February 14, 2009 - 7:02pm
Do you have a recipe for Walnut Raisin Sourdough? Ace Bakery, Toronto ON
I used to live in Toronto and ate this great bread all the time at ACE Bakery. I am now happily living in a remote-ish area in BC and can't get this raisin walnut bread anymore. I called them to see if they'd share the recipe but they said no.
If you have a great recipe for this bread please pass it along. The crust was very crispy, the bread itself had a tight-ish crumb and was nice and chewy. It was not sweet, save for the raisins, and had no cinnamon.
Ingredients: Unbleached white flour, water, sourdough starter (water, unbleached white flour, stone-ground whole wheat flour), walnuts, raisins, stpne-ground whole wheat flour, salt.
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What you describe sounds like a basic pain au levain with just walnuts and raisins added. I don't have that exact recipe from that bakery, but if you want to try a similar-sounding recipe, take a look at the cherry pecan pain au levain here, it is based on Dan Leader's walnut raisin pain au levain just with pecans and dried cherries substuted for the walnuts and raisins. So if you want to make this as a walnut raisin version, just use the same amount of walnuts as pecans, and raisins as dried cherries, otherwise the dough is prepared exactly the same. (As an update to that blog post, only soak the dried fruit for about 2 hours rather than overnight.)
Good luck and let us know how it comes out whichever recipe you try. --MD
Hi Mountaindog,
you are very perceptive, it is like a pain au levain with additions. I am making Ortiz' version from Baking with Julia and it is turning out fabulous, unlike my other sourdoughs with liquidy starters.
Does Dan Leader have a recipe in either of his books? I am ordering some soon through interlibrary loan soon and could get one.
Are there other books anyone could recommend that use more firm starters than liquid?
Thanks!
Hi Celestica,
Leader's Local Breads (which, unfortunately, has a lot of recipe errors and is need of better editing) has a recipe for raisin walnut levain (p. 93) as a variation of his pain de campagne recipe on p. 90. It uses a liquid starter, but you can create the levain build from a firm starter if you adjust the hydration in the final dough accordingly.
A great bread book that uses firm starters a lot is Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer. The Columbia Sourdough and Thom Leonard Country French, both in that book, are still my favorite SD recipes of all. In fact, my cherry pecan bread is simply my version of the Thom Leonard with the toasted chopped nuts and dried fruit added. I like to use about 25% whole wheat flour and another 3% rye flour along with all-purpose in this recipe.
A while back, I made Wild Bread with Walnuts and Raisins based on "Country Bread with Walnuts and Raisins" in Beth's Basic Bread Book by Beth Hensperger. It was really good. I don't know if it's like the Ace bread (haven't had that particular Ace bakery bread) It does call for rye flour but I would think that if you substituted whole wheat flour for the rye flour, the bread would still turn out very well.
-Elizabeth