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Pandan Candlenut 20% Sprouted White Quinoa SD

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Pandan Candlenut 20% Sprouted White Quinoa SD

Green bread might be my favorite after yellow bread.

 

 

Pandan Candlenut 20% Sprouted White Quinoa Sourdough

 

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole white wheat flour

90g        30%       Sprouted white wheat flour

60g        20%       Sprouted white quinoa flour

 

For leaven:

10g        3.3%       Starter

30g         10%       Bran sifted from dough flour

30g         10%       Water

 

For pandan-infused water:

5 strips          -%       Pandan leaves, frozen (freezing damages plant cells and softens the leaves, which eases the grinding process)

~190g      63.3%       Water

 

For dough:

270g         90%       Dough flour excluding bran for leaven

190g      63.3%       Pandan-infused water

60g           20%       Whey

70g        23.3%       Leaven

9g               3%       Vital wheat gluten

5g          1.67%       Salt

 

Add-ins:

30g            10%       Toasted candlenuts

 

__________

305g        100%       Whole grain

285g       93.4%       Total hydration

 

Sift out the bran from dough flour, reserve 30 g for the leaven. Soak the rest, if any, in equal amount of whey taken from dough ingredients.

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until ready, around 4 hours (27°C).  

Make the pandan-infused water. Using a pair of scissors, cut the pandan leaves into small pieces then process them with 50g water in a blender. Strain out the fiber by filtering the mixture through a sieve, pressing out as much liquid as possible with the back of a spoon. Add enough water to get a total volume of 190g.

Roughly combine all dough ingredients except for the leaven and salt, autolyze for 15 minutes. Knead in the reserved ingredients and ferment for a total of 3 hours 15 minnutes. Construct a set of stretch and fold and fold in the add-ins at the 15 and 30 minutes mark respectively.

Preshape the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. Shape the dough then put in into a banneton. Retard for 11 hours.

Preheat the oven at 250°C/482°F. Let the dough warm up at room temperature for 20 minutes. Score and spritz the dough then bake at 250°C/482°F with steam for 20 minutes then without steam for 25 minutes more or until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 208°F. Let it cool for a minimum of 2 hours before slicing.

 

 

As hard white wheat is much weaker than hard red wheat and spelt, the dough wasn’t quite elastic or extensible. The fact that I over-hydrated it only made the situation worse. Fortunately, it didn’t lose too much strength during the bulk and managed to rise without excessive spreading.

 

 

I was torn between using cashew or using candlenut but finally settled on the latter as it has a milder taste. Pandan, sprouted white quinoa and sprouted white wheat are all delicate in flavour that cashew can easily dominate over them. The taste of the bread is sweet in a mellow way with hints of pandan undernote. I find it lacking in sourness personally but some would probably find this ideal.

 

______

 

Shanghai fried noodles + green beans with olive pickles minced meat + pastudon (100% semola homemade “udon”)

 

Thai basil fried rice with a fried egg

 

Spaghetti in herb & garlic white wine sauce with eggplants and pan-seared salmon

 

Thai basil pesto rice vermicelli with pan-grilled baby cuttlefish, bell peppers and toasted cashews

 

Red curry risotto with shiitake mushrooms and a soft pressure-cooked egg

 

Mixed veggies Thai green curry, scrambled eggs with shrimps & bitter melon, pandan leaf wrapped pork loin, sweet & sour green bean, bean sprout & red pepper salad with toasted cashews, and served with plain white basmati rice

 

Comments

pul's picture
pul

That is an interesting combination of ingredients that you used for your loaves. I have never even heard of candlenuts. Is its flavor similar to macadamia? Another point to highlight here is that your cooking is superb. That meal looks incredible and must be delicious. Well done!

David R's picture
David R

According to the Wikipedia article, candlenuts act like macadamias (i.e. oily nuts from southern islands), but have a different and more bitter taste. Pretty sure they're called candlenuts because they're oily enough to light.

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

I doubt any nut would have difficulty lighting a candle though. In high school we performed an experiment to estimate the energy content of nuts. The temperature of a beaker of water was measured by a thermometer. The heat produced by a burning peanut was used to heat the water up. Guess what? The flame lasted for over a minute until the peanut turned to ashes... 

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

is pretty different from that of macadamia. Macadamia has a somewhat tropical, coconut-y taste, if I'm not just imagining it. Despite being mild as well, candlenut doesn't taste like coconut at all. Rather, its flavor resembles that of walnut in my opinion as both of them are slightly bitter. It's definitely more savory than sweet, unlike macadamia. Their texture is very similar though, both are buttery and brittle. 

Thanks for the praise, Pul! Glad you like the food. Cooking and baking are my favorite hobbies after eating :) 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Wow, I'm going to have to try that combination.  The loaf and crumb looks so good! 

Roasted grated candlenuts might also prove interesting.  Or even candlenut flour roux in place of using vital gluten.   I might have to use macadamia nuts or chestnuts as no candle nuts around here.  I actually tested the nuts and lit one as a candle in Indonesia.  I normally grated or crushed them to thicken sauces and soups. What do you think about tamarind  softened for a sour element if desired?  Or would tamarind make a better jam on top of the bread?

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

is a great idea indeed! However, I'd rather make a jam out of it than putting it into the dough. Not that it wouldn't taste good when used in the dough but it would ruin the beautiful color of the bread :) It'd be a nice addition to dough with red wheat or spelt though. Hmm... How about lime juice or dried mango powder (amchur powder)? The pale green color can be preserved too.

I'd assume candlenut flour roux to serve a similar function to tang zhong. It'd probably soften the crumb and yield a moister bread. I'm curious to know why you think it might be a substitute for vital wheat gluten. Don't they serve quite different purposes? The idea of roasted grated candlenuts remind me of toasted desiccated coconut, which suits the Southeast Asia theme as well. Like you, I bought candlenuts for thickening a satay sauce. As I don't make it often enough, I have to find other ways to use the candlenuts up like putting them in bread. Macadamia, chestnuts are candlenuts are pretty dissimilar in flavor that I'm not sure if they'd be good substitutes for each other. Speaking of nut-based roux, I like to add ghee toasted pureed cashews or almonds to curries. It adds great depth and gives wonderful aroma! 

Thanks for the compliment, Mini! I really enjoy reading your comment as you always come up interesting ideas :)

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

first on a small amount of dough.  Like fresh pineapple and kiwi, strange protein breakdowns can occur and trash gluten before fermentation can raise the dough.  Worth a small test before flattening a loaf.  Wish I still had my pandan plant.  Just looking at the pork wraps makes my stomach growl.  (Or maybe the last of all those yummy pics.). I do have fresh magnolia leaves.  Just found out how edible some magnolia parts can be.  Trimmed the tree and while the new dog was having a wonderful time shredding the bark off twigs, playing, scattering wood bits all over the garden, I went to see if the stuff might be bad for him.  The last blossoms fell off befor I knew I could eat them. :(

 I have to clean out my Asian cupboard today.  So many bottles!   Many of these fresh enzymes can be halted in their tracks if heated with liquids and allowed to cool first before hitting the flour.  

Like candlenut, chestnuts are very starchy and rather neutral.  Shelled a big bag of walnuts over the weekend, they are a bit bitter for just plain eating.  I think it's the skins.  

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Proteolysis! As someone who bakes with a high % of freshly milled whole grains and sprouted grains, I do pay extra attention to proteolytic degradation. Never has it crossed my mind that enzymes are preserved during the drying process... I assumed the heat would have denatured them already. Not sure if amchur powder is freeze-dried or warm-air-dried though. Thanks a lot for bringing this up!

I've never used magnolia leaves before. Let me know if you figure out what to do with them! Perhaps you could spend some time training your energetic dog before cleaning out your cupboard, it can wait :) 

Would you describe candlenut as "starchy"? It hardly contains any starch :) To me, it isn't at all pleasant to eat walnuts plain... I much prefer roasted peanuts, cashews and pistachio. Yet for some reason, walnuts become one of my favorite nuts when put in bread. The same goes for almonds. 

David R's picture
David R

An Asian cupboard? You must have a very large house, if there's a cupboard that far to the east. ?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

my kitchen is full of odd cooking ingredients and utensils crowding me out.  Actually it's on a west wall so that's a very deep cupboard!  

Ive got pandan extract, the trick is to only use drops of the stuff and not get carried away.  Whenever I open the little bottle, the aroma stays around for days, even when the cap is tight.

Going to soak and then dry the walnuts on a big flat bamboo drying basket, so happy to have dragged one home.  Gets lots of use. Tossing the nuts in the wind keeping them in the basket ought to take care of the skins if they loosen.  Baskets like these... Winnowing.

https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/pickled-magnolia-flowers-recipe

 I just discovered my favourite "banneton" at "mom's" is called a South Carolina Sweetgrass basket.  Candlenut is the state tree of Hawaii. :)

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I never heard of those nuts but will have to be on the lookout for them.  Your crumb looks nice and moist and I can imagine how tasty it must be.

Did you make your own Udon noodles?  If so did you use an extruder or by hand?

All the food looks amazing as well!

Best Regards,

ian

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

I call them "pastudon" since they were made of semola instead of white flour. Since I have no fancy machine, these were 100% hand-made. I simply mixed the semola with water to form a dough, let it rest, then kneaded it for a few minutes. The dough was refrigerated overnight and rolled out using a rolling pin. I like to cut thick strips out of it so that they can be hand-stretched to my desired thickness. As much as I want to get a pasta machine along with other kitchen unitaskers, the kitchen just aren't large enough for them... The fact that I like to explore various food cultures only makes things worse :)

Glad you like the combo, Ian! In fact, there are many pandan sweet rolls recipes already. I only made minor changes: turned it into a SD version, added candlenuts and used some whole and sprouted grain flour... Ok... maybe those are major changes... 

Sorry to hear that you lost your job. Hope you'll find a better one soon :)

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

a while I always go straight you your posts that I missed first.  Never heard of Candle Nuts or Pandan leaves but both seem to work well in this bread.  The nuts look like dried Brazil nuts which also light up very well.  You start putting Pandas in you bread and we have to talk:-) 7 oz of Pandan leaves are only $17 on Amazon but 60 ml of Pandan paste is only $5 shipped on prime - sounds like a steal.  I'm so proud of you for taking the time to make your own noodles.  They are so much better that anything dried you can buy.  The only basil I have growing in the garden is Thai basil since it tastes so much better tan regular basil.  It is great in Bruschetta!  I wish I could eat more noodles and rice dishes - besides bread the worst thong for diabetics.  All of yours look so good and you bread is cutting edge that drives us forward.  Very nice all the way around.

Happy baking Elsie!

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Pandan in bread is not that unusual at all. People use it in bread dough and cake batter all the time :) Do check the quality of the pandan paste, make sure it isn't the artificial extract kind. I haven't tried it personally but some say that it tastes pretty fake and is far from the real stuff. 7 oz of leaves is quite a lot! Mine comes in a 3 oz package and I still got 3/4 left after making the bread and the wrapped pork.

Homemade noodles are so chewy that store bought dried udon noodles can't really compare. Don't even mention the "fresh", shelf-stable type: they turn soggy however you cook it. I prefer Thai basil as well. It's so fragment yet regular basil has no smell... My go-to herbs will always be cilantro though, which is my aunt's worst nightmare. I've yet made bruschetta  but with tomatoes coming into season, maybe it's the time! It's sad you can't eat as much carbs as you want but it's an occasional treat worth looking forward to. 

Thanks for reading and happy baking!