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Avocado Sourdough Bread

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Avocado Sourdough Bread

We had some left over avocados that were getting very ripe so I decided rather than throw them out I would try to incorporate them into a bread.  I used 1 ripe avocado and mashed it up with a fork until it was the consistency of guacamole.   I've also been wanting to try to add some yogurt into one of my breads and figured this would be a good combination with the avocado as well.  Just to make it a little more interesting I decided to add some barley flakes and spelt flour.

I must warn you that the addition of the avocado and the yogurt ended up making this a very wet dough.  If you prefer you can add more flour or give this a go but be prepared to work with a sticky dough.

The final bread came out pretty good with a nice open and moist crumb and a good tangy flavor.  The only issue I have is that I left the final dough to rise too long and it ended up getting deflated slightly which caused the end result to be a little flatter than it should have been.  If you make this recipe and use bannetons to form your final loaves, be sure to use plenty of flour to prevent it from sticking.

Ingredients

15 ounces Refreshed Starter, 65% Hydration using All Purpose Flour

13 ounces Water (90 degrees F.)

14 ounces European Style Artisan Bread Flour (King Arthur Flour) or Bread Flour

3 ounces Whole Wheat Flour (I used KAF)

4 ounces Spelt Flour (adds a nice nuttiness to the bread--also from KAF)

1.5 ounces Barley Flakes (or rolled oats, etc.)

4 ounces Plain Greek Yogurt

4 ounces Avocado (very ripe, mashed with spoon or fork)

2.5 Tsp. Sea Salt or Table Salt

Directions

Using your stand mixer or by hand, mix the water with the starter to break up the starter.

Add the flours, salt, avocado, yogurt and barley flakes and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes.

Mix for 4 minutes more on medium speed, adding more flour if necessary to produce a slightly sticky ball of dough.

Remove dough to your lightly floured work surface and need for 1 minute and form into a ball.  The dough will be very sticky so you may want to wet or oil your hands to help form it into a ball.

Leave uncovered for 10 minutes.

Do a stretch and fold and form into a ball again and cover with a clean moist cloth or oiled plastic wrap.

Wait another 10 minutes and do another stretch and fold.  The dough should start to become easier to work with at this point.  Let it rest 20 minutes this time and do another stretch and fold.

After another 10 minutes do another stretch and fold and put into a lightly oiled bowl that has enough room so the dough can double overnight.

Let it sit covered in your bowl at room temperature for 1.5 - 2 hours and then put in your refrigerator for at least 12 hours or up to 3 days.

When ready to bake the bread, let it sit out at room temperature covered for 2 hours.  After 2 hours shape the dough as desired being careful not to handle the dough too roughly so you don't de-gas it.

Place it in your bowl, banneton or shape into baguettes.

Let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours covered with oiled plastic wrap or a wet cloth.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.  I also spray the inside of the oven walls with water 2 times the first 5 minutes to add some extra steam.

Lower oven to 450 degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting

Please feel free to visit my other blog for additional recipes at:  www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

 have some ripe avocados and the whey water from the yogurt making.  Was wondering what bread I would make tomorrow.  Do you think  a whey yogurt, rye sour w/ caraway, avocado loaf would be too much for normal humans?  Thanks for the inspiration.  Never heard of avocado bread before but, who ate spinach and cheese bagels before they were invented?

Nice bread  isand66 and the crumb is pretty nice for all the strange, and green no doubt, liquid it had to develop through!

Happy baking 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I would definitley go for it!

That sounds really good.  Let me know how it comes out.

Regards.

Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I left the light on in the oven last night where my levain was for the avacado bread - and it was 100 degrees this morning!  So I did a quick refresh at 7am  and should be back on track in a couple of hours if it isn't dead.  It shouldn't be dead at 100 F.. 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

You should be fine with your refresh.

Good luck!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I cut your recipe in half and used all home ground berries for the flour except the bread flour where I didn't have enough and had to use same AP instead.  I also cut the water for the one loaf by 15 ml since you said it was wet.  Mine was fine if sticky.  I added 1 clove of garlic minced, 1 T of sun dried tomatoes, 1 tsp of fresh chopped rosemary ( like I do for my Pizza dough), some roasted sunflour seeds and half a chopped green onion trying to stay with the green theme and all.  I also used Pink Himalayan sea salt - fancy pants baker that I was today and used PiPs easy half day method to make this bread since I lost a couple of hours this morning refreshing my levain that I thought was toast.  So no retard. No whey water either. 

The bread was closed crumb the first 1/2" from the bottom for some reason, the rest was just fine.  The crumb was nice in color, moist.  I couldn't taste any avocado or yogurt and the crumb wasn't green.  I suppose I won't be making this for St Paddy's Day in March lacking the green as it does.  It tasted just fine.  The crust came out nice and chirpy from holding it in the oven after baking with the door ajar for 10 minutes.  It rose well and sprang pretty good too.    The crust softened later adn it toasted well.

I don't think I would bother to make it with yogurt and avocado again since I just couldn't make them out in the final bread.  Pretty acceptable overall I think.

Thanks for the recipe isand66

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Glad to see you adapted my recipe and gave it your own twists.  You are right that the green color doesn't really come through.  I am not sure if the yogurt really adds much to the flavor either, but I wanted to give it a try.  I think maybe using yogurt with a more simpler straight dough would probably work better and actually may add a slight tang to the bread, but since we both used a starter it probably didn't have much effect.  I've tried using smoked sea salts myself in the bread, but it doesn't really add any flavor from my experiences.

Anyway, glad you gave it a try and at least ended up with a good tasting and looking bread avocado and all!

Ian