Purple Barley and Walnut Sourdough
This was an experiment with walnuts and some purple barley that I had on hand. I modified my everyday loaf to incorporate the nuts and soaked barley during lamination (after an initial 2 S&Fs). Although I nearly let the fermentation get away from me while busy cooking dinner last night, I'm happy with the crumb all things considered, not the least of which was the weight of the walnuts. The areas of the crumb that have more purple are actually from the barley and not the walnuts (since those got toasted first). The flavor is really nice and the crumb is quite delicate and soft. The barley compliments the walnut flavor very well. I will probably up the honey in this by 10 g or so next time, but, all in all, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. This should make some awesome toast or would be great with some cheese. The inside looks lots better than the outside--I decided to go with a natural 'score' and let the loaf do what it wanted (baked seam side up) but the results were not pretty, which the bold bake did not improve...one of the homelier loaves I've ever made, so it gets bottom billing ;-)
Comments
That is so cool. Love the playing with colours and nut inclusions inside. I certainly appreciate the aesthetic sense of TFLrs.
Nuts look well-integrated. Must be tasty toast... nutty, crunchy... some grassfed butter on there...
Thank you HC! I wasn't sure what to expect with this one but I am quite happy with the results. I had some toasted this morning for breakfast and the barley and walnut flavors really shine and the crust was crunchy and surprisingly more delicate than I was expecting! Yep, totally agree on the butter...added some raw honey too. Thanks for the kind comments!
Have to say that the crumb is stunning and makes up for any shortcoming of the outside of the loaf, which I actually don’t mind at all. I love the organic look of how the loaf opened up. One of these days I’ll have to try that myself, but I enjoy scoring so much it is hard to leave it up to the bread to decide on its own. Beautiful bread Leigh.
Benny
Thanks for the kind comments, Benny! The crumb is springy, soft and moist...I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Thanks too for the generous comments on the appearance of the loaf. I actually forgot to put it in the banneton the right way up (for the natural score to happen in the morning) as I am so in the habit of doing it the 'normal' way, so I had to tip it out gently and put it back in, seam side down. So, I was double happy how it turned out given the rough handling it received. Maybe that had something to do with the looks. I'll certainly try the natural score again as it didn't seem to be detrimental to the crumb in this instance.
I agree with Benny. Function before form, and that crumb looks fantastic. Also a fan of the natural look.
Is the barley a flour or hulled barley (not familiar with purple barley)? Did you use a soaker for the barley and walnuts?
Thanks H for the generous comments...much appreciated! The purple barley that I used was hulled berries, so I soaked them overnight and then brought them to boil in the morning, leaving to soak in that water for several hours, but they could be cooked longer to whatever 'al dente' preference of course. I like them chewy and didn't want them to just disappear in the bread, so they add their own element of 'nuttiness' to the loaf. The walnuts were just lightly toasted in the oven before use. I did not soak them at all before laminating in. I found the purple barley at Vitacost and have also used it for breakfast grain bowls or with roasted veggies...also quite tasty. Thanks again!
Do you keep your boil water? I saved mine from boiling my sprouted rye berries and put it in a jar. I was thinking it might be interesting to use in place of water in a bake.
Great question! I wondered about using it as a portion of my water but was concerned about some of the possible unknown effects it might have...not sure what kind of enzymes may have still been hanging around in the water. This might be a great question on the general forum in case others have experience with using it and could provide some wisdom.
This is a really nice looking loaf! What percent was the barley?
Hey John! It's funny, but your other post got me thinking about my previous barley bake, and I was actually in the process of finding this link for you when I saw your comment! Well, I had to grab my little notebook that I keep for most bakes to see what I had done here and apparently either lost my sticky note or did not actually write this one down. But, I'm pretty confident in the barley amount listed below because I remember starting with half a cup, which is about 100 g.
My 'everyday loaf' (that I tweaked and used here) is 320 g bread flour / 80 g WW flour / 306 g water / 80 g refreshed WW/rye/AP starter / 8 g salt. I think I added approximately 75 g toasted walnuts and approximately 100 g of the soaked and drained barley (but on any given day, when I'm doing inclusions, I may add or subtract a bit here and there during lamination based on eyeball calculations). I also added about 20 g of honey which I would up to at least 30 next time because I didn't get that little hint of sweet I was looking for with this bake. So, about 20% for the barley inclusion (if my math is correct).
I hope this helps! Now I want to bake another barley loaf ;-)
Thank you for looking this up! I decided to make a barley loaf kind of spur of the moment starting yesterday, and it just so happened that I used almost the exact measurements you list here (minus walnuts, though that they sound good)! I'm hoping it comes out well. The first time I made a loaf with barley porridge, I was stirring the porridge while trying to keep up with a conversation and ended up burning it a bit and stirring in the fond. I think this was maybe responsible for some of the great flavor, so I intentionally allowed it to burn/brown a bit this time.