Double bake: sourdoung semolina and yeast water raisin sunflower
Hello Everyone,
Just wanted to share two nice loaves that came out of the oven this morning.
The first loaf is a 100% semolina sourdough and the second is a yeast water raisin and sunflower loaf, both at 75% hydration. Both loaves were mixed up at about the same time, fermented and baked together.
Yeast water raisin and sunflower loaf
It took about 24 hours to build the yeast water levain. A bit sluggish in the beginning, so I had to put it in the oven with the light on. The flour mix was 60% bread flour, 30% whole wheat and 10% rye. I used 16% pre-fermented flour for the inoculation, and limited the amount of raisins and sunflower to about 20% combined. For this loaf, I mixed all ingredients together, including salt, without any autolyse, kneaded well to mix all ingredients. The rest was a standard process with 2 sets of stretches and folds, bulk fermentation for 2 hours on the counter and then into the wine cooler (12C) for the long bulk fermentation overnight. The result was a soft airy crumb and crispy crust with the traditional raisin sweetness notes in the flavor.
Semolina loaf
Since the yeast water took more than I expected to mature, I decided to build a regular levain using my sourdough stater. It took about 10 hours to mature the sourdough levain, built with 80% hydration. I had no idea what to bake while building the sourdough levain, but finally decided for semolina. For this one, I used only semolina flour, autolysed for 30 min, with 75% overall hydration. The flour in the levain accounted for 16% of the total. The dough was quite nice to work with, silky but firm at the same time. Also applied a good 2 min hand kneading in the beginning to mix all ingredients, and later I did two sets of stretches and folds, 30 min apart. The first bulk fermentation took 2 hours on the counter, and then overnight in the wine cooler at 12C. In the morning, shaped and proofed for about hours before baking. The result was a nice open crumb and crispy crust. Good oven spring on this one and a subtle sour taste in the crumb. As a general notice, I think another option would be to use the sourdough levain for the raisin bread and the yeast water levain for the semolina loaf, so the semolina won't have sour notes.
Comments
They both look great. Both crust and crumb on each one. Your raisin bread is begging for a dose of cinnamon too! Question - do you make any distinction between raisins and sultanas?
Also, do you use the term semolina interchangeably with semola rimacinata/finely ground durum - as I do, or is this really semolina, and if so, what #?
Thanks Alan, I used raisins for this one, but sultanas or currants would be as good. I thought about using cinnamon, but decided not to do so at the end.
The flour is not semola rimacinata, but some left over that I purchased some time ago.
Somolina.png
You must be delighted with these. Wow!
They came out quite well and are very tasty.
Both loaves look amazing Peter, you must be pleased. I haven’t used yeast water in some time, your baking with it reminds me how great it can be. Using yeast water to raise a raisin bread can give it some extra flavour. I love that you used sunflower seeds with the raisins rather than the more usual walnuts, great idea.
I love the colour of your semolina loaf, beautiful. The crumb and crust both look amazing, was this finely ground or the course semolina? I know you’ve posted that it isn’t Semola rimacinata but it can’t be the courser typical semolina either can it?
Benny
Hi Benny
I am very happy with these loaves. I have increased the use of yeast water in my late bakes, and the results have been quite good. Raisins and sunflower also go very well together.
Today I got a pack of No 1 Durum Wheat Semolina Flour by Bob's Red Mill, and I can tell that the semolina I used in this bake is coarser. So I guess it can benefit from 30 min autolyse.
Happy baking!
* Edited
Supposedly, there are 3 grinds of semolina: fine, medium, and coarse. These are the gritty semolina, not the durum flour.
I just baked a small loaf of 100% semolina (except for the white bread flour starter), Deep brand, from Patel. I'm not sure, but I think it is finer than Bob's Red Mill No. 1 Semolina.
The grittiness totally went away a few minutes after mixing. It was "dough" early on.
It seems to go well with whole chia seed. The chia was not soaked prior to adding it to the dough. The chia adds a texture like poppy seed.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66452/24th-bake11232020-semolina-chia
Nice bake Dave, it looks good with the chia seeds in the crumb. I got a bag of Bob's Red Mill No 1 Semolina for the sake of comparison, and it is much finer than the brand I used for this bake. Cheers