Last loaf for 2014 is once again a panettone though it seems that there is a longer delay between when I baked it and when I post it. This year's special bake feature home made citrus peels (50% orange and 50% lemon) as well as beans from a vanilla pod for the added boost of flavour.
Hi all back to posting after a long hiatus. Inspired by the numerous Tartine 3 breads that have been popping up over thefreshloaf and reminded by a post that is filed under my to-bake list, I decided to make a Polenta Pepita Sourdough over the weekend.
Down to my last few weeks in Canada and am now trying to clear a bit of my remaining pantry. Still have a little of the spent grains from the previous spent grain bake which I decided to incorporate in last week's bake. And why not throw in a little beer to make it a beer bread something which I wanted to try for a long time. Recipe was adapted from Dan Lepard's barm bread.
Barm:
250g Ale (I used a home-brewed Honey Basil Ale)
50g Flour
4 Tsp Starter
The shorter daylights and colder temperatures have been affecting my bread baking. It has slowed down fermentation resulting in me misjudging the time required to fully proof the bread. Not to mention that it is already dark by the time I am done baking making it harder to take a nice picture of the loaf.
Anyway, back to something simple and comforting for this week - a 50% wholewheat sourdough. A nice hearty loaf with stronger flavours contributed by the wholewheat flour and the levain used.
I came up with the idea for this loaf about a month ago during the cranberry harvest season. With fresh cranberries going for such a cheap price, I decided to experiment with them and create a loaf layering the different flavours together. First, we have the cranberry sauce which I made by boiling cranberries, an apple and sugar together until reduced.
Got quite a bit of spent grains from a friend who is into Homebrewing and decided to try making a bread out of it. The grains (mainly barley) were roughly cracked using a hand grinder before being heated for about 2 hours to create a malt extract from them. This means that they are no longer sweet but still lend a nice texture to the bread.
Decided to play around with the percentage of the red fife flour to get a better sense of its flavour vs normal whole wheat flour. Made an approximately 40% red fife loaf with the other 60% using Robin hood AP flour. Here's the recipe in cups:
1 spoon of starter
1/8 cup water
1/4 cup flour
Combine and ferment overnight. Mine took 10 hours and was all bubbly and ready to go.
Combine the above with:
1.5 cups water
1 cup Red Fife flour
2 cups AP flour
