and interesting than any other white bread I know.

Here is the formula:

The second bread is my new standard whole-grain bread, one I feel achieves the right balance of rich flavors and textures that these healthy flours can produce. The key to this bread is Type 85 flour, made by Central Milling, a producer of outstanding flours from Utah for more than 150 years. Their description of it:

“This organic type 85 flour is a blend of hard red winter and hard red spring wheat that has been malted with organic malted barley. Designed for artisan bread baking, this flour replicates older milling techniques. The higher ash content increases the nutritional value of the flour without compromising its baking performance. Organic Type 85 Malted is not quite white flour and not quite whole grain.”

I learned about this flour when I discovered Maurizio Leo, an amazing baker who recently published a major book, The Perfect Loaf. You can learn a lot from his website of the same name. I now have three incredible tutors for making breads: Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery, Ken Forkish of Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast fame, and Maurizio. I’ll have to live to 120 to take full advantage of all these insights, but we’ll take it one year at a time.

You might find it interesting to compare a slice of each bread, side-by-side. You’ll see the darker grain on the rich Type 85 loaf vs. the light color of the 80/20 bread. Both of these taste great when toasted, grilled, or sautéed in olive oil. They both go with a variety of cheeses, nut butters, hummus, white bean purée, slices of prosciutto, and bruschetta with all sorts of toppings.