Sprouted 4 Grain 2 Starter White Bread With Figs and Pistachios

After last weeks; 7 starter 17 grain sprouted bred it was time to tame it down because we are out of white bread.  We love white bread but have found that one with multi sprouted whole grains really makes it taste so much better, plus it is much healthier – it even smells better too!

Lucy is a whirling dervish all her own when it comes to bread and keeping things simple or non-pumpernickel, without a bunch of add ins.  It is like pulling teeth from a very large wild great white shark.

After the levain had doubled from the 3rd stage feeding, it was retarded for 30 hours and then stirred down,  Once it had risen 25% it was add to the autolyse.

I was shocked when she came up with a 2 starter mix of rye sour and witch yeast, 3 sprouted grains of spelt, wheat and rye that made up 20% of the flour, a bit of durum semolina, pistachios and figs.  I about had a conniption fit of surprise.

This bread was perfectly hydrated with the soaking water from the dried figs used as the dough flour.  Usually we over hydrate the dough when the wet re-hydrated figs go in the dough.  It ends up a bit sloppy.

We did pat the figs dry with a paper towel before adding them into the mix but the big difference was using KA bread flour for the 0% of white flour.  It is much more thirsty and has way more gluten forming proteins

Since it is now ell into spring in AZ and the temperatures hovering around 90 F, we have moved to our warm weather bread baking methods.  The pre-fermented flour has been reduced to 10% from 15-20% in the winter.

We did sift out the bran from the sprouted 3 grains and fed that first to the starter to make the 3 stage levain.  That way the gluten cutting bran would be the wettest the longest and be in contact with the acid of the SD.  Bran also makes a sourer levain and resulting bread as well.

Once the levain was built we retarded it for 36 hours.  When to came out for the fridge we stirred it down and put it on the counter to rise again.  It too a bit over and hour to rise 25% and during this time we autolyzed the dough flour and fig soaking water, holding back 10 g, with the salt sprinkled on top of the autolyze ball.

When the levain was 25% higher in volume we then added the reserved 10 g of fig juice to the mix and pinched in the salt before adding the levain and doing 30 slap and folds to incorporate it and get a bit of gluten development going on.  We did 3 more sets of slap and folds, all on 30 minute intervals.

Then we started in on 3 sets of stretch and folds where the figs and pistachios were incorporated during the first set 4 stretches from the compass points.  All were done on 30 minute intervals.  Once the gluten developing and add in incorporation was done, we pre-shaped, shaped. Put it in a rice floured oval basket and then into a trach can liner for 16 hours of cold retard.

Once we got the dough out of the fridge it had risen to about 70% proof so we let it sit on the counter to warm up and finish proofing for an hour before firing up Big Old Betsy to 500 F for the pre-heat.  Once it beeped we let it heat away for 10 minutes to let the top and bottom stones heat up before putting the Mega Steam on the bottom rack.

15 minutes later we un=molded the dough onto parchment on a peel, slashed it quickly and slid it onto the bottom stone for 17 minutes of steam at 450 F – regular bake.  It sprang and bloomed OK and also developed some decent sized blisters that are so common for dough that is higher hydration, still cool from the fridge, made up of mostly white flour and subjected to Mega Steam.

After another 15 minutes of heat at 425 F convection it was a dark brown mahogany color that always happens when we use the hydration liquid from dried fruits for the dough water.  It read 207.5 F on the instant read thermometer when it hit the cooling rack.  Had I taken ot out of the oven when it looked done it would have been massively under baked at 150 F and would have been gummy in the middle.

We will have to wait for the crumb shot when it is fully cool.  While you wait, have a salad with that sunset and matching prickly pear margarita.  Not even a hint of sour inn this one.  The fig water was so sweet it cancelled out the sour completely ....and then some.  The crust went soft as it cooled too.  The crumb was open very soft a moist n=but gummy at all.  Non sourdough lovers would have no problem munching on this one.  Made  a couple of nice sandwiches with this one already and can't wait to try it out as a breakfast toast.with butter.