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Apple Cranberry Sourdough with Hard Cider

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Apple Cranberry Sourdough with Hard Cider

On a recent trip to the US, I discovered Trader Joe’s. Wow! Lots of cool new things to check out. One of them was unsulfured dried apple rings. Of course , I had to grab a couple of packages. 

 

And looking around for ideas, I found a recipe using dried apples, cranberries and hard cider (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17974/51410-cranberry-apple-cider-bread-walnuts). I took my last European Peasant Bread recipe adaptation and added/subbed the above ingredients to it. So here goes:

 

Recipe:

 

 Makes 3 loaves

 

Ingredients:

150 g spelt berries

150 g rye berries

150 g Kamut berries

820 g unbleached flour

50 g freshly ground flax

350 g filtered water

500 g hard cider

23 g Himalayan pink salt

30 g local yogurt

100 g cranberries 

75 g dried apples rings

280 g 100% hydration levain (procedure indicated below)

 

Two nights before:

  1. Mill the kamut, spelt and rye berries separately and sift out the bran to feed the levain. Weigh the bran and set aside. Mine ended up weighing 50 g. Weigh out 90 g of the sifted rye and save for the levain. Put the remainder of the rye and the sifted kamut and spelt in a bowl. Add the unbleached flour and the freshly ground flax. Reserve.

The morning before:

  1. After refreshing my starter 2 or 3 times, I took 15 g of starter and added all of the bran with 50 g of water ?. I let it sit at room temp for about 12 hours.

The night before:

  1. Feed the levain the reserved rye flour and 90 g of water. Let rise overnight. It should have more than doubled by the morning. 
  2. Chop the dried apple rings ? . Place the cranberries and chopped apple bits in a bowl and set aside.

Dough procedure:

  1. If the Levain has doubled but you aren’t ready for it, stir it down and let rise again. 
  2. Add the water and the hard cider to the flour/flax blend. Mix to a shaggy dough and let sit for about 3 hours. 
  3. Add the pink salt, the yogurt and the levain and mix well. I did 100 in bucket folds to make sure everything was well integrated and gluten development was well on its way. The dough tightens up and eventually you can’t really do a stretch but you can fold the dough over itself going around the bucket. The dough smooths out nicely and you can see all of the bran from the levain evenly dispersed throughout the dough. Let the dough ferment at room temp (73F).
  4. Do sets of stretches and folds about 30 minutes apart for the entire span of bulk fermentation. 
  5. Add the fruit ? at the second set of folds. To do this, I placed the dough on the counter and sprinkled about a third of the fruit on top. Then I did letter-folds and sprinkled more fruit on the bare folds as I went along. Finally I did a bunch of slaps and folds to distribute the fruit, and the dough went back into the bucket. Be sure to keep the dough covered so it doesn’t dry out. 
  6. When the dough had risen about 25% (4 hours at 73F - dough was really slow for some reason), I placed the dough into the fridge. The dough rested in the fridge for four hours. It didn’t rise much more in the fridge (I think slow was the motto of the day!)
  7. Dump the dough out onto a bare counter. Lightly flour the top of the dough and divide into 3 equal portions of ~850 g. Pre-round the dough with a scraper. 
  8. The dough felt quite firm so I decided to let it rest for at least an hour, hoping to give it some time to gain some airiness. I ended up leaving it for 2 hours when it finally felt just about right. 
  9. Shape the dough into boules. Flour the top of the boule, flip it over, pull out the top corners and stick them to the center of the dough. Do the same for the two bottom corners. Then take the points that were formed and overlap them in the middle, rolling from top to bottom. Flip the boule over and use the dough scraper to do tension pulls until you have a nice tight shape. Place seam side down in rice floured bannetons, cover and let rise on the counter at room temp (73F) for an hour. 
  10. Finally put the dough to bed, in the fridge, for the night. By the time I was done, it was 2:30 am. ? I mixed the dough for the autolyse at 10:30 am, and since this dough was moving so slowly, this made for a long day. Good thing I am a night owl to begin with! ? 
  11. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the dutch ovens inside for at least 45 minutes. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots and gently place the dough seam side up inside. I turn out the dough onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter first, then place it into the pots. The dough was very firm so my expectations of a nice oven spring were dashed. It seems that the softer the dough coming out of the fridge, the better the oven spring. 
  12. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids (good, not fantastic oven spring), drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes. I decided to score the second batch of six loaves in the hopes of getting a better ear and rise since the first batch split all over the place on the top. I usually get 2 or 3 cracks which I like but these were a bit much. Well, that didn’t work. They still split all over the place, however, this batch did have somewhat better oven spring. I guess this bread really had a mind of its own! ?

 

 

As to the overall slowness of the dough, the day wasn’t particularly warm outside (68F) and it was quite overcast with the occasional rain showers. Someone mentioned that they noticed atmospheric pressure affected the fermentation of their bread and I wonder if this was at play in this case. Last week the dough moved along quite briskly. Mind you it was a completely different recipe but still...

Comments

texasbakerdad's picture
texasbakerdad

Wow! Those look delectable. Apple and cranberry, dynamite combo! I think I will have to make these. Thank you! I slobbered on my computer monitor.

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

I really like the natural split. Very rustic! They must have smell awesome too. Did you manage to keep one for yourself to get a crumb shot (and taste it, of course)?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

will be coming when I cut the not one. ?

cfraenkel's picture
cfraenkel

TJs is one of my favourite places.  I lived right next to one of the very first stores many years ago in LA.  It has changed a lot, and stayed the same a lot since those days.  I never leave without some dried fruit, raw cashew nuts, and a cinnamon and sugar grinder. (for my toast of course!)  I travel with an empty suitcase if I'm going near a Trader Joes store....I just made one of your loaves (mixed dried fruit) with a bunch of dried Blueberries from Trader Joes. - It is delicious!

not.a.crumb.left's picture
not.a.crumb.left

that those beauties came from you. This looks so much like you! Amazing and that photo of them all in the oven...my jaw still drops to the ground! Kat

Ru007's picture
Ru007

these beauties were yours!! So lovely. The flavour combination sounds delicious too. 

Did the dough hold its shape after a 2 hour bench rest? 

My dough also has days where it's really slow and on other days it just moves really quickly. I'm still not sure about the science, I just take it as it comes! 

Well done Danni, can't wait for the crumb shot. 

Happy baking

Ru

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

There was no sagging happening with this dough. Unlike parts of this 60 year old body! ? (Yes, I am finally old enough to collect CPP -Canadian Pension Plan). 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

I wonder if the cranberries and apple will suck moisture from the dough making it firmer and the crumb later drier? If I read it correctly you didn’t soak the apples and cranberries? 

look forward to the crumb shot! another lovely Danni bake?

Leslie

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

they didn’t feel completely dry and this dough was quite hydrated. You might be right that they did make the dough feel firmer. We will see how moist the crumb is when I cut into it. 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

forgive my ignorance, but what is “hard cider”?

Leslie

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

when they talk about cider, they mean fresh squeezed apple juice. In France, cider is the fermented alcoholic drink. That’s what I mean when I say cider but no one here understands that. They use “hard cider” to mean it has alcohol in it. The joys of being raised in Canada with French parents who really stick to their culture and language. ?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Not the most open but it will do. It’s not a brick. It is very moist so the dried fruit didn’t pull too much moisture from the dough. I thought that the flavour of the cider would be more prominent as it is a very subtle note in the background. It does taste pretty good!

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

It looks wonderfully moist and tender!

Apple cider is a good idea when I want some fruitiness but don't want dried fruits' sweetness to overwhelm the flavour of the grains.

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

mother's ancestors when Swedish Vikings came Canada and New York 500 years before Columbus.  They called them sun crystals and used them for navigation so they wouldn't get lost in the middle of the ocean but Lucy is always lost and uses them to tell fortunes and the future sort of like a crystal ball for fake seers who just want to rip you off.

Lucy sees, in her crystals, Canadian Bacon, French Toast made with this bread, slathered with here it comes.....Kerrygold Irish butter and drowning in ..........Canadian Maple Syrup for your breakfast tomorrow.  I told her that she was just guessing and dreaming at best but she i sure of it so the only thing I can say is good Luck with that French Toast tomorrow.  With 12 loaves I predict that you are going to need to get up early and eat often to have a chance Of eating them all.

Very nice indeed and happy French toast making Danni:-)

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

needs to be adjusted. Unfortunately, bacon and French toast slathered in Kerry Gold butter and maple syrup is not in the stars for this woman tomorrow. Instead, she’ll be on a plane for a quick trip out of town. The daughter has a medical appointment with her rheumy on Monday. 

Oh and those 12 loaves, well 7 of them have gone to their new homes and the other 4 will be going tomorrow. The one left over has already been sampled with local cultured butter and honey... I guess that’s pretty close to the French toast Lucy saw in her crystals.  Maybe those crystals just needs a good cleaning! ?

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

but I agree with Elsie, more than OK.  Will have to try this too.   I wish we could smell and taste, not just look and drool!!!

Leslie

PalwithnoovenP's picture
PalwithnoovenP

 It is more than OK indeed. They have to taste great. You have a big production this. It's my dream to bake as many loaves like what you did. Every bit of the experience is so nice to look at.

MontBaybaker's picture
MontBaybaker

I have an Angry Orchard hard cider variety box ready to play with.  Can't wait to try this.