Submitted by Pablo on July 5, 2009 - 2:48pm

first fresh fruit loaves of the season


I like the idea of baking fruit-based bread using the fermented fruit as the leavening.  I started with 200g of cherries.

I pureed them with 40g of water and a bit of honey and let them ferment for 3 days until the mixture smelled quite alcoholic and bubbled noisily.  I then added a bit more water so I'd have a reasonable amount of dough, a bit more honey for flavour, and enough flour to get to a reasonable consistency.  I let it ferment overnight with a couple of turns along the way.

This morning it was ready to go.  The dough has a marked cherry colour.  They took considerably longer to proof than my regular SD.

The crumb is a bit close, but the flavour is nice.  Next time I'll forgo adding any more water and just use more cherries in the beginning to maximize the cherry flavour.  I think it would be nice to rough-cut some cherries into the ferment as well as the pureed cherries.  I baked this batch at 415 for 30 minutes.

The crust colour from the cherries and the honey I think it really beautiful and the cherry coloured inside is unusual and appealing as well.

A friend is bringing some cherries today so I can try again.

:-Paul

Fantastic. Jeff

Fantastic.

Jeff

Super.

Super looking SD. Great job. Dave

Very nice!

Very nice!  Thank you for sharing!

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Paul! Beautiful Rich Mahogany color!

Looks like a perfect moist crumb.  Got a good rise from the dough.  What kind of cherries? Sour?   So you want to try more cherry flavor....hmmm... how about drying some of the pitted cherries and then add later to the puree?  Or making a cherry jam to go with it? 

I sure wish my husband and I were served your bread instead of the flat black bread wedges offered at a particular Italian restaurant.  It was so black (octopus ink?) I didn't even want to try it.  That was the kind of black bread I can easily do without.  I know "no guts, no glory" but it just turned my stomach looking at it.  I don't think it had any crust color.

I like looking at your rich loaves!

Mini

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regular old sweet cherries

Hi Mini,

Thanks.  I was really pleased with the colour as well.  Adding dried cherries sounds like an interesting idea.  I have another load fermenting as we type.  I used a lot more cherries and didn't add any water and didn't pureed them nearly as finely.  We'll see what that does.

That black bread sounds odd.  I wonder how they got it so black?  charcoal?  Petroeum products are not generally appetizing.

:-Paul

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Mis-read your post

I mis-read your post with the details of how you made your bread. Now that I reread it, it appears that you just fermented some cherries and then added flour to make bread. I tried something a little different...

I used blueberries in mine and made up my own procedure.

I took 250g of a 100% hydration starter and fed it with 250g "Better for Bread" Flour and 250g mashed blueberries. Let ferment in a cool place for about 24 hours.

Then I added 500g flour and 500g mashed blueberries and let ferment for about 12 more hours. Added enough flour to give a good bread dough consistancy and about 20 grams of salt (17.5g salt would have been 2% but I thought 20g was close enough).

I lightly kneaded the dough and did Hamelman folds every half hour for 2 hours. Divided and shaped 4 very large batards. Let rise 'til almost doubled and baked just like any other bread.

Yumalicious.

Also makes great french toast. 

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