Cranberry, poppy seed and grapefruit kamut sourdough

Today we had a first in-person lab meeting at work since the beginning of the pandemic, and I wanted to bring a loaf of bread to share with my colleagues. Usually we would have something sweet, like cake, at these meetings, so I wanted a flavourful bread on the sweeter side, that would also not require butter or any other topping, to enjoy. So I improvised with the ingredients (almost wrote "reagents") that I had: I selected dried cranberries, poppy seeds and grapefruit zest. I also added a little honey to the mix for a little additional sweetness.

For the whole grain component I used some Kamut flour, since it's not too wheaty in flavour, and a little nutty, and I thought that would go well with this mix. But I am sure other grains would work very well too. Maybe even a little whole rye would be great.

Here is the formula: https://fgbc.dk/129c

I used leftovers of the stiff starter I was using for the ciabatta CB, and while it had been in the fridge for a while, it doubled in the late morning after a generous overnight feed, so I decided it was fine (and I didn't have any other starter ready to use, anyway).

After a 30 min fermentolyse with most of the water, I mixed in the salt with honey and all inclusions, and kneaded for just a minute or two (slap&folds caused some cranberries to fly away, so I just did some traditional kneading). Then I decided to up the hydration from 70% to 75% after a 30 min rest, and so added the last 40 g of water in the formula above. I I bulked the dough for 5.5 hours with 3 sets of stretch&folds every 30 min in the beginning. The dough didn't seem too active with only mild signs of fermentation. Still, I went ahead and divided/preshaped and shape the dough, and let it proof by the window to slow it down a little - I needed the oven to cook dinner, and wanted to bake after that. And to my surprise after a 2-3 hour proof the future loafs expanded nicely, and were ready for baking. Baked on steel at 240C for 25 min with steam, and then around 15 min without. All the added sugar must have helped caramelization a lot, and the crust went dark much quicker than I am used to, but I love the final colour.

I brought the batard to work and didn't manage to take a good picture of the crumb, but I thought it looked even better than the boule:

And the flavour is great, very complex and tasty. No acidity that I can detect (although the starter from the fridge smelled mighty sour). Cranberries are delicious with the poppy seeds, and the grapefruit comes through surprisingly well. Crispy crust and slightly moist crumb.