wild yeast | Bewitching Kitchen

The goal: to make a sourdough bread loaded – and I mean loaded – with nuts, a crumb not as open as my usual loaves, to enjoy with an assortment of cheeses, from French Brie to Italian Gorgonzola, passing by Spain with its awesome Manchego. My starting point was a recipe from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking, adapted to include whole pistachios, and small pieces of walnuts. I wanted the pistachios to be the main textural component in the bread, and the walnuts to impart mainly their flavor throughout the crumb. According to my dear husband, I hit the jackpot with this bread, he absolutely loved it. It reminded us of a bread we used to buy in a street market in Paris on Saturdays, except for the fact that the French version included a lot of sunflower seeds. Now, that’s an interesting idea for a future baking adventure… 😉

PISTACHIO-WALNUT SOURDOUGH BREAD
(from the Bewitching Kitchen)

Levain (you will use only half of it):
1 Tbs firm sourdough starter
45 g warm water
75 g bread flour

Dough:
300 g bread flour
25 g rye flour
25 g whole wheat flour
228 g warm water
8 g salt
80 g walnuts, lightly toasted, in small dice
50 g whole pistachios, roasted

Make the levain by mixing all the ingredients and kneading lightly to form a smooth dough. Keep at room temperature for about 12 hours (it should at least triple in size).

Make the dough by combining the three types of flour with the water. Cover and let the mixture rest for 30 minutes. Add the salt and the levain (half of it only!) and knead a few times until it forms a shaggy mass. Add the nuts and knead briefly to incorporate them. Let it rest for 30 minutes, knead for about 10-20 seconds, and let the dough rest for another 30 minutes. Knead (or fold) a few times, and let the dough rest for 1 hour. Knead (or fold) a few times, and let it rise undisturbed for 2 hours.

Pre-shape the dough as a round ball, let it rest for 15 minutes, then shape it in its final form, placing it in a banetton or another appropriate, well floured container, with the seam side up. Cover and let it rise for 3 hours. Invert the dough on parchment paper, slash the surface, place on a baking stone on a 425 F oven, covered for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake for 15 minutes more, until dark brown and the internal temperature is at least 205 F.

Let the loaf cool over a rack before cutting.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: Making this bread was a labor of love, because I shelled the pistachios myself. My finger tips had quite a workout, so next time I will buy shelled pistachios to make life a little easier, and I advise you to do the same. At any rate, this bread is a nut-lover’s paradise. The pistachios shine like little jewels, and the walnuts become almost sweet during baking. I could not be happier with it, as it turned out exactly as I hoped. Plus, it was another successful performance by our Breville toaster oven!

Who could resist having a second slice? 😉

I am submitting this post to Yeastspotting…

We spent last week in Oklahoma, which gave me the opportunity to bake bread in a normal oven. After some severe brainstorming over the recipe, I settled on a country rye from Tartine, one of my favorite bread books. It calls for a sourdough starter with a 50:50 mixture of white and whole wheat flours, and the dough itself has a small amount of rye. Usually I’d retard the loaf overnight in the fridge (as recommended), but this time I baked it just 3 hours after the final shaping. The oven rise was impressive, the bread almost exploded out of the slashes! It’s a vision that makes me so happy… 😉

COUNTRY RYE
(adapted from Tartine)

For the leaven (8 hours before making the dough):
1 Tbs sourdough starter, very active
140ml water
70g white bread flour
70g whole wheat flour

For the dough:
100g of leaven (save the rest)
400ml water at 75 F
415g bread flour
85g rye flour
10g salt

Pour the water in a large bowl, add the leaven (only 100g of it) and mix to dissolve. Add the two different flours, mix with your hands to form a shaggy mass. Cover and let it sit at room temperature for 40 minutes. Sprinkle the salt on top of the dough and knead to mix it.

Let the dough go through a bulk rise of 3 hours, folding the dough at every 30 minutes. Pre-shape the dough as a ball, let it rest undisturbed for 20 minutes, then shape it in its final round shape, place it in a round container with the seam up for 3 hours (you can also retard the dough in the fridge for 12 to 16 hours).

Bake for 45 minutes in a 450 F oven, with steam during the first 25 minutes. Allow it to completely cool before slicing.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: For the first time I baked this type of bread without weighing the ingredients, because my balance stayed in the nano-kitchen. I was a bit nervous, but I used a conversion table and it worked just fine. The more I bake with wild yeast, the more convinced I am that technique trumps the proportions of ingredients. For example, folding the dough enough times during fermentation, and creating proper surface tension in the final shaping have a huge impact on the final product. My advice is to practice, practice, and practice some more. I still struggle with scoring the bread, never feeling confident with the razor blade in my hand. What bothers me is that the scoring is so… final! Once you slash the surface, you can only hope you did it right. 😉

The crumb was a little less open than that of a bread exclusively made from white flour, and the taste reminded me of a Poilane miche, but less dense. It’s a bread for a ham sandwich, or one with which you can mop up the juices of a hearty pot roast, or perfect to toast and enjoy with a little Brie cheese.