The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Crema de Tequila Bread

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Crema de Tequila Bread

     The summer will be here before you know it, although with the rainy and cold sub 50 degree weather we had the last couple of days it's hard to believe.  It is nice though to see some of our flowers start to bloom with many more ready to be planted today and tomorrow into the garden soil weather permitting.Poppy

I've been so busy at work the last few weeks it has been difficult to have time to think about baking anything creative.  I've had this bottle of Crema de Tequila sitting on my desk just asking to be used in a bread.  I received this as a gift from one of my vendors after I noticed a poster he had printed with several different tequila on it with this being one of them.  It tastes similar to an Irish Crème but slightly different due to the tequila versus whiskey.

Tequila

I thought what else goes well with tequila but limes so I added some Persian Lime Olive Oil that I recently picked up from a specialty store which carries a whole assortment of olive oils and vinegar.  My wife and I just visited yesterday and bought some maple balsamic, blue berry balsamic, and several infused olive oils.  Certainly some of these will be incorporated in future bakes.

I learned from the past that when using a liquor it is best to keep it at 50% or less for the liquid element or it will affect the rising power of the levain and you end up with a brick.

I created a starter using French Style KAF flour, oat flour and Kamut flour and used the same flour combination for the final.

The final bread came out a little dry due to the fact that since I baked this as one big loaf and I forgot to lower the oven from my usual 450 degrees F. it took longer than expected to bake thus drying out a bit too much for my liking.  You can definitely taste the tequila in this bread along with a subtle hint of lime from the olive oil.

The crumb turned out a little dense but that is too be expected when using a liquor in bread.  Overall though the bread has a nice chewy crust and pleasant taste that goes well with some cheese and olive oil.  A nice fresh mozzarella and tomato salad would go well with this bread as well.

Closeup1

Crema-tequila-Bread

Clematis

Closeup2

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I usually do this the night before.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours, tequila and most of the water (leave a little to adjust after the autolyse) together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes.  Next add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces), and olive oil and mix on low for a minute.  Add the rest of the water unless the dough is way too wet.   Mix on low-speed for another 4 minutes.  Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.  I made 1 loaf using a wicker basket.  Place your dough into your proofing basket(s) and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.

The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Risen-in-Basket

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

Slashed

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees(if making 1 large miche style loaf, lower to 425 F).  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

Crumb1CrumbClose

Some of the flowers are starting to bloom, so per Evon's request here are some photos of my gardens.

Coneflower

BlueFlower

ShadegardenToadhouse
Mr. Toad's House

Lavender

Flowers1

Flowers3

Hosta

Flowers2

 

 

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

garden is really starting to com into its own,  Beautiful.  The bread is too,  Boldly baked on the 0utside and open on the inside for 50% whole grain bread.  Sorry it is a  little dry,  I'm not sure why it would be more dry with it being a bigger loaf than a smaller one would be.   Its all relative  when baking the inside to 205 F.  Smaller loaves are smaller everywhere and larger loaves are larger everywhere.  Do you normally lower the temperature 25 lower for large loaves when the steam comes out?  Never knew that or even noticed that large loaves were dryer than smaller ones,  I really  have to talk to Lucy about not letting me know about this but with you have 5 apprentices your having at least one who would know this goes up dramatically  - plus you have  smart apprentices.

I think part of your dryness has to do with the alcohol.  You have 34 g of it in the liquid and it will vaporize at 170-175 F instead of 212 F for water. The heat really starts in on the left over water sooner than normal causing a dryer crumb.  You wouldn't notice it with beer at 5 % alcohol.

A very interesting bake Ian.  I think I would like to try this bread with a potato in it too.  Enjoy the rest of your long Memorial weekend!

Happy Baking Inam

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your comments as always.

I think you may be spot on regarding the dryness.  I will compensate next time and add extra water which should help.

I do find that when I bake 1 large bread with a formula that makes 2 easily if I don't lower the temp. it takes so long to bake that it ends up getting too hard of a crust usual.

Anyway, I'm about to put some rolls in the oven which I will try and blog about tomorrow.  Then its outside to start planting and preparing the gardens.  I'm going to put the veggies in today finally after I fixed my fence that fell down from the Hurricane last year.

Have a great holiday.

Ian

golgi70's picture
golgi70

50% kamut and oats thats a fine looking crumb.  Is the crumb dry or just the thick crust you got from not lowering the temp?  

Interesting thought on the evaporation of the alcohol at the lower temp.  Should be obvious to us but something like that would easily get past my brain.  

So If it 15% of the 225 tequilla evaporates that brings your hydration down by 34 grams (roughly) and brings your hydration down by 4%, once again roughly speaking.  So in the end the final hydration is about 69%.  Amazing how something so simple can make such a drastic change in a dough. I use a relative hi percentage beer in that Oat Stout Bread and maybe that helps explain why the crumb isn't quite as open as I had wished.  And now the math is simple to replace the lost hydration.  

Well sorry to brainstorm on your post.  I think the bread looks great.

Josh

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your comments.

I would say the crumb was a little more dry than I would have preferred but all in all it's a tasty bread.

The alcohol evaporation is something i will experiment with in the future.

Regards,
Ia

pmccool's picture
pmccool

you've gone off in a direction that would never have occurred to me, Ian.  And it sounds like a good thing!

Did your wife, perchance, visit The Tasteful Olive?  Your description of the oils and vinegars sounds much like their product line.

Paul

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your comments.

You were close with the name, but it is the Crushed Olive.  They have the original store in NC and 2 on Long Island.  The one we visited is in Sayville NY.  It is a wonderful store and it's hard to leave without buying something.  I think I may have visited "The Tasteful Olive" store somewhere else though.

Thanks again Paul and enjoy the holiday weekend.

Ian

evonlim's picture
evonlim

hi Ian, thank you very much for the beautiful pictures of the flowers in your garden. i see.. yellow poppy, french lavander or rosemary flower, pink flowers, blue, purple :) do you know the names?

is it an evening sun in the bread picture? it is a beautiful miche, unique scoring. 

1921 tequila cream.. wow this is what i checked 

FEATURES
  • Its scent is fresh with the smell of herbs and agave field.
  • Taste: Mild and sweet due to its excellent mix of traditional Mexican flavors with a hint of coffee.

and the other special ingredient Persian Lime olive oil.. must be very fragrant.

hmm.. tell me more about the tatse.

evon

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your kind words as always.

You can really taste the hit of coffee and something else that is in the tequila that I can't put my finger on, but it's good.

The Persian Lime oil gives it a subtle citrus flavor.

You guess right on the Poppy, the purple flower is lavender.  There is also a red cone flower...we have about 15 varieties of cone flowers including pink, red, orange, yellow, green, white and double decker varieties.  There is also a lupine flower which is the one with the white and purple stalk.  There is also a clematis flower vine, hostas, and a dyanthus.  I will try and remember the other names and let you know.  We have a ton of other flowers that have not bloomed yet.

I am glad you enjoyed my bread and garden photos.

I took them at about 8:30 AM in a partial shady part of my yard.

Regards,
Ian

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Very nice color on the crust, Ian, and the crumb is very nice. I like the profile on this loaf.

-Khalid

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your feedback as always.  a few adjustments and this would be perfect.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

color and crunchy thickness of the crust of this bread,  IF I was going to try to fix the dry crumb of this bread i think I would Tang Zhong 25 g of the flour in a 125 g of more water and keep everything else the same to get that crust and flavor.   IF you wanted to mute the sour you could add some YW to the mix too but TZ will fix this bread right up and if not.... my apprentice will have always though it should have :-)

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Certainly worth a shot.  Had some toasted this morning with some eggs...no complaints.

have to post my rolls I made yesterday...as good as it gets...you will like them I'm sure.

ian

varda's picture
varda

Hey Ian,   Your bread looks fantastic.   Also enjoying your garden which looks like a few weeks ahead of mine.   Your lupine is amazing!  -Varda

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your kind words.

I just got in the house from working in the gardens.  I feel like I'm 100!  At least it's worth the pain.  Planted the veggies today and my wife was working on her pots.

Look forward to your next post and seeing some of your garden photos as well.

Regards,
Ian

pepperhead212's picture
pepperhead212

And sounds like a really interesting flavor combo.  As for the dryness, my first thought was also the alcohol evaporating, as I have made that vodka pie crust dough with great success, and it is very moist at first (of course, that is 40% alcohol).

I have not been baking at all lately, due to the garden, so I know what you mean about feeling like you're 100! LOL  We had a spell in the 40's here, too, which was not good for the peppers, though the greens didn't mind.  But this week we are supposed to get four 90+ days in a row.  Go figure! One more line of irrigation line to lay, and I'm set for the summer...only harvest, and minor things left.  I hope...

Dave

 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Appreciate your comments.

We finally had a couple of nice days Sunday and Monday and hopefully more to come.  I'm in no rush for the 90's just yet :).

Still have so much to do outside but at least I got most of the plants in the ground.

Regards,
Ian