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The 4th is a big family gathering every year for my wife, and all of her siblings come back to town.  One of the first items on the list is getting nisu from one of the local bakeries.  Decided to try my hand at braiding and making my first one.

Followed the recipe in the comments of this thread, but adapted it to two loaves. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4168/finnish-nisu-aka-pulla 

This is a version of a bread I previously baked in January. I added some whole wheat in place of some of the AP flour in the original version.

I was very happy with how this one came out. The flavor was nutty with a nice moist open crumb. This was a perfect bread for grilling with some good olive oil brushed on and some melted cheese.

I really like the way the scoring came out as well :).

Sometimes things don’t work as planned, so it is good to have a plan B just in case.  Having a pullman pan lined with parchment or a focaccia tray ready is always a good idea if your dough doesn’t seem to be developing the way it should during bulk.  That is what happened today to this dough, it just seemed much wetter and looser than I recall when I made this recipe a year ago.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t measure incorrectly so I wonder if the flours have just absorbed quite a bit of the moisture from the air lately as it has been humid.

To learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS), please see here and here. 

This is very loosely based on the recipe from Modernist Cuisine. I found myself searching for variations and I was pleasantly surprised to find a few solid contenders, including a great looking Chocolate Sourdough Noir on the Clever Carrot website. One of the websites copied Modernists recipe, almost getting it right except for one pretty major goof. Instead of 1/8 tsp of active dry yeast, the writer listed 8 grams - a heaping tsp. And dummy that I am, that was the recipe I used.

As I mentioned in comments over the last few days a couple of times, I was making a CLAS starter. In case some people missed Yippee's posts about it, CLAS stands for "concentrated lactic acid sourdough", and it's just like a regular starter - except it doesn't have yeast, only LABs. I made it using whole rye flour, diastatic malt powder, a little vinegar, water by inubating at ~40°C, where LABs are happy, but yeast are suppressed. Vinegar creates a low pH to prevent growth of unwanted bacteria. Access to oxygen is also restricted with the same purpose.

Dear Kristida:  The ingredients look wonderful.  What is the rest of the recipe?  thanks, Lee

Made 2 versions of molasses bread before making others this last 2 weeks or so. One with toasted walnuts and one with drunken raisins - accidentally soaked the raisins in whiskey instead of rum, resulting in puffy, pretty strong tasting drunken raisins. Must make mistakes like this more often!

Molasses Bread
Makes 1 loaf
160°C/180°C 40 - 50 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 88-95°C