London is going through a heat wave, its hot, properly hot, which means my starter is going super mental and I have to think of new ways of using it and new bread recipes.

This post inspiration came from a glass of orange juice and a bit of nagging from my husband. Result - two loaves of bread, a whiskey orange bread and a seeded bread, one for my breakfast (I am into sweet toast at the moment) and one for my dear husband to satisfy his seeded, crunchy bread craving.

More photos and full recipes on my blog here

I made another loaf of my orange-raisin bread and refined my working recipe a bit, adding weights and some specifics on the marmalade step.

My working recipe is now as follows:

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Orange Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

about 200g of Home-made marmalade, made (see procedure below) from

about 200g = 1 smallish seedless navel orange and

100g = 1/2 cup granulated white sugar

~8g = 1 tablespoon SAF "red" instant yeast

~9g = 1.5 teaspoon salt

100g of raisins

450g unbleached bread flour

300g very warm water

Procedure
Quarter the orange and cut each quarter into 1/4-inch thick slices.  In small saucepan stir orange pieces up with the sugar to draw juice from pulp.  Heat mixture to boiling and stir while boiling until juice/sugar syrup does not drain from peel when pushed to one side of pan.  Cut peels up  as desired with table knife.

Put marmalade and all dry ingredients in mixing bowl, add the very warm water, and mix thoroughly.  Dough will be very soft and sticky, too much so to knead by hand.  If necessary it can be spoon-kneaded in the mixing bowl to make the fruit distribution roughly uniform.

Transfer dough to a pan with a scraper and let rise.  This dough will rise to fill a 9"x4"x4"-inch pullman pan in less than hour.

Bake at 450F for 25 minutes.  Result is a moist, sweet, chewy bread with ample fruit.

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Illustrative photos are as follows:

Orange quartered and sliced^

Marmalade, hot, before reduction (note syrupy free-flowing juice)^

Marmalade after reduction (no free-flowing syrupy juice, peel has been cut a bit with knife)^

Dough unrisen in pan^

Dough after 55 minutes rise time^

Loaf and pan after baking^

I recently tried some orange cranberry bread at my local grocery's bakery (Wegman's), which is being produced for the holiday season.  It was nice, but not exactly the direction I would have gone with it, and not something I wanted to eat a great deal of.  It was very orange-y, quite sweet, and topped with coarse sugar.  I began thinking about how I would do things differently and eventually put together this formula.  After a little trial and error, I'm very happy with this bread, so I thought I would share. 

The sweet potato and small amount of butter makes for a very soft, but still satisfyingly strong crumb, and the crust is medium, golden, and very pleasantly soft.  I'm a fan of hearty hearth breads with crust edging on charred and bursting with seeds, so this is a nice change from the norm for me.  The cranberries are ideal for me at 30%, and walnuts are present but not so abundant as to weight down the loaf or overpowering the orange and sweet potato.  I'm very pleased with how this most recent version is balanced.  It's delicious on it's own, with butter or cream cheese, toasted with jam (nothing too sweet), or soaking up the yolks of over-easy eggs, my personal favorite.

I'd like to hear any feedback or suggestions for this bread, if anyone has thoughts.  Formula and instructions are below. 

Thanks!

Logan

Biga

                                        %         Weight

Bread Flour                        50         50g
Whole Wheat Flour             50         50g
Instant Yeast                     0.5        0.5g (1/8 tsp for me)
Water                                70         70g

- Mix ingredients and ferment covered at room temperature about 3 hours, then refrigerate overnight. I have held the biga for this bread up to about 3 days with no problems. Remove from fridge an hour or two before mixing the final dough to get rid of the chill. Or, just adjust your water temperature to counteract the cool biga (I prefer just to let it warm up on it's own).

Final Dough

                                          %         Weight

Biga                                    50        170g
Bread Flour                          100       340g
Water                                  54        184g
Sweet Potatoes                     43        146g
Unsalted Butter                     4          14g
Salt                                     2.1        7g
Instant Yeast                        1          3.4g (just shy of a teaspoon for me)
Sweetened Dried Cranberries  30         102
Walnuts, toasted                   20         64
Zest of 1 orange

- Peel and boil the sweet potato until soft, then drain and mash. Mix the butter in while mashing, and allow the mixture to cool completely. Combine flour, biga (chop into small pieces first for easier mixing), water, yeast, salt, orange zest, and the sweet potato/butter mixture and mix to form a fairly shaggy dough. I like to mix the water and orange zest into the sweet potato/butter mixture, and then add that mixture to the dry ingredients and biga. Works well, but I don't believe it matters much.

NOTE: if your oranges are not the best or you want more orange in the bread, substitute some or all of the water out for orange juice. I used about a third orange juice and two thirds water with my last batch and it was ideal. I suspect when the good florida oranges come into season this won't be necessary, but I'll have to wait and see.

- Knead until very smooth and somewhat elastic. I used a KA mixer with a dough hook set around 3 for 10-12 minutes. Then add the cranberries and walnuts and mix at low speed or incorporate by hand. My mixer is reluctant to distribute these, so I knead by hand for the last few minutes.

- Ferment until roughly doubled, 2-3 hours is typical for me.

- Divide and shape the dough. This is enough for two smallish boules, a shade over 500g each. Rolls would also be nice, and I thought I might try a braid next time.

- Proof about 45-90 minutes, until slightly pillowy and roughly doubled (careful of overproofing though, this dough is quite soft and when I first started tinkering with it I had a couple runaway proofing experiences). I proof boules freestanding on parchment directly on a sheet pan, covered loosely with plastic wrap or produce bags.

- Preheat the oven to 400, no steam or stone is necessary.  Also, this bread does not benefit from scoring.

- Bake the loaves on a sheet pan for 20 minutes at 400, and then rotate the pan if your oven requires it. Bake for an additional 10-20 minutes, I usually count on 12-14 in my oven. I pull them when they're nice and golden all over, sound hollow, and reach at least 190 in the center. These times are just for boules, so if you makes rolls or another shape, you'll want to adjust accordingly.

- Boules should cool for about an hour, but after that I like them best at their very freshest. This will keep in plastic bags quite well for about 2 days, and if any lasts past then it would be good for toasting.

The Results:

My slicing wasn't perfect, but you get the idea.

For a little scale.

My ideal breakfast.

How about citrus marmalade?

There I was, with one cup and a half of starter I've been collecting from my feeding routine. I wanted to use it (I hate to throw it away) and an idea started to take shape in my mind: initially, it was the idea of an orange quick bread. I had seen before citrus cake recipes that boil the fruit, be it lemons, oranges, clementines, etc., for an hour and then use all the fruit in the batter. I also wanted to achieve the miminum amount of fat and sugar ever used in a sweet batter. I have a son of 1 year and a half, and he happens to love these fruit breads, but I would feel remorseful if I gave him (and us) a quick bread loaded with sinful ingredients. It seems to me that wherever you look for a recipe there is this "sugar cult" that wants you to cover the natural tastes of fruit with an overload of sugar. As a disclaimer, I must clarify that this was an experiment and given that I have eaten with zesty delight two pieces of the final product, I feel daring enough to post it.

For the applesauce (yields 1 cup)

2 large apples (I used a tart apple and a sweet one, both big, otherwise, you might use 3 medium)

Juice of a lemon

Dash of cinnamon

For the cake

3 sweet oranges

75 grams dried apricots

75 grams currants

1 cup dessicated coconut

1 1/2 cups starter

1 cup wholewheat flour

1/2 cup cake flour (or as I did, a mixture of white and cornmeal)

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

6 tablespoons of brown sugar (this is up to you -you can add the amount you feel comfy with-, I was afraid it was going to lack sweetness, but I found it more than enough)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Vanilla or rum essence or whatever essence or spice you feel like or have at hand.

Cut the apples in chunks, cover them with the lemon juice, dash'em with the cinnamon, put'em in an oven dish, cover it with foil and pop it in a preheated oven (175 Cº) for 1 hour. Puree them. The aim with the applesauce is to have 1 cup: you will use 3/4 of a cup in the batter and the rest (or more if you want) for serving with the cake instead of whipped cream or ice cream, unless you want to go that way.

At the same time, bring to the boil the 3 oranges and then simmer for 1 hour. Puree them and let them cool down - (and remember to take out the seeds from the oranges).

Add to the still hot applesauce (3/4 of a cup) the butter until melted and the olive oil. Set the fruit aside to cool down.

Mix dry ingredients (flour, chemical leavenings, sugar, salt, coconut). I sifted the flour.

When the fruit is cold enough, mix with eggs, starter and essence.

Mix dry ingredients with fruit mixture.

Fold the soaked dried fruit. I soaked it in some limoncello I had at hand.

It made quite a lot, so I used an oven dish and a bread tin.

I baked at 175Cº for 1 hour (My oven is not so reliable, and no, I haven't been able to buy the oven thermometer...mea culpa...)

The cake is very moisty and with a very orangey taste. I thought also of substituting some wholewheat with oat flour.

Serve with applesauce, whipped cream, ice cream, etc.

I wanted to add some sunflower seeds but I held it back. I might, next time. I had the temptation to add chocolate chips but I wanted it freakly healthy so I didn't do. Variations are endless.

I wanted to take a picture but my husband took the camera with him. I might, later, if the cake is not gone.

I hope to have given a good recipe. So far I've had 3 (!!!) pieces, LOL

I finally went and made another starter after my first 2 (!) died on me.  This third one seems to be doing quite well in its old glass Eden salt container.  I did have a surprise this morning, however.

I decided to try leaving it for a couple days without feeding.  I stirred twice a day.  When I woke up this morning, which would've been the third day, it had orange flecks.  Liquidy.  Kinda smelled bad, but not horrible.  Kinda sour, but not beery.  I don't really understand how to explain the smell.   Anyway, I fed it 12 hours ago and, when I looked at it again, it had almost tripled but still retained the not so beery smell.  I fed it again just now and plan to feed in 12 hours again to see if I can get things set to right.

Is the orange I was seeing just hooch and should I keep going, or should I pitch it and try again?

It's been a while since I've contributed to the forum,

so much to bake, so little time.

I've posted a recipe for an orange chiffon cake I made for a friend  here: http://jeremyskitchen.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/orange-chiffon-cake/

 and here's a pic of an individual orange chiffon I made with some leftover batter: