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San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Dried Sour Cherries

March 12, 2013

On March 3, 2013, I blogged about the San Francisco-style bread with Walnuts and Figs I had baked. More recently, SallyBR tried that formula, substituting dates for the figs and found it to be very good. Today, I baked another version this time substituting dried sour cherries for the figs. The formula was otherwise the same. The procedures were different only in my treatment of the levain which was adapted to my scheduling needs.

1. Dissolve the starter in the water. Add the flour and mix thoroughly until the flour has been completely incorporated and moistened.

2. Ferment at room temperature for 6 hours.

3. Refrigerate overnight.

Method

1. In a stand mixer, mix the flour and water at low speed until it forms a shaggy mass.

2. Cover and autolyse for 30 minutes

3. Coarsely chop or break apart the walnut pieces and toast them for 8 minutes in a 300ºF oven. Allow to cool.

4. Add the salt and levain to the autolyse, and mix at low speed for 1-2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium (Speed 2 on a KitchenAid) and mix for 5 minutes. Add flour and water as needed. The dough should clean the sides of the bowl but not the bottom.

5. Add the walnuts and the cherries to the dough and mix at low speed until well-distributed in the dough. (About 2 minutes)

6. Transfer to a lightly floured board, do a stretch and fold, and form a ball.

7. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly.

8. Ferment at 76º F for 2 1/2 to 3 hours with a stretch and fold at 50 and 100 minutes.

9. Divide the dough into two equal pieces.

10. Pre-shape as rounds and rest, covered, for 10 minutes.

11. Shape as boules or bâtards and place in bannetons. Place bannetons in plastic bags.

12. Proof at room temperature (68-70º F) for 1-2 hours.

13. Cold retard the loaves overnight.

14. The next morning, proof the loaves at 85º F for 2-3 hours.

15. 45-60 minutes before baking, pre-heat the oven to 480º F with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

16. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score the loaves as desired, turn down the oven to 460º F, steam the oven, and transfer the loaves to the baking stone.

17. After 15 minutes, remove the steaming apparatus, and turn down the oven to 435º F/Convection. (If you don't have a convection oven, leave the temperature at 460º F.)

18. Bake for another 15 minutes.

19. Turn off the oven, and leave the loaves on the stone, with the oven door ajar, for another 15 minutes.

20. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack, and cool thoroughly before slicing.

    

    

    

The crust was crunchy, and the crumb was chewy. The bread is moderately tangy. It is delicious with bursts of tartness when you bite into a cherry. This is a very good bread. Personally, I prefer the version with figs, but your taste my be different.  My wife likes the cherry version better, but she says, "I like them both. Yummmm..." My recommendation: Try both. 

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

No not a publishing company, or a fancy new German housewares line - just a humble cobbler's loaf and miller's miche.  

Continuing on with trying to absorb the King Arthur rye class I took a few weeks ago, I decided to  make a Schuster Laib, or cobbler's loaf.   Mr. Hamelman explained that this upside down rye loaf was probably originally some apprentice baker's error and so the head baker called it a cobbler's loaf, because for some reason, calling someone a cobbler was a big insult.   Now of course, cobbler's loaves are made on purpose, and I've always gasped in admiration whenever I saw one.   (Breadsong's version comes to mind.)       At our class, while we were making the 80% rye loaves with rye soaker in Pullman pans, Mr. Hamelman quietly put one of these together.    So this time, I made an 80% rye loaf as a free standing upside down hearth loaf.  

At the class we had to sign (at least in our minds) an affidavit promising not to cut into the 80% loaves for 24 hours.    So I can't get a look inside just yet, as it's only been around 4.   

Update:   So I had a few people over this morning and served the bread (they were expecting maybe coffee cake?)   and they liked it, so I hacked it up to give them some to take home, almost forgetting that I owed a crumb shot.   Fortunately there was a little bit left.  

The flavor was very intense - that rye sour smell that I've been talking about transformed to taste.    As much flavor as you'll ever get from flour and water.     

So as not to have a day go by without bread, I decided to make a second loaf today.   My home-milled flour has been getting cranky, as I make one rye loaf after another, so I decided to pull it out of the closet and take it for a spin.    Loaf two is a miller's miche, so called because I used my home milled and sifted flour for the final dough, and sprinkled the whole loaf with the sifted and remilled bran. 

The dough was so sticky when I flipped it out of the basket using my hand to steady it onto the peel, that it stuck to my hand, and I had to scrape it off and pat the loaf back together, so I was expecting a disaster.   It recovered quite nicely in the oven, though, and is happily edible by humans. 

The rye loaf was made with my new twice daily fed rye sour, and the miller's loaf was made with twice daily fed white starter.    For today's bake, I finally got the smell that I remembered from the rye sour at King Arthur, although much less overpowering, as much smaller quantity.    My wheat starter seems happier and more active as well, so I'm happy with the new regimen.  

I used the exact formula from the class for the 80% rye, but modified process a bit to suit my baking conditions.    I will list what I did rather than Mr. Hamelmans precise instructions.

Formulas and methods:

Schuster's Laib

Miller’s Miche

There are times when I stare at my pantry and decide to be creative and use leftover flours in bread, this is one of those times.

I had some Whole spelt flour, and Whole wheat flour, and therefore decided to use both in a 50% wholegrain sourdough hearth bread. I made up a formula that benefits from my ripe White liquid starter, here it is:

Preferment:

Bread Flour: 188 g

Water: 188 g

White Starter: 1.5 Tbl

Dough:

Whole Wheat Flour: 280 g

Whole Spelt Flour: 120 g

All Purpose Flour: 251 g

Bread Flour: 103 g

Water: 470 g

Salt: 1.25 Tbl

Total dough weight: 1600 g

Total Dough hydration: 75%

Wholegrain %: 42%

% of Prefermented flours: 20%

The dough was not kneaded, instead, folded in the bowl 4 times every 30 minutes. The bread fermented as expected, with 3 hours initial fermentation, and 2.5 hours final. I baked the bread on stone, with a another stone on a rack above. The dough was quite soft, but behaved nicely after the third fold.

The flavor of this bread is clean, yet isn’t sweet-sour as i prefer, and is somewhat bland. The crust was chewy, and crumb moist and tender. In retrospect, I believe that with 42% wholegrain flours, I should have used a levain that contains some wholegrains. The bread was also baked on the same day, and not retarded.  DA, and Ian.. and many others here have come up with lovely tasting formulas because they utilize the wholegrain flours in their levain, thereby enhancing the finished product’s flavor. They also retard their doughs, while I’m unable to do so due to timing constrains. The flavor would have been better enhanced if I had used my white levain with a high proportion white flour, but I can’t resist adding more wholesome flours. This explains a lot, as Hamelman’s wholewheat levain (50% wholewheat) recipe calls for a wholewheat levain NOT white.

Therefore, from now onwards, I’ll add wholegrain flours to my levain for high Wholegrain doughs.  

So I'm about three months into my sourdough "experiment", have my starter (I call him Niles) nicely sour and thriving. Having tried a number of recipes, my biggest problem has been consistency. The nice thing about making bread... one dollar experiments.

In any case, recently I've been managing a high-hydration poolish and have had some nice results. While the recipe calls for using the slap and fold method (did try it, arms fell off), I find that using my kitchenaid for half the process heps a lot and gets me what I'm looking for (pretty much). Slightly less open crumb, but that's ok. Different variations, added up to 100g of wheat flour that makes a nice loaf. I tend to like my bread a little tangy so I augment with some citric acid, which I like.

In any case, consistency. Dough issues, I've had rise issues, over-rising and really determining when the poolish is ready to work with makes a big difference. In this recipe, I started the poolish (1-1-1 ratio by weight) and after about 4hrs began to work with it. No additional yeast added, did the kitchenaid for ten minutes then a couple of tuck and folds. Repeat every ten minutes up to three times and I've got a pretty good gluten structure. Rise 2hrs, tuck and fold again and then rise another hour. 

I want a dutch oven but I'm broke right now, so I got this idea. I use a cast iron skillet,  then steam the oven. What you see here is that product, works amazingly well. The skillet really seems to help with oven spring, it just jumps up. The steam first ten minutes works well, at 425 for 40 minutes this is what I got: