The Fresh Loaf

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Old Cheddar, Pickled Jalapeño and Chives Sourdough

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Old Cheddar, Pickled Jalapeño and Chives Sourdough

Last time I did this one, I used cubed cheese. I thought I’d try it with grated cheese. I also upped the quantities of jalapeños. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Add-ins

55 - 100 g sliced pickled jalapeños (to taste) I put in 80 g

250 g old cheddar cheese, grated

3 g freeze dried chives or 24 g fresh chopped chives

 

Main Dough

100 g freshly milled Selkirk wheat flour 

100 g freshly milled rye flour 

100 g freshly milled Red Fife wheat flour 

775 g unbleached strong bakers flour

750 g filtered water + 75g

20 g Himalayan pink salt

30 g local yogurt

250 g 100% hydration levain (procedure for this is in recipe)

Extra whole grain and unbleached flour to feed the levain

 

The night before:

1. Mill the grains on the finest setting of your mill or measure out commercial whole grain flour of the various grains if you don’t mill your own.

2. Place the required amount of each freshly milled flour in a tub and add the unbleached flour to it. Cover and set aside.

3. Grate the cheddar, add a tablespoon of flour and toss with your fingers to separate the shreds. Place in the fridge overnight.

4. Drain the jalapeños and chop them into smaller pieces. Mince the chives if using fresh, put with the jalapeños in a bowl, and refrigerate overnight.

5. Take 10 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

 

Dough making day:

1. Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 50 g of wholegrain flour as well as 50g of strong baker’s flour. Place in a warm spot. Let rise until doubled (about 5 hours). Take the cheese and the chives/jalapeños out of the fridge to warm up before being used in the dough. 

 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, using a stand mixer, mix the water with the flours, and mix on speed 1 until all the flour has been hydrated. Let this autolyse for a couple of hours.

 

3. Once the autolyse is done, add the jalapeños, the cheese, the chives, the salt, the yogurt, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on speed one for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on speed 2 for 9 minutes. Add the extra water gradually if needed. Mine needed it. 

 

4. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on).

 

5. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 45 minute intervals and then 2 other sets at 30 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise to about 40-50%. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and bubbles on top as well. 

 

6. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~850 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter.

 

7. Do a final shape by flouring the top of the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.

 

8. Sprinkle a mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight.

 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside.

 

2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

 

Be aware that the loaves might stick to the sides of your pots due to the cheese. If it dors, run a thin knife down the sides to break the stuck spots and with the parchment paper on the bottom, the loaves will pop right out.

Comments

Ming's picture
Ming

There are some interesting add in ingredients. Jalapeños is one my favorite ingredients to eat with a baguette and pizza but can't image putting it into the dough. Are these loafs for sale or for your family consumption? Do you have a crumb shot? Sorry I have to ask this question for Benny :)

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I make bread, friends give me a donation and all the money goes to the soup kitchen. Occasionally, I keep a load for ourselves but these are all gone so I’m not sure I can get a crumb shot. 

Ming's picture
Ming

I see. Doing something for a good cause is always good thing to me. Thank you for sharing the info. 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Is the jalapeno pretty hot when baked in the bread ? I would love to try it but don't do so well with too much heat. Looks amazing !

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Boyfriend said it had a nice bite. Not hot but pleasantly spicy. Now he’s from Mexico so it could mean fiery hot for the rest of us! 😂

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

And I hear it’s delicious!

Ming's picture
Ming

That is so cool with the jalapeños embedded in the crumb, and the crumb is very nice. Thank you so much for posting these crumb shots per my request. 

headupinclouds's picture
headupinclouds

That is a savory combination.  You always seem to find new and interesting flavor combinations and your bakes are so consistently good.

Benito's picture
Benito

Beautiful baking Danni, you must be so pleased.

Benny

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I don’t know why some combos turn out so nice and fluffy and others are still nice but much heavier. They all taste good so that’s what’s important. 

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Beautiful loaves again Danni and your timing is impeccable!  I think that's what I'm baking this weekend.  :-)

How did you like the shredded versus cubes, especially for handling/shaping?  When I did my test loaves, I had problems with the sharp edges of the cubes ripping through the surface of the loaf during shaping.  If I'm seeing correctly, it looks like I can see pieces of the shredded cheese in the crumb.  Maybe that's cheese that has melted though.

On a side note...  My test loaves for this bread had really good oven spring too.  Maybe the acidity from the peppers strengthening the dough?  Or some kind of off-gassing that's adding to oven spring?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

spring aside that there is an extra 75g of flour from my usual formula. 
And that is definitely shredded cheese that you see in the crumb. It doesn’t really melt completely in the dough.
The shredded cheese does make the dough easier to handle. That’s partly why I chose shredded this time as opposed to cubes. And the dough didn’t stick to the Dutch ovens so that was a bonus. 

craigalancarr's picture
craigalancarr

I made this last year with the cubed cheese.  Will need to try with the grated cheese.