Even though summer just doesn't seem to happen this year in these parts of the world, there are some wonderful summer fruits to be enjoyed.

Being under a strict bread baking embargo right now due to an overfull freezer, it seemed best to take advantage of the local produce (and fix my weekend baking crave in one go).

Here they are: 1x full fledged "summer of your dreams" in the shape of an almond lemon torte with fresh strawberries;

And (yesterday), the dessert that's more in touch with the slightly worrying autumnal meteorological reality over here:

Almond frangipani with apples and lemon in a pain d'epices caramel sauce. The sauce, made with apple juice, brown sugar and Monin's "Pain d'Epices"-syrup, tweaked with a hint of ginger and chilipowder, was especially tasty.

It tasted pretty much like the summer of 2011: spiking bright yellow with sunny lemon and juicy almond meal, fading away to brown via the ginger and the pain d'epices, to come full circle in acidity in the apples.

Not summer anymore, but no fall yet. I call it sautumner frangipani!

Freerk

P.S. You would do me a big favor endorsing my BreadLab iniative. Every "like" will get me closer to realizing a 6 episode documentary/road movie; chasing the best bread Europe has to offer. Thanks in advance!

I’ve been experimenting with various types of yeast water for several weeks now.  I now have five separate jars percolating on the counter or in the refrigerator.  Since I’ve discovered that very little if any fruit flavor is discernable in baked breads made from these waters, it makes sense to me to keep only one.  It also makes sense to me to keep the one that is the most effective.  I have heard that raisin yeast water is the strongest and most active.  When I first started experimenting with these waters, I made a raisin/apricot yeast water, but the color and murkiness was not appealing, so I threw it away shortly after it was created.  Today I am making a new jar with just raisins and another with just apricots.  These will be tested against the winner of this trial.

To see which of my active yeast waters are the more effective, I created test waters containing 30g each of peach, blueberry, strawberry and cherry.

 To these amounts I added 90g fresh water and one sugar cube. These jars were left out overnight to activate the yeasts.  This morning I took 3 grams from each of the jars and 3 grams of AP flour. These were mixed together and placed in identical test-tube like glasses (tall and very narrow).

9:30am, roughly 3 hours since start time

 Now it is four hours into the test.  Gauging from my ongoing work on the blueberry yeast water, this first build will take approximately 7.5 hours to plateau.  Halfway through, it seems that the growth pattern of the testers matches too closely to the order in which the tests were prepared, lagging perhaps by no more than 5 minutes from the first (cherry) to the last (peach).  Also, both the strawberry and the peach were slightly more hydrated than either blueberry or cherry.

At 12:31pm, roughly 6 hours later, it appears that the cherry levain is far stronger than either the blueberry or the peach. The strawberry levain is only slightly behind the cherry in growth.

At 2:09pm, roughly 7.5 hours later, it is still cherry in the lead.  At this point I noticed that the glasses are not identical – some are deeper than others.  This accounted for, the cherry is still slightly more effective than the strawberry.  Also, approximately at this same time, cherry had reached its maximum height, approximately double the start level.   Strawberry went on to double at approximately 8 hours, as did peach.  Blueberry, interestingly enough, did not achieve more than a 50% growth over the entire period.

So there you have it. In terms of overall effectiveness for a first level build, cherry is the strongest of the test set.  The rest are not as effective for raising culture in a given period of time.

Next trial, Cherry against raisin and apricot.  Stay tuned.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with the properties of fruit based yeast waters. Starting with a strawberry water, I've so far transformed Txfarmer's 36+ hr baguette  from a standard sourdough to one fed strawberry yeast water.  The result was as to be expected, crunchy crust, moist crumb, not a hint of sour, and interestingly, a surprisingly dark color despite the exclusive use of AP flour in the dough.

Strawberry Yeast Water Baguette, and one with Peach Yeast Water - Same recipe, same flour.
  

I have also created a number of boules using Ron Ray's Darling Clementine recipe.  I've used that same boule recipe to create a strawberry, cherry and blueberry boule.  From these loaves I have come to some conclusions.

Once out of the oven, these boules are virtually indistinguishable in terms of color, crust, and crumb. The only distinguishing feature was the strawberry loaf aroma while it was still baking. So, my conclusions are that it matters little exactly what kind of fruit one uses to cultivate yeast (except of course for those containing actinidain or actinidin), only that the yeast exist. Fruit based yeast from these types of waters will alter the color and consistency of the bread but will not impart any fruit essence upon baking.  The reddish/purplish fruits that I tested will significantly alter the color of the crust and crumb, and the relative amount of sugar present in the water will also affect the taste (the blueberry water, made from a quantity of dried blueberries was quite sweet to begin with).

 Strawberry, Cherry, Blueberry Boules: Beauty Shots, Profiles, and Crumbs

 I think after this experiment, I'll retire all but the strawberry water, as it is the most pleasing in terms of aroma, at least when it comes out of the oven.  So, in conclusion, choose your favorite fruited yeast water and keep only one type. Also, don't forget to feed your sourdough starter too because what is life without a little tang?

Happy Baking!

-Pamela

After the pear bread worked so well, I got it into my head to try some other fresh fruits in breads. I really like strawberries so they were the fruit that immediately came to mind, even if this isn't the best season for them (ones that are only a bit ripe actually work better for bread due to their crispness). Then when I thought of strawberries, bananas came to mind too, they make such a wonderful pair. So, banana puree providing hydration, and strawberry chunks in the dough. But it could really use a nut in it too, so I chose macadamias, the only nut that really felt to me like it went with the two fruits. I also took that inspiration a step further and added macadamia oil and butter to the dough. This bread is quite moist, and a bit heavy, though not in the stone in the stomach manner!

Strawberry Banana Macadamia Nut Sourdough

Makes: 2 medium, or 3 small loaves

Time: Day 1: Elaborate starter. Day 2: Mix final dough, fold dough and retard. Day 3: Shape, proof, and bake. If using commercial yeast, you can do this in 2 days. Day 1: Make preferment. Day 2: Mix final dough, fold and ferment, shape and proof, bake.

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Elaborate your starter however you choose, but ending up with the same flour and water weights. (or make a commercial yeast preferment) Allow it to rise overnight.
2. The next day: Puree the bananas, dice the strawberries, and chop half of your macadamia nuts..
3. Stir together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cream the starter or preferment with the water, macadamia butter, macadamia oil and banana puree. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry, and mix until the dough forms a loose ball.
4. Let the dough sit for 20 minutes, they knead it very briefly to make sure everything is well incorporated. Flatten the dough out and spread as much of the strawberries and macadamia nuts. Fold the dough over itself, give it a few kneading turns then add as much of the remaining strawberries and macadamias as possible, continue you've used all of them up. You will probably need to add a fair amount of flour during this step, the strawberries will be adding a lot of water to the dough.
5. Form the dough into a ball and put it in a covered and oiled bowl to ferment. Give the dough a stretch and fold at the first and second hour marks, immediately after the second fold make sure the dough is well covered and retard it overnight in the refrigerator.
6. The next day, gently remove the dough from the bowl and slowly degas it. Seperate the dough into two or three pieces, and shape them into whatever shape you are planning on making, this dough works well as boules.
7. Place the shaped loaves in a couche, towel lined bowl, or brotforms to proof. The dough is a bit too slack to rise well on just a baking sheet.
8. When the loaves are proofed, preheat the oven to 500° with a baking stone (and a cloche bell if you plan to use one, or a cast iron pan for steaming) on the middle shelf. Just before the loaves go in the oven, give them a quick scoring.
9. Place loaves in the oven, reduce to 450, and bake for 15 minutes covered if using a cloche (if not using a cloche, pour 1/2 to 1 cup of almost boiling water into the cast iron pan when you put the loaves in the oven), then rotate the loaves 180° and continue baking for another 10-20 minutes. When the loaves are finished, remove from the oven to cooling rack and cool at least one hour before slicing.

One thing I was surprised about with this bread is the strength of the macadamia flavor. I was hoping for a bit more strawberry and banana flavor, but as it is they provided a nice backdrop for the macadamia flavor that infuses even parts of the bread with no nut pieces in it. So, it wasn't exactly what I set out to create, but it ended up being delicious in an entirely different way. As a note, if you don't have macadamia nut butter, you can probably make your own in a food processor, blender, magic bullet, etc. with nuts and just a little bit of oil. You can also substitute another oil for the macadamia oil, but it won't add quite the same flavor. And this is, of course, my weekly submission to YeastSpotting!