Variation of Pain Normande

I've been wanting to try "Pain Normande" ever since seeing it on SteveB's blog recently. Not only did I want to attempt to replicate his lovely bread, but I also conveniently have a ton of apples that I needed to use up. There are a lot of orchards around where I live so it's easy to come by (free!) great apples and fresh pressed apple cider. So, I threw a bunch of these apples in the dehydrator and got out the cider for this loaf. 

It's funny- I just read dmsnyder's blog about this very bread the day before I planned to bake. I'm glad I did because I took some of his findings/ comments into consideration. I wanted to avoid an "earthy" whole wheat flavor and instead taste more sweet apple taste. I've been baking Susan's Simple Sourdough almost every week and have been tweaking that recipe here and there and wanted to add some type of add-in, now that I have a good foundation for that loaf. Long story short, I basically disregarded the original pain normande formula and instead, made-up one based on Susan's Simple Sourdough. 

Here's what I used:

51g 50% Firm Starter

250g KA Bread Flour

40g Durum Flour

10g White Whole Wheat Flour (freshly ground)

6g Sea Salt

175g Apple Cider

25g Water

1/3 cup chopped, Dried Apples

I used the double hydration technique, mixing starter, and 110g flour (all flours mixed) for 3 minutes. THen added the rest of the flours and mixed in a KA for 3 minutes. 20 min rest, add salt, stretch and fold and incorporate apples. Then I did 3 more sets of S+F's at 30 min intervals. Into brotform and retard overnight. Take out 1 hour before bake and pre-heat oven to 460f. Baked 20 min w/ bowl ("magic bowl") and 25 min uncovered, last 5 min w/ oven door open.

Overall, I think it turned out pretty well. I was a little concerned at first when we cut into it that it was under-baked because it was a little tacky. I think this was caused by 1: not waiting long enough for it to cool (waited one hour, but it could've been more) 2: too much durum flour. If I use this percentage of durum flour again, I would use AP flour instead of bread flour for a little less gluten chew. Or, just use about half the % of durum and more WW flour. 3: The cider- it was really thick, so I think it helped to create a tighter crumb and chewier/dense texture. (i suspect, I don't know.) Anyway, I was very pleased the next day with this bread. It tasted so much better after an overnight sit in a brown paper bag. This bread was really good toasted. So next time, I would let it sit for 1/2 a day or more before cutting into it.

Oh, and as for the scoring- I wish I'd cut all the way around the apple stencil. Ah, next time...