Porter, Prune & Walnut Multigrain SD Bread with a No Fruit No Nut Potato Water Version

For Rosh Hashanah, my wife stopped at Chompies Bakery http://chompies.com/  to bring home a fine, non sourdough, snail shaped, raisin challah.  It was a leaner to the left with the inner circles higher than the outer ones – very tall.  Just beautiful, perfectly baked and delicious!  I can’t wait to have it for French toast this morning.

With the challah, I suppose Lucy and I didn’t need to bake any bread this week but we baked 2 SD breads from the same flour.  Both used the same levain.  One was walnut and prune chock full version with DeSchutes Black Butte Porter for the liquid and the other a white bread that used potato water for the liquid.  No one would guess that these two breads came from the same 40% whole grain flours.

The levain was made our usual 3 stage way with a few grams  of our 4 week fridge stored, stiff rye starter, the hard 18% extracted bits we sifted from the home ground grain and some whole rye.  The levain ended up at 9.32% of the flour in the mix

The first two stages were 3 hours each and it doubled after the 2nd feeding.  The levain was then retarded for 24 Hours after it had risen 50% after the 3rd feeding.  We allowed then Levain to finish its 3rd doubling  on the counter the next day while the 2 hour autolyse of the dough flour, malt and liquid was taking place with the salt sprinkled on top.

Both of these loaves fit into one bulk ferment container for the 24 hour cole retard.  But they did go into seperate baskets for the 12 hour cold proof making 36 hours total in the fridge.

 Since the dark bread has the 100g of walnuts and prunes we gave the white bread more of the flour (54%) than the dark (46%), we divided the levain, 65 g for the white and 55 g for the dark loaf, and added each to the 2 different autolyses.  We did 1 minute of slap and folds to mix in the salt and levain. 

After 30 minutes of rest, we started 4 sets of stretch and folds on 30 minute intervals.  Even though the hydration was the same for each loaf at 80%, the white dough felt slacker.  Maybe it was the difference in the potato water and the porter?  We incorporated the nuts and prunes in the dark bread during the 3rd set of S&F’s.  After a short 90 minute bulk ferment the dough was bulk retarded for 24 hours in the fridge with (1) S&F at the 12 hour mark for the white dough only since it was still slack..

Once it came out of the fridge we shaped it cold, put it in a rice floured basket, trash bagged and retarded again for 12 more hours.  The white dough was allowed to come to room temperature for 1 ½ hours before being upended onto parchment on a peel, slashed and slid onto the bottom stone at 515 F

It steamed under our aluminum DO bottom, used as a cloche, at 465 F for 22 minutes when the cloche came off.  The dough that had deflated and spread markedly when slashed.  This pointed to it likely being over fermented, proofed or both.  It recovered nicely under steam to spring, blister and bloom nicely.  We turned the temperature down to 425 F – convection to finish baking.  It finished browning and baked to 208 F on the inside in another 8 minutes making for a 30 minute bake total.

We then baked the dark loaf exactly the same way except when we noticed how stiff the dough was and that slashing this loaf with so many prunes and walnuts would be difficult we proofed it seam side down so all we had to do was upend it onto the parchment on a peel and cover with the Aluminum cloche – no slashing required.

There was no spread in this dough after un-molding.  The dark bread sprang, bloomed and cracked well at the seams.  It too was done after 22 minutes of steam and 8 minutes of dry heat for 30 minutes total.  This bread smelled better than the white one as it baked because of the walnuts and prunes no doubt.

Between the challah and these two breads, we have way more than we need for the week but since each is so different the variety will be the treat.  Plus Cousin Jay has closed on his AZ home and we will be giving him some bread and knishes to munch on.  Have to wait until lunch to see how the crumb came out on these fine looking breads.  The crumb on the white bread was much more open than dark one as expected.

It was very soft and moist with a little gloss too.  The dark bread was slightly sweet due to the prunes and the nuts were a a nice addition with the little bit of crunch.  Both of these bread are very good with their own similar beginning if different outcomes.  They both are more tangy than your normal SD bread due to the retarded starter,  levain and double retarded dough.  Can't complain about anything other than the fact that Lucy is just sitting there licking her chops.... waiting to jump up on the counter and eat them. 

The traditional chicken and roasted root veg. meal 15 minutes before being done. 

 Formula

Lucy says not to forget the salad and the Half Pie / Half Crisp Honey Crisp Apple dessert that had fresh ginger.lemon juice, bourbon snockered raisins and dried cranberries.