The Fresh Loaf

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Purple Sweet Potato Black Sesame Sourdough

Benito's picture
Benito

Purple Sweet Potato Black Sesame Sourdough

I love the effect that sweet potatoes have on tenderizing the crumb and the sweet flavour of sweet potatoes and thought I should make another sweet potato sourdough but instead of pecans, this time adding black sesame seeds.  Those who know me know I love the flavour of sesame seeds and black sesame seeds in particular.

This formula makes a 900 g dough.

I built both the levain and saltolyse dough in the evening starting both with fridge cold water and some fridge time.

Levain 1:4:4 10 g starter 40 g 2ºC water and 40 g whole wheat

Saltolyse dough mix.

290 g water 2ºC dissolve 2% salt 8.18 g then mix 331 g bread or all purpose flour and 41 g whole wheat flour. Then place in fridge.

Just before bedtime take both out of the fridge and leave at a cool room temperature overnight.

In the morning once the levain has just peaked, spread 74 g of levain over the top of the dough, then pinch or dimple into the dough with wet fingers.  The stretch and fold in the bowl followed by 150 slap and folds on the counter.  Let rest in bowl for 20-30 mins in proofing box at 80ºF.  Bulk fermentation has started and fermentation at 80ºF for remainder of bulk.

Clean 1 sweet potato and poke all over with fork.  Microwave 5-10 mins until well cooked/soft.  Cut open and remove meat and mash thoroughly.  If the potato is dry, add some neutral oil while mashing and a pinch of salt.  Allow to cool to room temperature.

Edit - an alternate and better way to prep the sweet potato.  Clean and poke sweet potato with a fork.  Rub all over with olive oil, wrap in foil and bake at 375ºF until soft.  Cut open and remove meat and mash thoroughly adding a pinch of salt.

Divide dough in two and do a counter letterfold to the first half then placing it back in the bowl in proofing box.  To the other half of the dough do a strong letterfold smearing the mashed sweet potato on the dough prior to each fold incorporating all the potato.  Place dough in a separate bowl into proofing box.  The sweet potato may interfere with gluten formation so incorporating it separately helps ensure that the gluten is maximized.

After 30 mins do a double lamination as in my video incorporating the black sesame seeds during the lamination.

Remove 30-40 g of the dough and set up your aliquot jar.  See video for further information on how to use the aliquot jar to assess bulk fermentation.

The aliquot jar should be kept next to the dough throughout bulk fermentation to ensure that the temperature and rate of fermentation is as close to the main dough as possible.  Each time you remove the dough for coil folds remove the aliquot jar as well from the proofing box.

Do 3-4 sets of coil folds for the remainder of bulk fermentation at 30-40 mins intervals until a good windowpane is achieved.  Bulk fermentation ends once your aliquot jar reaches 60% rise.  Go directly to final shaping, the last coil fold will act as your pre-shaping one of the advantages of using coil folds.

Once shaped and placed in a rice flour dusted banneton, place into a plastic bag or cover with reusable plastic shower cap (this is what I use now to cover the dough in banneton or in a bowl) and place in fridge for cold retard overnight.

The next morning, pre-heat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside.  After 1 hour when oven has reached 500ºF remove dough turning out onto parchment paper.  Brush off excess rice flour and score.  Brush dough liberally with water, this helps with blisters and increases the steam in the dutch oven for excellent oven spring.  Transfer to the dutch oven dropping the temperature to 450ºF and bake in dutch oven covered for 20 mins.  After 20 mins remove cover and drop oven to 420ºF.  Bake for another 23-25 mins turning the dutch oven halfway through continuing to bake without the cover until the crust is a rich mahogany brown.

 

 

Comments

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Wow! The S score is beautiful! Looking forward to seeing the crumb!

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks Ilya so nice of you to say.  I’ll post crumb photos later today.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

loved the videos!  Happy Baking

Benito's picture
Benito

Thank you sir. Enjoy your weekend happy baking to you too. 
Benny

Tom M's picture
Tom M

That is one gorgeous loaf!  Congratulations!  No doubt the crumb shots will be really appealing too, especially with your choice of inclusions.  The double lamination video was nice to watch.  Thanks for posting these.

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks so much Tom. I hope you give this a try sometime. I’ve just posted the crumb photos. 

Benny

Benito's picture
Benito

The crumb is nice and tender and the crust is thinner than usual. I’ve lowered the I tuila baking temperature a bit to help achieve this. That along with a bit of olive oil added to the sweet potato which as dry likely helped with this. 
this is a great flavour combination that smells wonderful when first sliced into. I wonder if I could have opened up the crumb a bit more with a bit more bulk rise. Maybe next time go to 65-70%. 

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Benny that is an artisan bread if I have ever seen one. The Yin and Yang scoring, the crust and crumb all show superb craft. In my guiding business we call that a wall hanger and that bake is now up there on the wall. Congratulations

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks so much Don, that means a lot coming from you.  In your business do the fish that get hung on the walls not get eaten?  I should keep one slice to make that the wall hanger LOL.

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Gorgeous loaves, inside and out.

Would you mind if I featured this post on the homepage? Your instructional videos are extremely helpful and I'm sure a lot of visitors would enjoy them. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Hi Floyd, I’d be honored with having my bread on the homepage!  Thanks so much.

Benny

Floydm's picture
Floydm

I also attached an image at the top of your post so a thumbnail image would show up on the homepage. I hope you are alright with the one I chose. If not, feel free to edit the post and attach a different photo.

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Beautiful bread, Benny!

???

Yippee

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks Yippee, overall I’m quite pleased with it.

Benny

Isand66's picture
Isand66

This came out excellent.  I love adding sweet potato to my breads as well.  I find the purple variety is definitely drier for sure.  I’m actually mixing up a porridge bread with yellow sweet potatoes as I type this.  I know it’s a little extra work but try baking hem next time a SI find it definitely makes them even sweeter.  Also I have never found the potatoes to interfere with the gluten development at all.  Have you noticed that or are you inferring it?

Congrats on the cover post??

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks Ian, I tried a shortcut to cook the purple sweet potato and found it dried it out somewhat.  The last time I used purple sweet potato I poked it with a fork, rubbed it with olive oil, wrapped it in foil and baked it.  I’ll have to go back to that procedure as it did make it more flavorful and softer. I should amend my post with that instruction for the next time.

I had read somewhere that the potato would interfere with the gluten and thus the use of the split dough to get the most out of the gluten in half to compensate for the other half.  Interesting that you haven’t noticed this at all Ian.

Benny

Yippee's picture
Yippee

You double laminate. I must have missed this information when I watched your videos. Liked ??

Benito's picture
Benito

Thank you again Yippee.  I also do the double lamination because it is fun ?

OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

I also have experienced slower fermentation with both sweet potatoes and with yams.  I've not tried purple sweet potatoes specifically though.  I have a couple recipes I like to sub in sweet potatoes or yams for russets or Yukon Golds, and both have margin notes to allow as much as 2x time for bulk and final fermentation.  I'd not read of it previously when it first happened to me and had to look it up.  

Beautiful bake Benito.  I loved the double lamination one especially.

OldWoodenSpoon

Benito's picture
Benito

I can’t say that I have experienced slower fermentation with the addition of either potatoes or sweet potatoes, if they did slow things down, it wasn’t noticeable to me.  If anything I would guess that they might speed things up a bit with the additional starches and sugars.

Thanks for the comments on my bake, I appreciate them.

Benny

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

might have to do with when the potato or squash is added to the dough.  I replaced 2/3 of my recipe water with cooked squash purée in several recipes and noticed a delay but the puree was added in the beginning as liquid, not later after dough was formed.  I even tossed in some commercial yeast to speed things up on the rolls (squash, sunflower, pear, cinnamon) but still noticed a difference.  (Plenty of time to walk the dog.)

A great looking bake you got there and Congrats on the home page posting!  You're making me long for Laotian dark purple rose aromatic sweet potatoes.  Remins me to go check with my potato growing neighbor....see what he dragged in from the field in the last few weeks.  ;)

Benito's picture
Benito

Interesting, so I wonder why that would be?  What is in the potatoes that might slow fermentation?  I can imagine that there might be a chemical in them that when you add it as part of the liquid might slow the yeast down.  The way I have added it is later in the process when the microbes have had some time to start working and the sweet potato mash isn’t really incorporated into the dough but instead is sort of in layers in the dough if that makes any sense. 

OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

I've seen this most recently in a bake of Mark Sinclair's "Potato Rolls" (not a sourdough btw) where I substituted (yellow)sweet potato, cooked and mashed, for the typical russet that I use.  The fermentation times were very prolonged.  I've seen the same with (red) globe yams.  This recipe by MCS has been a staple in our house, and I've baked it many times a year since I discovered it.  In this recipe the potato is added at the very beginning of the dough, and the fermentation times are distinctly different for the three different types of potato I have tried.

For this recipe I peel and boil, then rice, the russet potato.  For the others I bake in the jackets and then peel and mash with a fork.  I add no salt, butter or milk to any of them for the bread.

OldWoodenSpoon

Benito's picture
Benito

Ah so you’re also adding the potato right at the beginning.  So there must be something in the potatoes slowing fermentation so when they are incorporated early in the process has an inhibitory effect.  Very interesting.  I’d be interested in hearing what others have experienced when adding potatoes, early vs part way through bulk.  Also if they are adding them in as I do essentially laminating them in vs incorporating them in with early mixing.

Booda's picture
Booda

Your whole process from start to finish is very impressive. It sure turned out well, and I'll bet that it does taste as good as it looks. Congratulations. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks so much, I find lamination enjoyable and don’t mind using it at all.  It does help create a good structure to the dough.

Benny

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

This is indeed a stunning loaf all around :)

Benito's picture
Benito

Elsie nice to hear from you, thanks for the compliments, I appreciate them.  Hope you’re well and cooking/baking still, I haven’t seen a post from you in some time.

Benny

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

But yes, I'm still cooking and baking. Just that I don't really feel like writing a blog post... Having to work on the project report, research proposal,  lab reports, and presentation slides, I could wait a little longer before committing to another writing assignment :)

Benito's picture
Benito

I totally get it Elsie, if I was still in university I doubt I’d be blogging about my baking.  In fact, I very much doubt I’d have much time to cook or bake.

Take care of yourself.

Benny

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

This might be the prettiest bread I've ever seen! I'll bet it's equally delicious.

Nice job on the videos, too!

Benito's picture
Benito

That is too kind of you to say, thanks for the compliments and for watching my videos.

Benny

JonJ's picture
JonJ

I love how the combination of the purple and sesame translates to the outside of the loaf and around the scoring line, and the choice of an S shaped score is masterful.

Did have the thought that blobs of both purple and orange sweet potato may look beautiful as well, are these available in your area?

Also, what is the reasoning why the dough is split in two and the purple sweet potato only added to the one half?

Benito's picture
Benito

Hi Jon, I’m pretty chuffed with how this turned out.  We have lots of the orange sweet potatoes available here, it is the purple sweet potatoes that are hard to find.  I haven’t thought about combining them but that might be quite pretty in the crumb as well.

I had read and thought that the mashed potato might interfere with gluten development.  Thus I thought that ensuring that half the dough had uninterrupted gluten development would help ensure that the dough could attain sufficient structure to make a good loaf.

BXMurphy's picture
BXMurphy

DUDE! SERIOUSLY?!? You trying to scare people??

Lookit that BREAD! Man! Is that real? :)

I gotta read the rest of this... you even put videos?

I haven't even finished eating the pictures...

Whew! That's something!

Murph

BXMurphy's picture
BXMurphy

Wow! Those vids are NEAT! Got any black sesame seeds in there? :)

That dough sure looks like a cloud when you were done with it but I was especially impressed at how stretchy it was.

Really good job. Thanks for the extra effort with the video. That takes some time... setting up the camera... editing it later... adding text... great work.. the audio was nice and clear (you must have been wearing a microphone)... great effort all around and it shows in the final product!

Start to finish... how long do you figure... all in?

Murph

Benito's picture
Benito

Hey Murph, thanks for your comments on my bread!  I just recently started to make some videos, I know how much videos helped me when I started baking sourdough, so I thought I would try to put out some stuff that might help other bakers too.  The video and sound were just captured by my iPhone XS Max, no special equipment other than a stand to hold it in place.  Capturing the video was the same as the length of the video itself, I didn’t start and stop, just one run straight through.  Editing, I uploaded it to iMovie, figured out how to add a title and fade out at the end, maybe 5-10 mins.  Finally uploading it to YouTube maybe another 10-15 mins?  Hard to remember how long exactly really.

Anyhow, glad you enjoyed the videos, glad someone’s watching them.

Benny

loaflove's picture
loaflove

I'm just catching up on all the posts!   Wow, gorgeous loaf.  You're so adventurous.  

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks so much Loaflove, much appreciated.  I do like to bake a variety and have a list of ideas I’m slowly baking through.  I hope you start posting your bakes in your blog soon as well.

Benny

loaflove's picture
loaflove

Thanks Benny. It's nice to be back.  I was having problems uploading my pics.  It says my files are too big.  Hopefully i can figure it out soon because i wanted to post the first loaf i made after so many months of making bagels only.  I think i can make bagels in my sleep now.  And I do too practically.  There is a huge demand for my sourdough bagels from friends and family so i had been baking bagels almost every week for months.  Then I started making mini bagels and ppl liked them even more .  anyway , i was so pleased with that loaf and it was the closest thing to an ear i ever got.  beginner's luck i'm thinking.  I've been trying to go through all the pics you've posted of your bakes.  I love your videos.  Didn't know it was you at first in those videos lol.  

Slideslinger's picture
Slideslinger

Thanks for the inspiration Benny!! Once I saw this I knew I had to try it. What an amazing flavor combo - and you were absolutely right - you can NEVER have enough black sesame seeds!!

Purple Sweet Potato Sesame Sourdough

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow what great colour you got in your loaf, it looks fabulous.  So glad you enjoyed the flavour and I’m happy you agree that you cannot have enough black sesame seeds.

Benny