pistachio

Recipe help for pistachio and raisin bread

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Hi, I am hoping to reproduce some bread I had in a restaurant one time. The bread contained pistachio nuts and raisins but wasn't sweet and went very well with cheese. Goats cheese, blue cheese etc

Does anyone have a recipe for such a bread or can give any advice and how I should concoct a formula for it? In terms of suggestions for types of flour, hydration, additional sugar etc.

Thanks in advance

April 2, 2012 - 5:45pm

dabrownman

Dabrownman Butchers Sweetbird’s Lovely Buckwheat, Apple and Apple Cider, Buckwheat Groat Bread with Insane Thoughts and Deeds

Had to make a couple of changes to Sweetbird’s hugely fantastic, far better than magnificent, Buckwheat Bread recipe that can be found here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27784/buckwheatpear-sourdough-pear-hard-cider#comments

First off we, my apprentice and I, used aWashingtonstate hard apple cider called Spire. It was their mountain apple draft variety and used 245 g in the dough instead of 230. We also; did not use any cider in the SD levain and used the excess apple water squeezed from the re-hydrated dried apples and frozen fermented apples from the YW plus some water. Also used Whole Rye and WW with the Buckwheat in the first SD levain build since our starter had them and we think these grains make better bread when used in levains. I wanted to taste the cider so I drank 90 g just to make sure it wasn’t spoiled or otherwise not up to the task at hand.

My apprentice, bless her heart, substituted an Apple / Orange Yeast Water levain instead of SAF instant yeast since we don’t stock any commercial yeasts in the pantry, autolysed 1 hour instead of 30 minutes, sprouted the buckwheat groats instead of scalding them (after making red and 2 white malts she’s into sprouting it seems) and then put them all inside since she reasoned enough stuff would be hanging out in the end anyway.

Because the mix – ins were so wet (compared to sweetbird’s), I added 30 g of BW and 30 g of BF to them and let it autolyse while the dough was doing the same thing, added chopped pistachio nuts and chopped cooked buckwheat soba noodles, added fermented apple pieces saved when refreshing the YW that were previously frozen, re-hydrated the dried apples in apple juice.

My apprentice also cut the salt to 10 g from 11 since the pistachios seemed salty to her when tasted for poison and she was a little bloaty this morning, added 15 g home made white diastatic malt to the vital wheat gluten, and finally, subbed bread flour for the AP which birdsong recommended doing after her bake.

So, not much at all really major changed in the scheme of things we call bread. We agree with sweetbrird that the dough needs 2 S & F sessions at 40 and 80 minutes and another to pre-shape at 2 hours. Do a quick S & F to form into a ball. Drag the skin tight and put into your large floured benetton. Place into a plastic bag and let it final proof for at least an hour or so. You can get your oven ready at 500 F with your steaming method in place while it proofs. My final proof was 1 ½ hours about twice as long as sweetbird’s and it was not over proofed.

The bread was turned out onto parchment on a peel and slashed with my patented ‘angry face with really nasty eyes design,’ steamed for 20 minutes at 430 F, then the steam was removed. The bread then baked on the stone for about another 45 minutes until it reached 203 F and then left in oven for 12 minutes with the door ajar and oven off.

Will post the recipe later if somone wants it. This boule finished weight was 1,305 g.

November 5, 2011 - 8:09am

loydb

Whole Grain Sourdough with Apple, Blue Cheese and Pistachios

Over on Fitocracy, we're having an Iron Chef Apple challenge. This is my entry.

This is based on the Basic Sourdough recipe from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. BBA also contains the instructions for making your very own sourdough starter particular to your local environment.

Day 1: The Preferment

Start with a mixture of 45% hard red wheat, 45% hard white wheat, and 10% rye. Mill fine. (Alternately, any combination of unbleached bread flour, whole wheat flour, and rye flour that you like, just maintain the 10% rye ratio by weight.)

Take a few ounces of your sourdough starter, and mix in an equal weight of water and flour. Let it rise covered for 5-8 hours (it will double roughly), then put in the fridge overnight.

Day 2: The Dough

Dice up 3-4 apples. I used three Braeburns and a Granny Smith. Also weigh out 5 oz. of pistachios and 4 oz of blue cheese. Chop the apples up last, as they'll immediately start to oxidize and turn brown.

Add the water and preferment to the mixer and start it up.

Alternate adding the apple and your flour until all the apple (and about 2/3 of the flour) has been incorporated, then alternate adding in the pistachios and the rest of the flour, adding the blue cheese at the very end.

Turn the sticky mass out onto a well-floured cutting board and, using a dough blade and your hands, continue to knead and incorporate flour until it forms a fairly stiff, non-sticky dough.

Put it in a large bowl or tub and let it rise for 4-6 hours, until nearly doubled. Refrigerate overnight.

Day 3: Shape n' Bake

Remove the dough from the fridge at least two hours before shaping. It will have slowly risen more overnight.

Gently divide the dough and shape it, then allow to proof covered until nearly doubled.

Score loaves and bake!

The result makes great sandwich bread -- no cheese is needed, just a couple of pieces of ham. It's also good toasted with honey for breakfast.

Read more about Whole Grain Sourdough with Apple, Blue Cheese and Pistachios
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October 2, 2010 - 9:52am

BerniePiel

Tartine Basic Country Loaf with raisins and pistachio

I have really become enamored of late with Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread, particularly his basic country loaf which is a combination of APF or BF and WWF. I had to experiment with some raisins and pistachios that I had on hand. The methodology was identical to Robertson's given in the text, same proportions, same times and so forth. My only variation is that I use spring water, I mill local Oklahoma winter hard red wheatberries, and perhaps my method of folding the bread and the number of times that I fold versus the text. I fold 4 or more times depending on what kind of structure I see developing; Chad states he folds three times every 25 minutes during the bulk rise. I add one of two extra folds. Also, I do not use all of the 50 g of water that he calls for when addiing the 20 g of salt after the inital 20 minute autolyse. I usually just end up adding 25 g rather than the entire 50 because I feel it makes my dough to wet.

I have also discovered that his temps of water and air environment called for at various locations in the recipe should be adhered to. He states using water at 80 degrees and he's right. I tried using my ambient temp water at between 65 and 72 and the dough behaved differently. The bulk rise and final rise temps should also be between 78 and 82 which is conducive to good yeast activity and providing a proper amount of time for the flavors to be created in the dough.

In this bread I added 1 1/2 cups of currants (a smaller dark raisin) and 1 1/2 cups of unsalted pistachio nuts, added at the first folding following the 20 minutes autolyse or rrest. It took several minutes to incorporate these two items evenly throughout the dough. If you skimp here, the raisnins and nuts will be along the inside of the crust edge rather than scattered throughout the loaf.

Also, as the recipe states, it will make two loaves. During this bake, I cooked the first loaf immediately ater the final rise. The second loaf I allowed to ferment in the fridge for 12 hours just to see if there was a difference in taste. There is and its quite good. But, even without that fermentation period, the bread was also very good. But, the time in the fridge did improve the flavor.

Finally, I baked these two loaves in a round clay couche that I soaked before puttiing into the oven and I added them as tthe oven was heating. The oven was up to 360 degrees when I added the couche (normally I put my cooking vessel in when I fire up the oven, but I forgot this time.) The clay vessel had been soaking in water for 15 minutes just prior to going in the oven to preheat befoe i added the boules.

I put the loaves in when my temp reached 515, put the top on and after 10 minutes, turned the oven down to 450. After a total of 20 minutes had elapsed from the time I first put the dough in the clay pot, I took the lid off and baked for another 20 minutes at 450. The crust becomes harder, good carmelization, and the interior crumb is chewy and flavorful. I really, really like this bread.

Here are the pix:

from the oven couche