Swiss Muesli Raisin Bread Revisited...

Hi Everyone..

Some of you might recall that earlier in the year I was trying to recreate a locally bought swiss raisin muesli bread I purchase. It is a remarkable loaf of bread!  I’ve been progressing (albeit slowly) and this is my latest attempt.  This is the original post (the pictures for some reason are no longer on the fresh loaf but I have them for you below):  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/45619/deconstructing-muesli-bread

I think this is my fifth attempt:

I fed my starter 1:2:2 using unbleached white flour Friday around 6:30pm.  On Saturday morning I mixed 50 grams of the fed starter with 125g unbleached white flour and 100g warm water (I used this ratio from Forkish’s Overnight Country Blond bread).  By about 3:30 the starter had doubled.  At that point I mixed 880g unbleached white flour, 615g warm water for 20 minutes autolyse.  I then added 210g starter, 22g salt, 25g raisin water (from overnight soaked raisins) and mixed thoroughly with pinch and fold technique.  I then gave it about 25 slap and folds to help develop gluten and let it rest for about 20 minutes. It came together well.  After the rest I then stretched it out on the counter, added 75g mushed-up pre-soaked raisins, 50g finely ground flax, 50g whole flax, 100g overnight soaked and drained whole raisins and 45g honey. (needed more but that’s all I had). With all of these ingredients on the spread dough, I rolled it onto itself in a log and then slapped and folded until it was all incorporated well.  The dough was pretty sticky but came together and I placed it into a bowl.  At  this point i’m only about an hour or so out after I finished autolyse.  A this point over the next two hours, I gave it four stretch and folds in the bowl.  I left it on the counter for about four or five hours.  While i think the volume rose a bit, it wasn’t really that noticeable, but I placed it in the fridge for an overnight retard.   On Sunday morning I took the bowl out of the fridge, shaped the dough into two equal weighted batards and let them to proof. Shaping cold was quiet easy.   The dough looked a bit larger in volume  in the bowl before shaping, but it was’t so obvious how much it rose - maybe a double but I’m positive as I used a regular glass kitchen bowl.  I did have a few bubbles appear as I shaped the loaves. I left the batards to rest on the counter for three hours and then baked.  They had risen well during proof and the finger dent test left an indentation - but it had some immediate spring back when I took my finger out. These were dense loaves so I wasn’t sure how far to let it go in the proofing stage. Looking at the results I think they could have proofed a bit longer. But I’d rather err on the side of under then over proofing. One loaf was in a basket (only have one for a batard) , the other in a linen cloth.  I baked at 450 on a stone for 15 minutes with steam, 15 minutes without, final temp at 203.  Fom the pictures it’s obvious which was in a basket versus in a linen.

In percentage terms I come up with the following:

100.0 - unbleached white flour (995.5 grams)
73.8   - water (including water content of honey is 76.5  (734.5 grams, including water content of honey 761.5 grams)
11.6   - levain (when measured as amount of flour in levain) (210 grams starter - 115.5 are flower, 94.5 are water)
7.5  -  raisins soaked and mushed (75 grams)
10.1 - raisins soaked and drained (100 grams)
5 - flax finely ground ( 50 grams)
5 - flax whole (50 grams)
4.5 - honey (45 grams)
2.2 - fine sea salt (22 grams)

How did it turn out?

Thoughts on the crust:  I tried to “bake boldly” as dabrownman often describes but felt, while soft, had a bit of burnt flavour to it (which I don’t mind in a regular bread crust) so would bake it at a slightly lower temp - maybe 425. That said the crust isn’t tough. But compared to the original, which is more truly brown, I don’t know how to improve on the crust - any ideas how they get that colour and softer/gentler crust?

On flavour and crumb:  It needed more whole raisins and honey. It also lacked the raisin flavour that an earlier loaf had. In that case I had used raisin water from having soaked the dry whole raisins overnight for all of the water in the bake. Next time I’d increase the soaked raisins to 20% and increase the honey to 10%. Those two adjustments plus raisin ‘flavoured’ water from the soak should give me a better flavour. I’m not entirely sure that I would bother with mushed raisins (not sure how much they added to the flavour).  I also wonder if the salt is truly necessary - I know it augments flavours but this bread was too much like a regular bread as the sweetness and raisin flavour wasn’t pronounced enough. It also when i first tried it the next morning had a bit of a sourdough tang to it. But I did get that since. My starter isn’t sour per se - but I’ll watch this. I as also thinking of developing a raisin water starter for this bread once I figure everything else out.  The crumb was fairly uniform but there were a few places in the loaf where I had larger bubbles but not enough to worry about. And the crumb wasn’t too wet or dry. Toasted the bread was quite nice.

On retard, shaping, proofing and loaf size: my starter was pretty active and I used it in the main dough when it was about double so I was comfortable with that. But I didn’t notice much (but some) of a size increase in the dough as I was doing stretch and folds and left it at room temperature. I also didn’t notice much volume increase in the fridge after about 10-12 hours in the fridge. It did increase in volume in my basket and on the linen cloth, but they increased in size about a third. My basket was pretty much full at this point so I thought to bake. As mentioned above the finger dent sprang back quickly but did leave a dent, and after three hours I thought that was enough. Should I let it double on proof too? I think I should have gotten to at least 90% increase in volume - but agin the basket was at that point full.  I’m saying all of this as I believe the under-proofing is evidenced by the way the loaf bloomed with so much energy along my slash.  I’m getting better at shaping batards, but my ears are still small or non existent, but I’m getting there. But with about 1000g of flour I think next time I’d shape this into three loaves as a small loaf would be more appropriate for how much we’d eat in a week, and I could freeze the other two.

Next steps: I’m getting getting to the end of my journey with this bread but will give it one last attempt. After all there are only so many dreams one home baker can follow! The flavour I think I know how to control now. The rest is technique issues that I think I’m getting closer to figuring out. But the one area I’m still puzzled by is the crust on the original I’m trying to copy. It’s pictured below. It’s just so brown. I think it could be the honey. I’m wondering if I went up to 15% honey that I could get closer to that colour and texture. I’ll try that too. For anyone still reading at this point - thank you, and I’d appreciate any feedback.

Bake happy - bread1965

Here’s the loaf I've bought and am trying to recreate. For some reason the pictures on the original post have been lost from that message. If you look at the third picture of a slice, you'll notice the crust is very thin - but it's crisp to touch and taste. That's just one more thing to figure out! That's if my patience continues.. it's like reading a book and think you should just watch the movie (ie: buy it, not bake it in bread terms) but I've gone this far I may as well try and finish it! Help?!