I dug the sweet potatoes a few weeks ago and they are cured enough to start eating. The apples have been harvested and the wild hazelnuts along the back fence are ready to pick... it's time to make some bread to celebrate the fall season.
This is based on a basic sourdough formula, adopted fairly successfully to accommodate the sweet potatoes and seeds.
350 gr 100% levain
1000 gr KA Artisan Select
600 gr Water
350 gr Baked sweet potatoes
200 gr Roasted/shelled pumpkin seeds
30 gr Salt
50 gr hazelnuts (a delicious decoration)
I run the sweet potatoes through medium plate on a food mill, and lightly roast the pumpkin seeds in a 350 oven for 8-10 minutes.
Prepare ingredients to get 80 F dough temp.
Combine flour, water, levain; mix to shaggy dough and autolyse 30 minutes.
Add sweet potatoes, salt and seeds; fold/knead until well mixed.
Keeping dough temp in the 75-80 range, ferment 3-4 hours with turn/folds at 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes. (This dough was pretty wet - it took a lot of folds to get it to tighten up.)
Divide, with enough flour to keep dough from sticking, lightly round and rest for 30 minutes. Form the final shape, brush water on top of the loaf and stick the hazelnuts to it, and proof about 2 hours.
Preheat oven and dutch ovens to 500. Place loaded DOs into oven, lower temp to 450 and bake 25 minutes; uncover, bake another 15 + minutes; when internal temp reaches 210, I turn off the oven and leave the bread for another 10 minutes.
The crumb is a little tighter than I’d hoped. The color from the sweet potatoes is nice. The flavor is quite good – the bread is just a little sweet from the sweet potatoes, though the actual sweet potato flavor not obvious. The pumpkin seeds add a clear flavor note. A dollop of home-made apple butter ties it all together very nicely.
I feel like I’m on the right track. For the next batch, I intend to add more sweet potato and reduce to overall hydration. Also, I will use a portion of high extraction and some whole wheat -- I usually bake with at least 50% whole grain flour. (I used all AP this time to make sure the dough would support the addition of the sweet potatoes.
