Falafel bread

If you think about it, the spicing used in falafels (cumin & coriander, garlic, cardamom...) is like a recipe for a bread spice. The thing is though, how would you put a falafel into a bread. Home made falafel mixture, with freshly minced chickpeas, fava beans or lentils? Even better still why not use a box mix which has already been dehydrated and they've done part of the work for you already!

There's a really pretty falafel mix that I've been buying lately that has the potential to be really pretty in bread - the 'crazy' blend with beetroot and poppy seed. A bit like putting falafel in bread - crazy. This is my second try with it, and I do know that if you don't mix it in super well you could potentially get pretty patterns from the included beetroot. But, the first time I tried this mix I also had home-made humus in the bread and although tasty (and pretty) it didn't come out as open as I would have liked this.

This time around, I used the falafel mix in the main dough (in the saltolyse, or should I say falafelyse), and this had the benefit of creating a stronger dough with a less gritty texture to the final bread. Alas however, the beetroot effect was largely lost and all I got was a general pink and yellow ethereal glow to the loaves rather than the pretty patterns from my first go at it. Some VWG was added to the dough to compensate for the falafel mix, and who doesn't like their bread bouncy?

Was it worth it? It certainly made a very interesting bread. Obviously, great with humus. Obviously! These 'bread spices' brought in some wonderful flavours, and especially with a cheese and tomato sandwich I had some great taste moments. Might reduce the salt a touch on the next bread as it was a little salty.

Method was as follows:

    50m saltolyse, complete with salt and falafel mix

    Added levain using the dough hook for 2 minutes only.  Completed this with 35 slap and folds

    30 minutes later added bassinage of 50g of water that had been held back, bringing total water to 600g. Also added 4g of leftover falafel mix here.

    20 minutes later bench fold to close the dough up

    At 4 hours 45 min after adding levain pre-shaped into rounds

    20 minutes later final shape

    20 minutes later into fridge

    (next day, 16 hours later) baked the first bread - 230C with steam for 20 min, then 200C without steam. Second bread had an hour in the proofer extra time whilst the first one baked