Yesterday I made Orange Marmalade with Single Malt Scotch. It's bursting with flavors: rabid orange with a slightly bitter tang, and subtle smokey undertones of peat smoked whiskey. No ordinary baguette's wheatiness could stand up to this flavor.
Concurrently, I was making sourdough levain for my refrigerated seed starter's refreshment; I simply made 300g extra.
I made 1050g of 68% hydrated sourdough, with 66/24/10 ratio of All-purpose/Bread/Whole Rye flours. The levain was fed only with Bread flour, and I also let the levain ferment for 12 hours to develop its sourness a bit more. This is a slight variant of my usual sourdough 45/45/10 flour ratio; only 250g of levain is used in 1500g of final dough, and the levain ferments for only 8 hours. The dough was retarded for 15 hours @ 55°F. I shaped three 350g loaves into baguettes.
This combination of tweaks yielded yielded a bread with a baguette-like crumb, softer than my usual chewier sourdough, and a distincitve acidic tang that stands side-by-side with the bursts of orange rind, the scotch-smokiness, and the marmalade's bitter low note.
Whether, or not, these loaves are deserving of being called "baguettes of a different color" or are pretenders merely dressed up like baguettes, they certainly are keepers.
David G
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Never thought of putting a peaty Scotch in jam but it sounds interesting and tasty. Nice scoring, crumb and crust!
...you like Single Malt Scotch, and Marmalade you'll be pleasantly surprised by the pairing. It's not an orginal idea, I bought some, liked it and decided to try my own hand at making it. Google will instantly find two dozen recipes. As usual, I made "my own" borrowing ratios, and techniques from the lot.
David G
there, David! :)
Great name! Thanks.
David G
Nice looking loaves.
Beautiful crumb and crust.
I wasn't certain how this dough would work in the baguette shape, but I'm pleased.
David G
Lovely scroring, and shaping on those baguettes, David!
You know, you could enhance the richness of the crust color by adding a sweetner, or diastatic malt, especially when an extended fermentation is planned.
Khalid
I use diastatic malt when I bake classic baguettes (also retarded), but I don't use it in sourdoughs. I've spent three years "perfecting" my sourdough formulae. My goals were flavor and consistency loaf-to-loaf, I've reached them to my satisfaction. I've considered adding malt before now, but have rejected the idea. I've got a good balance between retarded fermentation, proofing strength and oven spring. I'm afraid the additional sugars might upset that balance.
Nonetheless, thanks for the suggestion and your praise.
David G
Lovely shaping, scoring and crumb.
In my book, "baguette" is a shape, and yours are baguettes.
The marmelade sounds really tasty.
David
I'm with you: baguette is a shape; but it seems a large number of fellow bakers (a majority?) think otherwise. This dough has inspired me--it's flavor, specifically-- to increase the preferment ratio in my "go-to" sourdough formula, and ferment the final build (I still use three progressive feedings building levain) for 12 hours. I'm going to keep the original 45/45/10: AP/Bread/Rye for its chewiness. This will be this coming week's sourdough batard bake. I'll post the results.
Thanks for the thumbs up.
David G