Sourdough Carrot Cake and Carrot Cake Sourdough Bread - no, I did NOT put cake in the bread dough

I had a big bag of carrots (I just should not go to Costco unsupervised), a 3lb block of cream cheese (did I mention I was at Costco?), and a life time supply of raisins and pecans (they seem so reasonablely portioned at the store!). No more costco trips for me! Well, until probably next week. :P

To consume all that ingredients, first, there's this sourdough carrot cake I have been wanting to make for a while. Recipe is from KAF.

When putting together the ingredients, I discovered that I only had one egg (of all things I bought at Costco, I forgot to buy eggs, ugh), so I only made one third of the recipe, in a 6X6 squre tin. Used raisins and pecans instead of pineapple and walnuts. Very moist and delicious cake.

The extra nuts in the icing was delicious. I did cut down the sugar, used only 1/2 of what's called in the recipe, I think I can use even less next time.

A good way to use up leftover starter, as well as any impulse buys at Costco. :P

---------------------Then there comes bread--------------------

Having thoroughly enjoyed the carrot cake, I decided to make a sourdough bread, using the same ingredients as the cake. There will be LOTS of shredded carrots in the dough, with a cream cheese filling. I want the bread to be soft and airy, like a good roll, or an Asian style soft sandwich bread, so raisins and pecans would be added to the filling, not the dough, in order to keep the smooth soft texture. For a total out of no where experiment, they turned out great!

Made 7 rolls as above, as well as a mini sandwich bread

Both the sandwich bread and rolls had perfectly soft texture

The bread part is slightly sweet from LOTS OF shredded carrots, matched perfectly with the filling. Not too sweet, just enough to make this a nice breakfast roll or a snack. Sourdough brings a slight tanginess, which we love, especially in a sweet, relatively rich bread. The golden color is just lovely, and it's so "shreddy" soft.

Carrot Cake Sourdough (my crazy creation)

Note: The following recipe as written has 200g flour in total (including what's in the starter), enough for 6 to 7 3.5inch rolls. I actually made more dough than what the recipe specified, for the mini sandwich loaf, I used mini loaf pans (5-3/4" x 3-1/4" x 2-1/4"), each would need 90g of total flour(in addition to the 200g in the recipe). If you use a standard 8X4 sandwich loaf pan, I think you need about 270g of flour for each pan.

-levain

milk, 17g

bread flour, 33g

starter (100%), 11g

1. Mix everything into a dough, leave for 12 hours at room temp.

-final dough

levain, from above

bread flour, 162g

butter, 20g, softened

sugar, 20g

salt, 3g

milk, 77g

shredded carrots, 100g

-filling

cream cheese, 113g

corn starch, 19g

sugar, 40g

vanilla essence, 2g

chopped pecan

raisins

2. mix together every except for butter and salt, autolyse for 30min, add salt, knead until dough pull away from the mixer bowl, add butter, mix until passing window pane. Note that with all that carrots, the dough is VERY sticky and wet, so it took a while for it to come together, don't give up, keep kneading. I got  a very strong dough at the end: (Note that I am aiming for a very fine, soft, and even crumb here, which is why I did such intensive kneading. This is the same technique I use for soft Asian style sandwich breads, and enriched breads like brioche. However for lean hearth breads, i don't knead, I S&F. I think different style of breads requires different techniques, depending on what kind of crumb you are after.)

3. Round into a smooth ball and rise at room temp (22C) for 2 hours, S&F at the end, then immediately put in fridge for overnight. By the time I pulled it out of the fridge, it has doubled.Note: there were questions regarding why dough would always be stuck to the bowl during bulk rise, no matter how well the container is oiled. I think it has something to do with how well you round the dough before putting in in the container. if the surface is taunt and smooth, even for such a sticky and wet dough, it would not get stuck. Flipped right out.

4. Roll out into a 9X9inch squre, spread cream cheese filling(beat together cream cheese, corn starch, sugar, and vanilla until smooth), then spinkle raisins and pecans.

5. Rolled up like a jelly roll, but into 6 to 7 rolls, each about 1.5inch thick. Here I put them in some 3.5inch paper molds, but you can certainly bake them directly in a pan.

6. Leave to rise until double(when I lightly press it, it barely springs back), being pure sourdough, it took 6.5 hours at 22C. Which was perfect, since I needed to be away for that time, came back in time to bake them! Note that I usually proof rolls longer than sandwich breads since too much ovenspring would destroy the shape, if you make filled sandwich bread with this dough, you might want to proof less.

7. Bake at 350F for 25 to 30min until golden. The mini loaves took 35min. I am guessing a standard loaf would take 45 to 50min. It's a very moist dough, needs to be baked longer.

This truely a pretty and delicious bread, even if you don't have sourdough, you can easily convert the recipe to use dry yeast. The result would be slightly less flavorful than the sourdough version, but still yummy.

Still have a lot of carrots left, I am considering to make a German style rye bread with seeds and carrots, like this one. Anyone here have a favorite recipe to recommend?

Sending this to Yeastspotting.