Apple Bread

Hello,  I wanted to try making Apple Bread again, after seeing Larry's recent Odds and Ends post (thank you Larry) (and because I was able to find Honeycrisp apples at the market!).



I made this bread combining elements of Mr. Hamelman's Normandy Apple Bread, and Mr. Kastel's Apple Bread. With many thanks to Mr. Hamelman and Mr. Kastel!
I wanted to try mixing the final dough without water, to try and get as much apple flavor as possible in the bread
(apple cider, applesauce, and sour cream stand in for the water).

I made two different batches. I learned from the first batch:
- I used way too much yeast (BP 1%). The dough fermented too quickly! I reduced to .4% BP in the second batch.
- I found the dough a bit stiff after mixing and didn't do a great job mixing in the dried apple (uneven distribution of apple shows up in the crumb shots below, from two different loaves). For the second batch, I tried double-hydration, to get some gluten and then soften the dough with the addition of a second amount of liquid. The dough was easier to spread out, I was able to "jelly-roll" the apple pieces and knead them in much more easily.
- Not moistening the dried apples before adding, I think caused them to pull water out of the dough during bulk fermentation; the dough seemed dry and I found it harder to shape. I splashed a bit of extra cider over the dried apples for the second batch and this helped.
- Transparent apple applesauce contributed great flavor to this bread. Had enough left over to make a second batch. :^)
- A sweeter sparkling apple juice didn't translate to a better tasting bread, to my taste; in the second batch, I used apple cider which was not as sweet and I liked the flavor of the bread better:

These were from the first batch (the "P" is for Pomme, a nod to Normandy!).
The kitchen smelled like extremely apple-y after the bake!!!:


Here is a picture of a loaf from the second batch (trying for apple branches and leaves with the scoring):



In drying the apples, I was curious what the yield would be.
For the second batch, 5 apples = 1200 g weight, then 860g after peeling, coring, dicing, then 165g after drying (the apple flavor concentrated quite well, and yummy caramelization happening here and there!):


While dicing the apple, I tossed the pieces with lemon juice so they wouldn't brown too quickly before making it into the oven.
I dried the apples on two baking sheets, in a reducing oven:
380F convection for 10 minutes, stir, (at 10 minutes, the smell of baking apple starts to fill the kitchen!)
380F convection for 10 minutes, stir
320F convection for 10 minutes, stir
275F convection for 15 minutes, check to see how they're drying
275F convection for 10 more minutes

I really loved the flavor of the bread in both batches, but in the second batch the bread had a bit more tang that complemented the sweetness of the apples.  The crumb is nice and soft. In the end, I got the apple flavor I hoped for!

Happy baking everyone! from breadsong