II - WW Sourdough Re-Loaded…..and a few more.

As I said in my first blog entry, I made a new WW sourdough for the friend, this time with CORRECT amount of salt. And this is how it came out.

 …..with a better ear…..

I also baked two other breads; cocoa flavoured sourdough with cranberry and walnuts (top right) and my friend’s favourite sourdough (top left).

Today, I’d like to share the recipe for the cocoa sourdough with you.

Cocoa Flavoured Sourdough with Cranberry and Walnut

(For 2 loaves)

Very active S/D (75% hydration)  120g

Strong Flour  300g*(See 'Note1' below)

Plain Flour  150g*(see 'Note1' below)

WW Flour  50g

Instant active dried yeast  1/4tsp

Skimmed Milk Powder  2tbls

Cocoa powder  25-30g

Salt 9g

Clear honey  1tbls (or more if you like it sweeter)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil  1 1/2 tbls

Water (Filtered or bottled)  370 - 380g

Filling … Dried cranberry and walnuts *(See 'Note2' below)  total 120 – 150g 

1. Feed S/D twice during 8-12hrs period before you plan to use it.
2. Mix flours, skimmed milk, cocoa, dried yeast and salt in a large bowl.
3. Put S/D, water, honey and olive oil in a separate bowl and mix to loosen S/D.
4. Pour S/D water mix onto the bowl of flours and mix until no dried bits is left. (Cocoa powder seems to have a tendency to stiffen the dough, so you may want to add a little more water)  Cover and rest for 30-40 minutes.
5. Stretch and Fold in a bowl for 3 times at 45 minutes intervals.
6. Bulk ferment overnight (or 10-16 hrs) in a fridge.
7. Take the dough out of the fridge and leave for 30 minute-1 hr to bring it back to room temperature.
8. Take the dough out onto a worktop and spread into a large rectangle.
9. Sprinkle 2/3 of cranberries and walnuts (broken into small pieces) onto 2/3 of the surface of the dough. Letter-fold the dough, the part without the filling first. Sprinkle the rest of the filling onto 2/3 of the folded surface of the dough, again, the part without the filling first. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.
10. Divide the dough into two and pre-shape. Rest for 15-20minutes.
11. Shape and put in banettons. Final proof.
12. Bake in a pre-heated pot/pyrex casserole with a lid at 240℃ for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, lower the temperature to 210℃ and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Note 1 :  I think US TFLers can use  450g AP flour instead of the combination of strong & plain flours like me.

Note 2 : I usually dry-roast walnuts in a frying pan before I use it to improve the flavour, but it’s optional.

Here’s a close-up pic of the bread.

 I sprinkle quite a generous amount of rice flour into a banetton, as you can guess from this picture. It’s partly to prevent cranberries from staining the banetton and partly to prevent the surface from becoming too dark and sometimes too bitter during baking because of high fat content of cocoa powder.

 This loaf was for the friend so obviously I don’t have the crumb shot, but I made another loaf for ourselves a couple of days ago (of which I forgot to take picture, of course…) and I miraculously remembered this morning to take some pictures of the very last few slices (phew….).

(Excume me for the blurred picture. It was very early in the morning...)

This bread has a really lovely deep flavour thanks to cocoa powder and, of course, you can enjoy many variations by changing the fillings;  another friend's children love chocolate chips (milk chocolate for them) in it while their mum likes only with walnuts.  White chocolate works very well to contrast the not-sweet-cocoa-flavoured crumb, and a combination of dark chocolate chips and almond is rather good, too.  In other words, the world is your oyster, you mix-in whatever filling you fancy! :)

Will post the recipe for the other bread (the friend's favourite sourdough) in a few days time.

Happy Baking!....with correct amount of ingredients.:p

lumos