This is the last bake that I am making for sale until I am back to being retired so I am super happy how it turned out in spite of a few hiccups. I am not sure how much bread I will be making for us so it might also be a while for that too. We will see. Might have to stick to one day recipes...
Anyhow, this is the recipe:
1. Soak 30 g each of cranberries, raisins & chopped dates in 100 g Earl Grey tea. Cool and add 30 g of kefir.
2. I didn't do this but the plan was to toast 25 g each of walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds.
3. Autolyse all above with 585 g of water and 652 g unbleached flour, 200 g freshly milled red fife, and 100 g light rye. Let sit for about one hour.
4. Mix in 22 g salt, 266 g 80% hydration levain and 25g water. Make sure everything is well integrated.
5. Do 3 sets of folds (usually 30 minutes apart) and let rise till double. I had to run out so gave two rushed folds and I left the dough on the counter. Four hours later, it hadn't risen at all. So I gave it another fold and put it in the oven with the light on and the door cracked as usual. That fixed it!
6. Divide into 3 loaves, do a preshape, rest 15 minutes, shape and put into bannetons. Place in fridge overnight to proof.
7. Preheat oven to 475F with Dutch ovens inside. Place parchment paper rounds in Dutch ovens and place loaces inside. Drop temp to 450F. Bake 25 minutes, remove lids, drop temperature to 425F and bake another 20 minutes. Shut oven off and leave in oven for 5 minutes. I did the last because they seemed to be browning very quickly with convection on. Might not need to do that if you bake without the fan.
I had a few slices when it cooled of and all I can say is: "Yum!!!"
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to the one that dabrownman posted the other day. Beautiful thick dark crust to go along with a lovely crumb. Looks good enough to eat ;-) .
Do you have multiple DOs or run them in tandem? I bought one when I was first getting geared up, based on the writings in FWSY about what was needed. I think that these days it might be housing a colony of spiders or something if I ever had the nerve to check up on it in the back of the cabinet.
This baking stuff is fun. No?
alan
but then I found 3 quart DOs for $30 at Target so I bought 6 of them. I can fit 6 DOs in my oven by placing the bottom rack at the very bottom of the oven. It ends up about an inch off the floor of the oven which conveniently has a covered element. So to bake twelve loaves, I do 6 first, leave the other 6 loaves in the fridge and then bake those when the first batch is ready. The loaves are a bit smaller than the ones I used to bake in the 5 litre DOs. Lazy Loafer is the one that gave me the idea.
If you use seeds such as pumpkin or sunflower seeds, you don't have to worry about soaking them. Just throw them in your dough at the autolyse stage. Some like flax and chia do better if they are soaked. But no matter what kind of seed, they always taste better if they are toasted. I do mine in a dry frying pan at medium hot heat until they are lightly browned and fragrant.
That being said, if you are going to put the seeds on the outside of your loaf, don't toast them as they will burn as they bake. I throw the seeds into the bottom of my basket or banneton and then put the dough on top to proof. When you turn the dough out of the basket, the seeds are stuck to the loaf. Much easier than trying to spray water on the loaf just before baking and sprinkling seeds on it.
I love the loaves and the crumb, it must really be tasty.
For putting the seeds on outside of the loaf I use wet paper towel to moisten the upper part of the loaf and then roll it in the seeds. In this case I don't use any flour for dusting my banneton, just the linen cloth.
Happy Bakink Danni!
Joze
Great bake Danni!
This one must have tasted fantastic. I'm on my way to the airport in a little while for a 2 week business trip to Asia so no baking or good bread for a while. I will have to live vicariously through you and others :).
Regards,
Ian
when you returned home to find your dough had not risen? Did the Earl Grey make any impact on the flavor of the loaf? I'm so sorry to hear that you'll be cutting back on your baking. Chances are that you will find a way, and possibly just figure out how to get by with less sleep! I usually squeeze in my baking time, in the wee hours of the night/morning. Then my husband wonders why I'm so tired the next day. I think he's finally figured out my secret.... Another fantastic bake Danni. Keep up the good work. marybeth
because the levain rose just fine on the counter like it always does. So I just put it in the oven and hoped for the best.
The tea I used did not have a strong bergamot flavour so I don't think it had a huge impact. I did taste the soaking liquid after I added the kefir and it was really nice, and it came through in the finished bread. That was a relief because the tea on its own was a rather strong black tea rather than the Earl Grey flavour that I am familiar with. I need to ask my girlfriend what brand she uses So I will use that next time.
As to baking bread, I think the bread machine is going to come out of retirement for a while. I just can't see myself buying bread with all the garbage they put in it.
seeds and fruit this one is exceptionally open and has to be tasty! That work thing has has to suck compared to baking leisurely for profit in retirement:-) This is another heat bake and hope yui can get back to it soon. Well done and
Happy working Dannio
leisurely baking but my brother is totally relieved that I am there covering for him. So anything that reduces his stress until he gets his health back is worth it to me. Plus the compensation I get is actually pretty good. It looks like I will be there till the end of May, at which time I run out of days (the pension people limit how much we can work) and I would have to suspend my pension for June. Not happening! The board can find someone else to cover June.
Oh and that profit thing... well... I took all the money and gave it to the soup kitchen... Hubby dropped off the 3 loaves and let them know that I would start up again in June. He also dropped off the money. Since I am collecting my pension and making money working, it isn't like I need it. They need it a lot more than me! :-)
I have tioget up to the frozen hinterlands, a real plus for Arizonans when it is 115 F in late July, to see how high you can fly while juggling 5 sparkling stars!
Ask the kids that I deal with sometimes! Especially the 5 year old that I was chasing all over the playground today because she was running away. She hit someone and I told her to get inside! She didn't take kindly to my tone. I usually don't chase kids but when she headed off school grounds, it was unavoidable. She was yelling her head off that she hated me!
I really am no angel... I just figure that I have one life to live and I better make it good.
mind boggling that you managed that delicate and open crumb with that amount of whole grains, and nuts and fruit as well! Your friends who have been buying loaves and have been the lucky recipients of your donated loaves are going to have a hard time being patient waiting for you to get back to "retirement" and supply them with the best bread again! You have them spoiled with the quality that you've been supplying - so obviously baked with skill and affection.
I hope that you'll be documenting your home bakes for the next couple of months, even if you don't have the time to post them on here! The photos are such a great way of keeping track of how a particular recipe turned out, and maybe you'll have a quiet day in July when you feel like going on a blog-fest to make all of us drool!
Strong thoughts to you and yours, and keep living and baking happy!
Earl Gray? Really? Wow.. You really are messed up - in a good way.. i wonder if you used tea for autolyse if your kitchen would smell like a warm pot of tea while baking! :) Truly amazing looking crumb from a brave and adventurous baker.. very well done!! Bake happy, bread1965!
There are recipes out there for Earl Grey Fruit loaf. I was a bit leery but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I did taste the soaking liquid before dumping everything in the dough just in case it tasted awful but the sugar from the fruit and the acidity from the kefir made this amazing flavoured liquid so it was all good!
i just made this with a few slight modifications (used sprouted Spelt instead of red fife, and dark rye instead of light - what I had on hand) It is an amazing loaf. I also didn't get much rise, but it didn't seem to matter. I'm new to this so not sure why, but it still came out great!
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and that you liked it. As to the rise, depending on how many add ins I put in, the rise tends to be less because of the weight of the ingredients. Also proofing has to be bang on and that can be tricky. You have to figure it out according to to your conditions.