Stonemill Healthy Artisan Swiss Raisin Muesli Bread - Copycat recipe

This is my attempt at the loaf that Bread1965 was trying to recreate quite a while ago. I was able to get my hands on the real version of this bread and it is delicious! In this recipe, I tried to be faithful to the order of the ingredients listed on the package. The last 4 ingredients always puzzled me because they were after the salt until I clued in one day that they are used for the topping and are not in the bread. That would explain the tiny amounts.

Recipe:

100 g of rye berries

968 g of unbleached flour + 37 g

75 g golden raisins

75 g dark raisins

50 g canola oil

25 g ground brown flax seeds

25 g toasted brown flax seeds

50 g toasted golden flax seeds

50 g honey

25 g dried apples

25 g raisin juice concentrate (recipe follows)

650 g water + 20 g

22 g pink Himalayan salt

250 g levain (80% hydration)(Instructions included below)

Topping

10 g rolled oats

10 g sunflower seeds

10 g brown flax seeds

10 g poppy seeds

1. A couple of night before making the dough, mill the rye berries and sift out the bran. Mill the bran again on a finer setting. Reserve all of the bran and the sifted rye flour for the levain. Add the 37 g AP flour to the sifted rye flour. 
2. Make the raisin juice concentrate (recipe below) and reserve. 
3. The morning before making the dough, start building the levain as follows: Build #1: 10 g starter, 18 g water, 18 g bran. Let rest 7 hours. Build #2: 36 g each of water and rye/AP flour. Let rest 7 hours. Build #3: 60 g of water and 83 g sifted/AP flour. Let rest overnight. I used it after 12 hours. 
4. The next day, mix the unbleached flour, all of the raisins, the ground flax seeds, the brown and golden flax seeds, the honey, the dried apples, and the raisin juice concentrate and the water. Mix well until all of the flour is hydrated. Let autolyse for an hour or so in a warm spot. 
5. Add the salt, the oil and 250 g of levain to the dough. Mix well using the folding and pinching method. Add the 20 extra grams of water and continue folding until the dough feels cohesive. Let rest 15 minutes and then do more folds to make sure that the levain is evenly distributed. Rest 15 minutes and repeat as this is a fairly stiff dough. Place in a warm spot and do 2 sets of folds 1 hour apart. Let rise until double. This took forever (7 or so hours).
6. Divide into 3 round loaves (~765 g each) or two larger batards and do a loose pre-shape. I pulled all the outside edges to the middle and rolled the boule over on top of the seam. Let rest for 15 minutes. While the dough is resting, lightly sprinkle rice/AP flour in the bannetons and then sprinkle the topping mixture on top of the flour. Do a final shape by cinching the dough and shaping tightly into a boule or a batard.  Place seam side down in the bannetons and cover. Retard overnight in the fridge (10-12 hours).
7. The next morning, heat the oven to 475 F with the Dutch ovens inside for at least 45 minutes. Place parchment rounds on the bottom of the pots, score the loaves and gently drop the boules inside seam side up. I usually don’t score loaves especially since I bake them seam side up but these looked like they were going to need some help. Cover and drop the temperature to 450 F, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove lids, and bake for another 20 minutes at 400 F or until the insides measure 205 F. 
8. Cool for at least a couple of hours before cutting and enjoying!

Raisin Juice 

2 cups (260 g) raisins

4 cups boiling water

1. Coarsely chop the raisins and place in a large glass bowl. Pour the boiling water over the raisins and cover with a kitchen towel. Allow the raisin sugars to seep into the water for at least 3 hours.
2. Strain the raisin water through a fine mesh sieve into a medium saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it boil gently until the mixture has thickened and reduced to 1/2 cup.

The loaves really did not rise very much in the fridge and the oven spring was adequate, but not impressive. I am sure that a lot of this was due to the stiff dough. Next time, I will definitely increase the hydration as the raisins and flax absorbed a lot of the liquids. 

And just for Bread1965 who insisted I stay true to the original in shape and otherwise, I did make one batard by cutting one batch in half and I followed Trail Runner’s method of baking in a granite wear roaster. I also added a bit of water under the parchment paper. This whole method worked very well. 

Overall, the loaves have a nice colour to them and feel lighter than I expected considering how much stuff is in them. I am very curious to see the crumb. I suspect it might be fairly closed but then, that is what the original is like. Hopefully, it tastes as good as the original. 

And this is what we woke up to this morning!