Two Lovely Loaves

It is so rewarding knowing of flour, water and salt could make such beautiful bread.  It is light with crisps crust and soft crumb and a touch of tangy flavour. Delicious.
Serve the bread as you fancy, have a toast spread with butter and any topping that you love. Or as open sandwiches, I had it with smoked salmon and sliced pickled cucumber, and that was yum.

I am baking fancy sourdough bread with cashew and papaya, a touch of Asian flavour, you may like it and try to bake simply follow the recipe.  Of course, you have to have the sourdough starter, but if you have no time to prepare the sourdough starter, use commercial yeast instead.

These are the preparation for the sourdough bread.

The Night Before make the leaven.

11 pm
Leaven
1 table mature wild yeast sourdough starter
70 g white plain flour
70 m water

The Dough
600 g plain flour
475 m water
19g salt

Nuts and Dried Fruits Added

Cashew nuts, and dried papaya









8.30 am
In the morning

Mix the leaven mixture with flour and  425m water (reserve the 50 gr for later), autolyse for 35 minutes to 4 hours.  The dough is shaggy and soft










12.45pm

The dough is spreading by now and very soft, add the salt which is already dissolved in the 50 mils water.  Mix with hands until the dough become taut, you could fill it with your hands.  Now you could fold and pull to do bulk fermentation.    In the past, I was happy enough to do bulk fermentation by folding and pulling, but this time, I will try the new technique slap and fold. It should be more fun.




The timetable for the bulk fermentation.
Bulk fermentation
12.50
13.20
13.50
14.20
14.50

12.50
Slap and fold the dough until the dough become more relaxed, Grab the dough with both of your hands, lift it and slap and pull, let it fold on itself.

2.20
Add the fruits and nut at the fourth turns, and continue to do slap and fold but do it gently.

Fold gently to the dough

Add the mixed fruits and nuts.

The last fold is very gentle, and let it have a bench rest for 60 minutes.

After the bench rest, the first shaping.  Put the dough on a floured bench, and cut into two, shape into two small rounds do not work too hard otherwise you will lose all these air bubbles.
Leave to rest for 16 minutes I cover the two pieces of dough with bowls.



The final shaping, I have one small round a 'Boule' and a Batard.




Place them on the floured basket, let them proof for 2 hours, cover with plastic and transfer to the fridge to retard proofing, bake in the morning.  Straight to go to the hot oven.

Freshly Baked

Cooling the Bread

It worked out not what I was expected, the loaf has a funny shape, it is lightly slanting instead of puffed up high.  The taste was ok, the texture was good enough.  This Asian flavour, the bread with cashew nuts and papaya was shared to give a little taste to friends, and some of them I made delicious bread pudding.

That was the story of two lovely loaves, they could be lovelier though, but maybe next time.


Until Next Post
Susy