The Fresh Loaf

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feeling skeptical

tomsgirl's picture
tomsgirl

feeling skeptical

So I see so many people "adapting" there own ideas and changing things a bit to a recipe to make it their own. One of my favorite all white flour sourdough recipe is  I have always had great success with this recipe. http://www.northwestsourdough.com/techniques/baking/I have made it several times. I made rolls for Christmas dinner that turned out great. After reading Theressa's blog I found a recipe that she had added some candies walnuts to this same recipe. I decided that I wanted to try it but add some raisins that I already had soaking as well. As I was getting the walnuts prepared I was thinking about different flours and thought that a bit of whole wheat and oat flour would maybe be nice? So on a whim I went for it it's just flour right. This what I did ( you can veiw the orignal recipe following the link)

I keep my starter at 100% hydration

384g Starter

524g Water

300g Oat flour

100g WW Flour

535g Bread Flour

8g Honey

6g Melted Butter

22g Kosher Salt

Soaked Raisins and Candies Walnuts ( http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/candied-walnut-recipe )

I bulk fermented overnight ( 2 stretch and pulls) pulled it out this morning let sit for an hour and then shaped. I added my walnuts this morning before shaping. It's proofing as I type. The dough seems a bit dryer maybe. Wondering if I should have added a touch more liquid but thought that the soaked raisins would help out a bit?  It was tearing a bit around the rasisns while shaping. The smell is wonderful. I'm feeling skeptical...

I will post some pictures later today regardless of the turn out but I am feeling like I am about to bake some bricks. What would you have done differently?

 

clazar123's picture
clazar123

The overnight bulk fermentation will definitely help the flours absorb what they can but the hydration seems a little low. Oat flour really sucks up the liquids!

thomaschacon's picture
thomaschacon (not verified)

...to go to the market. :)

I wouldn't worry too much about your changes; but, yes, nuts, oats, and dehydrated grapes tend to absorb a lot of liquid.

If there's one way to ruin a loaf, it's by increasing nuts and dried fruit without adjusting hydration.

I ruined 4 loaves of a very simple bread (Reinhart's Cinnamon Raisin Bread) a month or so ago by adding too much nuts and raisins. What a nightmare that was! Alas, it was saved by its use in bread pudding: There's nothing like bread pudding (or hungry birds outside) to make one less sorry for ruining a bunch of bread.

If these loaves don't work out, just take notes and try again. A failure is really a failure if you don't come out of it with something learned. And now I'm sounding like a pedagogue. 

Time for coffee.

tomsgirl's picture
tomsgirl

This is loaf number one. I think it's under proofed and as you can see Blow Outs!

 

Loaf number Two. Had more oven spring in this loaf blow outs not as bad as loaf one.

 

Side by side you can see the difference in oven spring

And here is the crumb shot. This is of loaf one with not so much oven spring. The loaf itself feels heavy but kinda springy. It is very moist could have baked a bit longer also it's still very slightly warm. The taste is very good. Lightly sweet with a bit of cinnamon from the nuts. It's dense but not as dense as I thought it was going to be. Two of those slices in that photo are now resting nicely in my belly. Tasted great with my coffee.

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