The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Cranberry Currant Sourdough with Wild Rice and Pumpkin Seeds

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Cranberry Currant Sourdough with Wild Rice and Pumpkin Seeds

Upon request of some friends, I repeated the Cranberry Wild Rice version from a couple of weeks ago but with a few changes. I put in currants instead of raisins and pumpkin seeds instead of Pecans. 

I had tried a new method of blooming wild rice then but talking to my pottery instructor, she just puts the wild rice in water and keeps it warm in her dehydrator. I did the same but put it in the oven with the lights on and the door shut. The temperature hit 105F or so. I left it slightly more than 24 hours and it worked quite well. So now I have two methods of no cooking wild rice to get it ready for salads or for bread. 

So here is the recipe:

1. Bloom 75 g  wild rice and 10 g of buckwheat groats in plenty of water using the above method. Drain and refrigerate until needed. Bring to room temperature before using. 

2. Toast 60 g of pumpkin seeds. Soak them overnight with 70 g cranberries, and 50 g dried currants in 200 g water. In the morning, add 30 g honey. 

3. Autolyse all of the above with 550 g water, 550 g unbleached flour, 200 g fresh milled Kamut flour, 202 g multigrain flour and 50 g fresh ground flax seed. 

4. Mix in 40 g yogurt, 20 g salt and 266 g 80% levain. Pinch and fold to integrate well. 

5. Do 3 sets of folds and let rise till double. This took about 4.5 hours. 

6. Divide into 3 loaves, preshape, let rest 15 minutes and shape tightly into boules. Put into covered bannetons for and overnight proof in the fridge. 

7. The next morning, bake directly out of the fridge. Preheat oven and pots to 475 F. Load boules into pots that have circles of parchment paper to prevent sticking, drop temp to 450 F and bake covered for 25 minutes. Remove lids and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. 

Enjoy!

Comments

IceDemeter's picture
IceDemeter

I can't blame your friends for wanting an encore on this one - it is a really lovely flavour combination!

I really like this option for prepping the wild rice, and have to admit to happy memory smiles at thinking about using the oven light as reminiscent of using my light-bulb powered Easy Bake Oven as a little kid...  Who knew that real grown-ups would use the light bulb method of cooking, too?! :-)

Hope you and yours are staying happy and well, and are still enjoying the summer!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks for sharing the new method for the wild rice.  I assume it kept it nice and soft.

Happy Baking.

Ian

Flour.ish.en's picture
Flour.ish.en

I've been admiring your breads; they have a particular look and feel. I wonder what are the process, ingredients, techniques you commonly use in many of your breads that contribute to the consistent and unique look? It seems like you make round breads of a certain size and no scoring. I'm sure there are other?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

You are right that there are a number of things that I follow and it seems to be working for me. Hopefully the rest of this isn't a book but I will try to go through what I do.

1. I use a base recipe that includes roughly 1100 g of flour. With the add-ins I ended up with three boules that are between 650 g and 750 g. Those sizes fit nicely in the bannetons I have and the 3 quart dutch ovens for baking. My break down is 550 g unbleached flour (our Canadian flour has the same percentage of protein as bread flour so take that into account if you aren't in Canada), 402 g of whole grain flour (I often combine different varieties taking care to not include too many low gluten flours) and the rest comes from my levain. The levain is an 80% roughly levain that I will explain later. I use 266 g of levain. I also use 50 g of freshly round flax,  22 g of salt, 30 g of yogurt from a local dairy farm, and anywhere from 150 g to 200 g of dry add-ins. Water is a bit of a guessing game with the add-ins but I aim for around 75% hydration. I look at previous recipes to figure out what might be the water amount and err on the side of less as I can always add more when I do the initial mix or at the final mix. So that is what I base my recipes on.

2. Ingredients:

Unbleached flour is Roger's Unbleached No additives flour. It is enriched with 3B Vitamins (Thiamine, Riboflavin and Niacin) as well as Iron and Folic Acid as per the Canadian government guidelines but nothing else. Every other flour available to me has azodicarbonamide(ADA.) in it. I find I have better oven spring and crumb if I use 60% of white flour.

Whole grains: I buy them in bulk from Daybreak mills in Saskatchewan and I mill them using a Komo mill. I use freshly milled because the flavour is much better with fresh flour.

Flax: I buy it whole from Bulk Barn and grind it using a Bullet. The reason for using flax is that it allows me to put more water in the initial mixing making it easier to mix by hand. It soaks up a lot of water so when it is time to add in the yogurt, salt and levain, the dough is quite firm and I can add more water if needed at that time. I am not left with a goopy mess and it makes shaping so much easier.

Yogurt: I use Slate River Dairy farm's yogurt. It is a full fat yogurt. I use it to make a more tender crust. A lot of people that I gave my bread's to found the crust tough and this seem to do the trick.

Salt: I use sea salt. Regular salt in a pinch but I prefer sea salt.

Add-ins: I keep a stock of various add-ins in an extra fridge and check out my stash for inspiration. Most of them are bought at Bulk Barn except for some that I find much cheaper in stores like Sam's Club in the US. Sometimes, I soak the add-ins and drain them using the water for the dough, other times, I just reduce the soaking amount of water from the total amount. One class that I took suggested soaking the add-ins and squeezing the water out before adding to the dough. The instructor said that it affected the dough less but I find that some things like oats release tons of water back to the dough once mixed in. I rather go light on the water and then add later if needed but then again, I don't want the dough to be so stiff that I can't mix it initially by hand.

3. The levain is Dabrownman's "No Fuss No Muss" starter. I make it very thick (it used to be 66% but now I don't measure) and keep it in the fridge. I use whole grain rye flour to feed it. The sources for this starter was JamieO from Newfoundland, MichaelLily from Duluth (Duluth's Best Bread Bakery) and one that I started myself. I mixed all three together and kept the qualities of each individual one.  I keep it in the fridge. When I want to make bread. 3 nights before the morning I want to bake (Thursday night), I take out 5 g and feed it 5 g of rye flour and 5 g of filtered water. The next morning (Friday), I feed it 10 g of rye flour and 10 g of water. That same night, I do 20 g of rye flour and 20 g of water. The day I make the dough (Saturday), I feed it 105 g of water, 105 g of unbleached flour and 26 g of rye flour. It usually triples in four hours.

4. On the Friday night, in addition to feeding my starter, I also mill all the flours, grind the flax in a Bullet, and soak or toast the add-ins. The toasting is done in a dry frying pan. I find that a lot quicker and more energy efficient than using the oven.

5. Saturday, I do my final feeding of the levain and let it rise till triple. This usually takes 4 hours. 2 hours after the initial mixing of the levain, I mix up my dough to autolyse it. It is not a true autolyse since I include all the add-ins, the flour, the flax, and the water.  The reason for putting in the add-ins at this stage is for ease of mixing. I found it a huge pain to mix in the add-ins at the first or second fold. I used to add the yogurt at this stage as well but I read recently that fat can interfere with the absorption of the water so I add it later.

6. Once the levain has tripled, I sprinkle the salt on the dough, add the yogurt and the levain. I mix it all in by hand by pinching and folding till everything is well mixed and I can see some gluten development. This takes a few minutes.

7. I then put the dough in the oven with the door cracked open and the light on. The temperature is about 82 F. I do 3 to 4 sets of folds 30 to 45 minutes apart and then leave it alone until it doubles. This takes about 5 hours. One the dough has doubled, I dump it out on a very well floured surface. I haven't mastered the technique of using just a sprinkling of flour. I divide the dough into three portions and weigh them to be sure they are the same... roughly. I do a preshape by pulling all around the dough and folding in the middle, then flip the ball over for a rest of 10-15 minutes if I am that patient. I flip it again and then do a final shaping using the same technique but giving it a really good pull all around to make it nice and tight. I pull the ball seam side down and pull it towards me to tighten it up more. Then it goes into a rice floured banneton seam side down.

8. I cover the bannetons with a plastic bowl cover and then put into the fridge (37F) for 10 to 12 hours. Baking happens as described in my other posts: Heat up oven and dutch ovens to 475F, put rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the dutch ovens, turn out the loaves on a cornmeal sprinkled countertop and place them seam side up in the pots, cover the pots, place back into the oven and drop the temperature to 450 F. Bake 25 minutes, remove lids and bake another 22 minutes at 425 F. Lazy Loafer gave me those times and temperatures and they work like a charm.

9. I cool my breads on a rack for about 4-5 hours and then slip them in plastic ziplock bags once they are completely cool to end up with a softer crust which everyone seems to prefer. I like the harder crust but since I do sell some of these to friends, I aim to please.

So that's about it. I hope you find something that helps your baking. I am always learning something from this site and I often integrate it in my baking. By the way, I haven't been baking bread very long. I started this artisan bread thing in November of 2015 so I haven't been at it for even 2 years yet, unlike many of the other posters here who have done it for years and years. Bread was one of those things like pie crust that I just couldn't get the hang of it so I stuck to a bread machine recipe. I happened to see a no knead recipe and tried it. Then I found Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish and baked my way through the book. Then I bought Tartine  3 and although I could bake his basic Country loaf, I was really struggling with the recipes with all the add-ins. I got help here and then started creating my own recipes based on some of the formulas from FWSY. 

Hope this helps!

cfraenkel's picture
cfraenkel

This helps...I guess I need to do my baking on the weekends. Also your explanation of process.  I have made several of your breads, and they have all been great!

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I am glad that I am able to inspire and help other bakers. :-)

Flour.ish.en's picture
Flour.ish.en

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed and clearly-written note on your process. Glad to be able to compare notes on our approach in bread-making. One thing I have in common with your process is the use of Dabrownman's starter maintenance schedule, which is more streamlined and has less starter to discard. I like the idea of adding some yogurt (about 2-3% of flour weight) to soften the crust, which can be too hard for my taste at times. Happy baking!

LP14's picture
LP14

Thanks so much for posting another iteration of this bread. I've had your original recipe bookmarked for what feels like forever because I love using wild rice in loaves - it provides such subtle color and unique nuttiness. I was just gifted a grain mill, so seeing your post prompted me to test both your recipe and my mill out.

I made quite a few substitutions based on preferences (less fruit, dried figs for dried cranberries and currents) and what was on hand (barley and red wheat for the kamut, and what probably ended up being 10 different seeds and grains for the multigrain flower). My first attempt was ho-hum because of lack of sleep and unexpected work hours (wasn't able to proof it long enough) - but it tasted GREAT! I chronically underproof though out of fear of overproofing in my very warm (86+), humid Texas kitchen.

However, for the second attempt (see below), after folding, I let it double in the refrigerator while I was at work. After shaping later that afternoon, I put it back in the refrigerator for a long 10-12 hour proof. I let it sit on the counter for an hour while the oven pre-heated. Then baked as directed. It was MUCH more successful. I'm looking forward to trying this again, especially now that I see your detailed guidance in the comments. Thanks so much for sharing all your beautiful bread!

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I am so glad you tried this recipe and that you adapted it to what you had. That's exactly what I do... check out what I have and play with the ingredient. That loaf was a big hit here and I am really happy that you like how it turned out. Well done!