Grape skin flour bread - first experiment
Intrigued by the idea of grape skin flour (purple bread!?) I took the bait and ordered a flour made from cabernet sauvignon grapes. Looks like cocoa powder...
According to my reading, this gluten-free flour adds antioxidants, great grape (wine) flavor and beautiful color. They say for breads, it should be 3 to 8% of the flour weight. I made a 100% hydration levain from my grape yeast water and made a very simple 1,2,3 loaf with 5% grape skin flour. 
You can't tell from the photo, but there is a purplish hue to the crumb and faint smell of grape - but maybe that's from the grape yeast water which I used for all the water in the levain and the final dough. I can't say I really taste any grape or wine flavor...
I think next time I'll try adding some walnuts and dried fruit - maybe figs or raisins. And I wonder what the results would be if I upped the percentage of grapeskin flour?
I've also seen some "cabernet" chocolate chip cookie recipes - might have to give those a whirl. If anybody has some experience with grapeskin flour, I'd love to hear about it.
Cheers!
Cherie
Comments
Bread and wine in one. Very nice!
Enjoy.
leaven for this bread. Well done and happy baking
Wish I could report more of a distinct flavor from the grapeskin flour, but my tasters really liked the bread anyway. I'll keep experimenting with higher %ages. I might try feeding the first couple builds of the starter with the purple flour. And perhaps a loaf with red wine for part of the dough water? To be continued....
Still working on that 8oz. bag of grapeskin flour...I've tried adding the gs flour to my levains, upping the % to 8%, but I didn't care for the slight bitterness that these variations produced; 5% of the flour mix seems to be the sweet spot. Yesterday I had about 100g of leftover starter, so tried again and this one's very nice!
Ingredients:
100g starter at 100% hydration
200g water
300g flour - 5% grapeskin flour, 5% whole wheat, 10% sprouted spelt (happened to have it in the freezer leftover from last sprouting adventure), 15% hi-gluten four, 65% KAAP
7g sea salt
45g toasted walnuts
45g dried cranberries (soaked in boiling water and drained)
Mix flours and water, let rest 20-60 minutes. Add salt and 1T cranberry soaking water. Mix by hand to medium gluten development - I did about 8 min slap and folds. Bulk ferment at room temp (70ish df) for 3-4 hours, or until dough has doubled in volume. Stretch and fold every 30 min. for the first 2 hours, then let it rest undisturbed. Add walnuts and cranberries on the 2nd set of turns. Retard in the refrigerator 12-24 hours.
Next morning the dough is practically overflowing the container...it is more than double. Remove from fridge. Preshape round, rest 20 min, final shape round and place in floured, linen-lined wicker basket for a final proof at room temp (hot today! 79-80 df) still it took well over 3 hours, I guess because it was still chilly from the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 475 w/pizza stone and flower pot "cloche" in place. Bake at 450 covered for 15 min., uncovered for another 15. Bread had reached 208 internal temp - with the oven turned off, put loaf back in the oven for 10 minutes to get crispy.
More ideas for next time - remember to save the water from soaking cranberries - use that for the liquid, yum! Try using red wine to soak the cranberries and use that for the liquid - even better! Add 5% gs flour to pumpernickel raisin dough for color and je ne sais quoi...try making this loaf with 30-50% sprouted flours in the mix, toasted pecans instead of the walnuts? And I still intend to make those cookies.