Lavender&Honey Levain with Salt Crusted Crust.
The other day I noticed that the lavender bush in fornt of my house was blooming, so I figured hey why the heck not. the day before baking I mixed 5g of chef with 5g rye 35g bf and 40g cold water. I let this ferment for around 12 hours then 100g bf and 100g warm water to 50g of the elaborated chef, I let this ferment for around five or six hours then added it to my flour and water and autolysed for around an hour, then i added my lavender buds and honey and proceeded with slap and folds until the dough was properly developed., I then bulk fermented for two or so more hours, shaped and rolled the loaf in a mixture of very corsely ground Himalayan salt and blue cornmeal then proofed it for another two hours. then I baked it on the shy side of an hour at 450 then flipped it out of the pan and browned it up for another few minutes... hot dang it smells so darn good and the salt on the crust really goes well with what could otherwise be a pretty overwhelming flavor.
- 441g BF
- 29g Rye
- 30g AP
- 175g Levain
- 47g Raw Honey
- 11g Fresh Lavender
- 11g Salt
- Corse Salt&Blue Cornmeal for rolling.
Comments
Oooo... that sounds amazing! Would you mind if I featured it on the homepage for a bit? It seems highly inspirational.
Thanks!
it sure is good, strong but good, I'm thinking about what will go well with it.
Very nice. You have more courage than I using lavender in a loaf. How is it?
Josh
its dang good, very pungent and the salt is a great compliment to the lavender/honey
Goat cheese, a sharp type.
I'll bet this smelled amazing while it was baking.
the whole house smelled like some sort of herb shop, like an herb shop in a bakery.
worked great in this SD bread. Love this loaf. Lucy did a French Country Herbs de Provence loaf once but the lavender ddn't really come though very much with all the other herbs. An original - Well done and
Happy baking WS
the lavender sure came through on this baby. hot damn.
Awesome man! Looks great, even though Lavender is not my fav herb. I would toast a slice, smear a little lightly sweetened cream cheese and top with fresh berries. Maybe a drizzle of honey too. Do it.
that would of been crazy tasty, good idea. Maybe next time.
very interesting. Honey would be my favorite with it.
I never used fresh lavender in bread, only dried in Lavender Rolls.
Karin
Those loaves of yers look great.
soon I'l be taking a crack at your knight loaf challenge. I got some ideas brewing.
:)
Karin
What a beautiful loaf. Love the idea of the cornmeal and salt crust. Nice photo too!
Ian
I was talking about pastry flavor profiles and couldn't think of any way to impart a salty taste to bread without it being to the detriment of everything else good, so I just rolled the loaf in some, and that combined with the cornmeal sure made the crust look nice, and added the salty bite i was after.
Dear WoodenSpoon, love the look of this bread and also i think that taste is very nice and would love to try it, but i find this recipe not very precise. The measures in text part and down on the list do not match, and i don't understand the procedure of making. Also, i would love to know how did you get this square shape of bread, it looks really god.
If you can write this recipe little more precise, it would be great.
Thanks forwards!
the numbers in the text part are the weights of the flours and water that I used to build up my sourdough starter to get it ready for baking (down below I called this elaborated culture the levain), the numbers down below are the weights of ingredients for the final dough. I got the shape of the loaf by baking it in a pullman pan, check it out
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TO3CN8/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B002UNMZPI&pf_rd_m=A...
Any part of the process in particular I could re word or explain differently for you?
Thanks a lot, now the things are much clearer :)
Just this second sentence in text: I let this ferment for around 12 hours then 100g bf and 100g warm water to 50g of the elaborated chef. Is this 50g of elaborated chef the mass from the first sentence or should i add new chef?
50g of elaborated chef is the mass from the first sentence, though not all of it, I use some of remainder to perpetuate my culture. the 100g bread flour and 100g water are the final elaborations to the culture, building it up to what I will bake with.
Just tried it, bread is amazing ! Just didn't have with what to cover it, but anyway it turned out beautiful.
that looks great
Beautiful loaf and a nice bold bake! Very inspiring combination!
What flavor! Thanks!
Limmited, and that looks real nice James, I'm digging the free standing versions of this loaf. makes me think about revisiting it and baking it on a stone as opposed to in the pan.
Great bread, I love everything about it!
Cheers!
This looks very interesting, very tasty. Was it baked in pullman loaf pan?
Just about every plant I know is treated with some sort of chemical fertilizer like Miracle Grow. How dangerous is it to use plants that are treated with chemical fertilizers or should I buy lavender from somewhere that sells naturally grown plants? Is there such a thing these days?
-Pete
So this sounds good, but after reading over it dozens of times and trying to figure it out, it's still very confusing. Unless everybody else commenting is a really experienced baker and can figure details out from their own past knowledge or clues in the recipe that an inexperienced baker wouldn't necessarily get, I don't understand how some commenters made the final recipe, without some crucial knowledge?
This is the part that keeps tripping me up: "let this ferment for around five or six hours then added it to my flour and water and autolysed for around an hour"
Specifically, what "flour and water" is this added to, and how much? I don't see it listed in the ingredients, except for the flour. And even then, what amount of flour, and which flours is this ferment added to along with the water? Very confused here, if somebody can provide some help, it'd be appreciated.
What was the crust like? Crunchy or thin?
Also... wanting to know if you have a method of making the salt stick to the outside?
What is hydration %use in the recipe, as the water content is not mentioned in the recipe or did I missed out?
So this inspired me and I made my version. Full post includes the hydration levels and a recipe calculator.