April 20, 2020 - 8:19am
Incorporating nuts effectively
Hello fellow bakers,
I'm seeking your sharing on how you incorporate your nuts effectively into your dough. I'm currently trying to make some almond and walnuts SD. I toast the nuts then crush them into medium pieces (like break the walnut into 4 pieces); then try to cut them into the dough during about 2nd coild fold, but the nuts seem to cuts the gluten so brutally. I don't have that issue with seeds.
Is there a good way to incorporate them during the initial stage of mixing? I have a stand mixer but I'm unsure if adding nuts during last minute of mixing is a good idea or not.
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If you wanna incorporate nuts, seeds or anything that might break the gluten structure, add it in the very end of mixing on low speed until just incorporated. That way you prevent at least most damage.
I don't think it's that bad if some gluten strands break during your coil folds, as long as you don't deflate your dough.
Thank you. This is what I'm experimenting next. I used to add during lamination but this is what I'm talking about, making about 6-7 loaves together forming a big dough and it's much harder to do such lamination. I also checked Hamelman's Bread and found some useful info, thought I'd post it here in case some one ran into the same issue. Basically he said there're 2 options incorporating nuts into the dough using the mixer:
- Add nuts at the end of mixing. Pro: you minimalise the damage to gluten structure. But the nuts may absorb waters from the dough and as gluten already develop (to medium level), it's hard to correct the hydration.
- Add nuts beginning of the mix. Pro: you can correct the hydration during the mix to the consistency you prefer.
If they absorb water, I can't imagine it's a lot since most of the water is already bound to flour or salt.
Your instinct about waiting until the 2nd coil fold is good I think. Best not to try to incorporate them too early and have them ruin the gluten development.
I would try to incorporate them in a lamination step. That works well for me for mixins.
Check out this instagram page for an idea of what that's like
I recently added nuts to my sourdough during lamination and I can attest to the fact that it works extremely well. Also, when you follow the lamination with coil folds it has the tendency to keep the nuts inside the bread rather than exposed on the outside. I added them during stretch and folds in the past, usually during the 2nd stretch and folds, but they were never nearly as well distributed as they were when added during lamination.
Benny