Sourdough Seeded Buns - with Nigella Seeds

Profile picture for user hellen
hellen on 11 Jun 2024 at 07:29

Nigella seeds add so much savoury depth to bread and works really well with sourdough. For anyone in Toronto, Blackbird Baking has a seeded loaf which uses a mixture that includes nigella seeds. Their seeded loaf was a staple for me many years ago. The defining feature of the loaf, I think, is definitely the addition of nigella seeds! Recipe here.

I did not think to bake with nigella seeds until very recently. I have made these seeded buns 2 or 3 times prior but this is my first time adding nigella seeds. I was super pleased with the flavor it brought. If you've never tried nigella seeds, they taste savoury, vaguely allium, slightly oregano-ish. Hard to describe!

For this bake, I was a bit lazy with the stretch and folds. I usually do at least 3 and sometimes up to 5 stretch and folds for this type of dough, but this time I only did 2. As a result the buns were not as open crumbed as they could have been I think. 

I also typically bake the following morning after cold bulk fermentation in the fridge. For this bake however, I did not form and bake the buns until more than 41 hours later. The buns were flavorful but I think the crumb could have been better - in previous iterations of the same recipe, I have had a much airier open crumb structure. I think it was slightly over-fermented, but some additional strech and folds could probably have fixed this.

I have heard that pizza dough is optimally cold fermented for 3-5 days. I am wondering if this also holds true for doughs like ciabatta or if that amount is way too long. In both pizza dough and ciabatta the goal is similar - crispy crust, open crumb, big air bubbles. They are both also relatively high hydration doughs. Does anyone have experience cold-fermenting high hydration doughs for 3-5 days? I would be curious to know the results. 

If you would like to try these seeded buns, the recipe is here. I highly recommend trying nigella seeds!

Below is a previous bake using the same recipe, but without the addition of nigella seeds and only 14 hours in the fridge.

 

That last picture really shows what you mean but a more airy structure!  Both variants look very inviting, though.

If you plan to cold ferment for a longer period, I would suggest getting the dough into the refrigerator sooner into the ferment cycle. That's because fermentation will continue through the extra hours or days, as you have been finding out.  Of course, if you panned for a shorter time but then extended it, there's not much you can do about that.

I once made some yeasted dough, 65% hydration, not high like yours.  I bulk fermented it to about double, then deflated and portioned the dough into six balls and refrigerated them.  Each ball was in its own small deli container, taking up about half its height to start with. from time to time I would take out another one and bake it into a pizza.  Day by day the remaining dough balls grew in their containers.  After the week, the last two balls had started to overflow their containers, even though my refrigerator is set pretty cold.

That week taught me how much fermentation can still take place during refrigeration.

TomP

Did you find that there was an optimal time for the cold fermented pizza dough? (After how many days in the fridge did the pizza turn out best?)

As I am thinking about this some more I am realizing that higher hydration dough ferments faster than lower hydration, hence has a smaller time span before over-fermentation. In the past I have also baked pizza fermented in the fridge for 3-4 days with fair results, but I guess the extra hydration and the relatively high starter content for this dough really speeds up fermentation!

I wouldn't judge by the crust of the pizza crust from the dough balls I talked about. That dough was more of an experiment and the recipe was pretty basic, one that I didn't expect to use to produce great pizza crusts. It was more for a quick-and-dirty lunch-time pizza where I wasn't looking for an ideal crust.  I don't remember that week-old dough making an inferior crust than the younger ones, though.  Maybe a little less airy.  My memory is a little hazy about the details, but I think that 4 days may have been the best one overall.

I can't tell from your post, but it would be useful to know how repeatable the very-open-crumb has been.  If you made them one way once, and then the other way once, the differences might be caused by something else.  If you had made them with the shorter cold ferment half a dozen times and gotten consistent results, then made them with the extended cold ferment and gotten the different result, that would be more of an indication.

At any rate, I'm sure that you should start cold-fermenting them sooner if you plan to use an extra-long cold ferment.

It's possible that the kind of flour is playing a role.  Aside from the protein content, some flours may do well with a shorter fermentation but not hold up as well for a longer one.  Another flour may do better.

BWT, I just made some English muffins with nigella seeds. I only used a low level, 2%, much less than yours.  The nigella flavor is just the barest hint but it's there and I like it very much.

I am glad you liked the nigella seeds! It is an under-appreciated spice IMO.

From what I remember, I have made the same recipe 2-3 times with overnight fermentation with results consistent with the last photo. This time in addition to the timing issue I also did less stretch and folds than usual, which may have contributed. I think I will do any experiment where I make one batch of dough and bake half after overnight fermentation and bake the other half after 2 nights.

You are right that it might also be the flour. I was using bread flour from a local mill before but for this batch I used bread flour from Walmart.

I’ve never seen nigella seeds in bread before, you have me intrigued.  I’ll need to hit Blackbird bakery to check their bread out.  The buns you baked looks delicious and I’m sure they were.

I’ve never cold retarded anything but pizza dough for that long a period of time.  The LAB will continue to produce acids and the falling pH will allow the protease enzymes to break down the gluten.  If I were attempting a long cold retard, I would certainly ensure that I developed the gluten in the dough more thoroughly to help reduce excessive gluten degradation during a long cold retard.

Benny

Who could remember all those interesting bakes?  There were so many!

My English muffins this time used 2% nigella seeds.  The effect was very restrained, just a hint of the flavor. I'd suggest starting with maybe 3 or 4%. My Kesra Rakhsis used 5% and I remember that as being very definitely flavored with the nigella.