The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Elderberry and Hokkaido Squash Bread

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Elderberry and Hokkaido Squash Bread

After a long time I decide to experiment with tastes and colors. Right now the elderberry in our vicinity is getting mature and there is abundance of Hokkaido squashes on our home garden. I also decided to coat the bread and dust it with extra flour before scoring it to get some extra effects.

The squash puree was made at home by my usual procedure in a skillet and then pureed. The elderberries were removed from the stem, pureed as well, cooked for a while to get more thick paste. I compensated the sourness of the paste with a little bit of sugar.

I added the extra ingredients one hour into bulk fermentation. I used a pinch of  cinnamon to season the squash puree.

At he end I put the Hokkaido squash dough on top of the elderberries dough and roll it and coat it in a very thin dough made just from flour, water and salt (kind of a pastry dough). Underneath the skin I put some sesame seeds.

Flour use type 850, initial hydration 65%, with all added stuff estimated final hydration ~75%. Proofed in fridge and baked in a steam oven. I added about 40% (bakers %) of puree, and same amount of elderberry paste.

Result: extremely soft bread, with very even porosity, heavenly good. I had to make another batch of this bread a day after for my neighbors as they were so excited because of  so good taste. The rest of the procedure can be seen from the posted pictures..

Happy baking, Joze

Comments

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

That is a very nice loaf. I bet it tastes wonderful!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

The taste is really good and I must say that I was nicely surprised that both tastes fit perfectly together. 

Happy baking Danni!

Joze

nmygarden's picture
nmygarden

I had no idea that elderberry would offer so much color. Love the creative touch! And we have Mini Oven's Eclipse Challenge coming up this weekend, so an opportunity to think up something special.

joc1954's picture
joc1954

I was preparing kind of a thickened juice for the bread and ice cream at the same time. Was wondering if the colour will disappear during the bake as it occurred with beetroot colour but it didn't.

Thanks for letting me know about Mini Owen's challenge. Will participate in that definitely.

happy baking!

Joze 

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Those grow wild where I grew up.  Lots of picking to get any quantity of the tiny berries but the flavor was wonderful.

That is an inspired bake, Joze!  Lovely for both eye and tongue.

Paul

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Actually it is not so hard work to cut the kind of clusters from the tree. I use then vegetable mill to make kind of a puree from the berries. It takes some time but it is worth to do.

Happy baking Paul!

Joze 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

what a creative bake and gorgeous as well!

thanks for sharing.

Happy Baking!

ian

joc1954's picture
joc1954

From time to time it is a good habit to step out of conformity and do something different. I head a great joy making this bread and then my wife helped me with the decorations. She is very good in that.

Happy baking Ian,

Joze

Flour.ish.en's picture
Flour.ish.en

A bread with so many beautiful layers and flavors. Scoring is fantastic. The process pictures are detailed. Nice post! Happy baking.

joc1954's picture
joc1954

I was expecting  that the loaf will open at the scoring, but not so much. Actually the outcome was much better than I was hoping. I tried several techniques with this bread to get an idea if it is worth to use them often.  

Happy baking!

Joze

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

The loaf looks almost like a birch bark basket!   

joc1954's picture
joc1954

and I am now planning what to do for your challenge. Got some ideas and hope it will work.

Happy baking Mini!

Joze

IceDemeter's picture
IceDemeter

Everything about this bake is showcase-worthy --- the choices, the preparation, the shaping, the presentation --- and I'm sure that the flavour is above and beyond all of the rest.

This is truly one to inspire a novice like me...

Thanks  for sharing, and keep baking happy!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

You are too kind! I am happy if you were inspired as I am inspired so many times by other TFL posters including you.

I was just experimenting and was lucky at the end. It could just end up with a complete disaster. I bet you know that from your experience as well. From time to time I just like experimenting a bit. We were picking elderberries for making ice cream and then I got the idea to use it in the bread. Last year I was baking quite often with butternut squash and this inspired me to also play with colours. The last experiment was with coating and flour dusting to get more visible scores. So that is the story. I am not good in decorations, but my wife is really talented for that. She was so enthusiastic about the outcome that I didn't need to ask her twice to prepare the shooting scene.

I hope that somebody else will also try to use elderberry in some kind of combination. It is really very healthy and deserves more frequent usage. Of course one need to like the elderberry flavour first. 

Happy baking!

Joze

stu currie's picture
stu currie

that loaf looks absolutely amazing. Could you explain how you got the crust on it please? I don't really understand what you mean when you say you made kind of a pastry dough?

joc1954's picture
joc1954

I wrapped the whole loaf in a pastry dough like you can see in today's post Pane incamiciato di semola di grano duro rimacinata.

Hope this answers your question.

happy baking, Joze

clazar123's picture
clazar123

It looks as if the dough wrap would become crunchy-almost like a cracker. 

A beautiful loaf! I planted some elderberry and honeyberry bushes this year but it will be a few years before a harvest. Now I have one more "to do" on my list for the berries!

Lovely post. Thank you.

joc1954's picture
joc1954

This was the first time I used this technique and was disappointed by the hardness of the crust. Actually it looks like eating dry / raw pasta for lasagna.

If you can get some elderberries somewhere around you it would be nice to try. I am lucky because I am leaving in Slovenia so there is a lot of elderberries trees around which you can just use as they are growing in the wilderness. 

Good luck with your project!

happy baking,

Joze

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

in the midwest (Wester PA, Southern MN, IA,MO, AR) to those in Austria and find large flavour differences not only with the blossoms but with the fruit as well..  I prefer the Austrian/European variety that also grow along creeks,woods, fences and around barns... where the birds are responsible for their appearance.  I have a few wild ones in my garden and they grow over a yard a year so I cut them back every fall before the leaves turn which tends to shape them into lollipop trees but gets rid of the mess of leaves.  They grow fast like willow but stay under 5m tall.   Don't plant or encourage near a clothesline.  The stains from the birds can be awesome, a good indicator to when the berries are ripe.

joc1954's picture
joc1954

I have never tasted other variety than Slovenian but I know people in Slovenia who grow them and sell the elderberries to Austria as it is so popular there. They cultivate a special variety.

Situation with wild elderberries is exactly the same in Slovenia as in Austria. So no problem to pickup them while walking along creeks , woods, ... So far people are not so much interested to use elderberries so there is really an abundance of them. Elderberry is more popular here in the spring when it is blossoming with those big white flat blossoms which are used to flavor kind of a drink which is actually yeast water flavored with elderberry blossoms. Here is the recipe for making that cordial.People also make elderberry syrup from  blossoms which is so popular in Austria as well. The food in neighbor countries  Austria and Slovenia is so similar. Next year I will make the cordial for drinking and baking.

My wife and I decided to plant an elderberry in our garden and thanks for the instructions. We had the idea to shape it as lollipop tree. As with other trees we will have to cover them with the net against hail and birds. We are feeding birds during the winter and then we have to cover the trees and bushes to prevent them eating all the product. Right now the figues, the second blast, are starting getting mature and we have to protect the tree otherwise the birds will start eating them.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It was so nice to read it and I bet a lot of people who will be reading this will get some ideas why elderberry is such a great plant.

Happy baking Mini Oven!

Joze

A picture of one figue from the first round this year. They are extremely big and very sweet. Unfortunately the climate in central part of Slovenia is not warm enough that all of them would ripen but majority does. This summer was extremely warm, we had 6 heat waves and this was the right climate for the figue tree.

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Elderberries and squash time!  

Benito's picture
Benito

What a beautiful loaf, this post predates my joining TFL and was before I started baking sourdough bread as well.  But thanks for unearthing it Mini. We don’t have elderberries here that I know of, but it is nice seeing this creative bread.