Pistachio, Prune and Pumpkin Seed Multigrain Sourdough with Malty Toads

We went with another multigrain white bread this week but instead of putting ground sesame and flax seeds in it we went with the 3 P’s: pistachios, prunes and pumpkin seeds.   This bread is the equivalent of 38% whole grains due to the Toadies and malts.

We decided to go with our multigrain sourdough starter instead of the SD, YW and poolish combo starter from last week and we went for the dour too by refreshing the stiff starter and then refrigerating it for 3 days before building levain and then refrigerating it for 24 hours.

The levain was a 3 stage build of: 3 hours, 3 hours till it doubled, and then 1 hour where it rose 25% before refrigerating.  The levain was allowed to come to room temperature and finish doubling, about 3 hours before it was used.  The levain came in at 20% of the total weight.

While the levain was finishing its final doubling on the counter, we began the autolyse the flour with the fig water, extra water, Toadies and malts – with the salt placed on top.  The fig water was left over from re-hydrating the figs for a bake a couple of weeks ago.  This week we have prune water for a future bake left over from re-hydrating the prunes from this bake.

Looks a little over proofed to me.

Once everything came together with a spoon at a little over 74% hydration, we did 5 minutes of slap and folds to get the gluten development started before resting the dough for 15 minutes and doing 1 more minute of slap and folds.  Normally we would do at lea1t 20 minutes of slap and folds over two sessions of 6 and 4 minutes

We decided to go with less slap and folds and 3 S&F’s to see if it opened the crumb.  We don’t think it will with all the add-ins for this bread but you never know when your apprentice gets her paws into stuff when you aren’t looking,.  The pistachios, pumpkin seeds and prunes were added at the beginning of the first and 2nd set of S&F’s. 

By the end f the 3rd set the add-ins were thoroughly incorporated.  We allowed the bread to bulk ferment for 1 hour before dividing the dough into the pieces required for the Chacon design: a central knotted roll, 4 balls and 4 snails surrounding the roll.

This bread makes fin toast with half of; a mango, nectarine and peach, some bacon, black grapes and raspberries - yummy!

After these pieces were placed in the bottom of a lightly rice floured basket I forgot to put the pumpkin seeds in first which would cause a mistake trying to glue them on later.  The remaining bulk of the dough was air shaped into a huge bialy to cover the design.  The basket was immediately placed into a used trash can liner and placed in the fridge for an 18 hour cold retard.

The dough rose well in the cold and after a peek, Lucy decided to let the dough warm up for an hour before baking it off in the mini oven at 500F with (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups and 1/4 C of water tossed into the bottom of the oven for instant steam.

We glued the forgotten seeds on with egg wash, per my apprentice’s recommendation but we should have used water as the egg wash browned much darker than the rest of the crust.  Oh well, I really could care less and I know Lucy doesn’t care a lick either!

The lunch sandwich today was an aged white cheddar, pastrami, spicy brown mustard with caramelized; onions, mushrooms and hot peppers all melted together in the micro wave to make a fine pastrami melt.  Yummy!

After 4 minutes we turned the heat down to 475 F and at the 8 minute mark we turned it down to 450 F.  At the 15 minute mark we removed the steam and turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time.  12 minutes later the bread hit 205 F and was deemed done and removed to the cooling rack.

The bread sprang weakly but well enough for the Chacon design to show itself and it browned up with the little blisters the mini oven is famous for putting on crusts.  But that egg wash was a mistake.  The crust didn't lose all of it's crispiness as is cooled. The crumb was open, soft, glossy and moist. It was slightly sweet and sour due to the SD, fig water and prunes.  The pistachios and pumpkin seeds were a nice chew foil to the soft crumb.  We like this bread and will have no problem devouring it. 

The rest of lunch.

Formula