This weekend's breads
This weekend, I baked a couple sourdough baguettes and a bâtard using the mixing and fermentation methods described in the posts about Anis Bouabsa's baguettes. For these breads, I used 90% AP four, 5% WW and 5% rye. Interestingly enough, the flavor of the bâtard seemed much better to me.
These were nice, but the real star attraction was the Cherry Pecan Pain au Levain. I made it according to the formula and method recently posted by mountaindog. (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10313/cherry-pecan-pain-au-levain)
This is a spectacular bread. The flavors are wonderful and, at this point when the first batch is just cooled (well, almost just cooled), the bread dough, the cherries and the pecans each sings its own sweet tune.
This bread would be good with butter, cream cheese or a fresh chevre. In fact, it is pretty darn good just by iteself.
My wife's verdict is: "This is wonderful bread!" Now, she says such things fairly often, but this afternoon, she said it twice, separated by a minute or so. In Susan Speak, this indicates "I want to be certain my judgement has gotten through to you. You will make this bread for me again!" To which I say, Amen!
Happy baking!
David
Comments
...You're rockin! :-)
Hey the weekend isn't even over yet. Those all look great but the cherry loaf is very tempting.
Eric
Make the cherry pecan pain au levain. It's wonderful.
Note that SteveB's version uses a fair amount of rye flour. Maybe I'll try that one next time.
Enough baking for one weekend. We have to work on what's in the freezer. Tonight, it will be panini with roast chicken, sautéed mushrooms, wilted spinach and fresh mozzarella. Can't be bad on SF SD bread.
David
Awesome David, they all are so beautiful, and I'm so glad you liked the cherry pecan! Did you use dried sour cherries? The crusts are beautifully dark.
I'm curious about your baguettes and batard - it was the same dough, correct? Yet the batard tasted different, do you think it has something to do with a difference in how the dough was shaped or handled (i.e. a longer proof time for batard?), or maybe less surface area? I have not yet tried this famous baguette formula, I'll have to read up on it and study Jane's blog of her visit to his boulangerie.
I used dried montmorency (sp?) sour cherries from Trader Joe's. I soaked them in cool water for 1-2 hours, rather than overnight. This seemed sufficient.
I have no idea why the bâtard had a fuller flavor. I formed all the loaves back to back, and they proofed the same time. It might just have been the state of my palate, I suppose.
David
For soaking my raisins I will pour very hot/boiled water over them just enough to cover and let them sit for about 5 minutes and then pour off...probably would work for the cherries soak.
Sylvia
Agree - as I mentioned in my blog, I made a mistake in letting my cherries soak overnight, they got too mushy, your method or David's would be just right.
David
Everything looks delicious.
I'll have my panini on the one with cherries and nuts in it...please! Lovely weekend bake!
Sylvia
Needs roast duck. Mmmmm.
David
Did the cherry recipe make 4 loaves ?? !! . They look so good and I have a 5 lb bag of cherries from my son. I can hardly wait to try. c
The recipe mountaindog posted makes just about 5 lbs of dough. She made 2 free-form bâtards. I wanted to use bannetons to proof the breads and wanted smaller loaves. I divided the dough into 4 equal pieces, each weighing about 1-1/4 lbs.
Now, I'm a crust guy, but with this particular bread, the flavor is in the crumb, so a larger loaf would be a good thing. For me, the issue is how much I need to cut it up before freezing. There are just two of use at home now. Bigger hunks of bread get stale before we finish them.
Let us see yours when you bake them!
David
Each time I note an addition to your blog, David, I know I'm going to see yet another gorgeous culinary creation.
Most of the nation's supply of tart cherries is grown right here in Northern Michigan, so they are pretty common at our markets (our only large airport up here is the Cherry Capital Airport). We even have Plevalean, a combination of ground tart cherries and beef. But the only other cherry bread I've seen is Zingerman's cherry chocolate bread, which they suggest be eaten with ice cream (!).
I think I'm going to have to quit my job and start baking all the breads on my "bake, someday" list.
I generally have good judgement in my choice of what to imitate.
I love chocolate, cherries and bread. I love chocolate and cherries. I love bread and cherries. I do not like bread and chocolate. (For this discussion, croissants are not bread!)
I have had chocolate cherry pain au levain once. I believe it was from the Noe Valley Bakery in San Francisco (Highly recommended bakery, BTW!) I found the combination unpleasing. But I didn't try it with ice cream.
On the other hand, strictly in the interest of science, I consumed a quarter loaf of the cherry pecan pain au levain in the course of preparing dinner tonight. Conclusion: I like it best either plain or with just a little sweet butter, un-toasted. It is okay with Emmenthaler. Okay toasted with cream cheese. Not so great with Point Reyes Blue cheese.
Hmmmm ... Ice cream, eh?
David
David,
looks great, how did you get the patterns on the bread? (not the baquette..) Do you let the dough rise in a basked? Where can you get those?
Cheers,
Jw.
Hi, Jw.
I assume you mean the wihite lines on the dark crust. These are from proofing the loaves in coiled wicker brotformen (bannetons). Flour is rubbed between the coils to help the bread to not stick. The flour leaves a pattern on the crust.
Your account information says you are in Holland. You should be able to get brotformen in several sizes and shapes locally or from Germany. Unfortunately, I don't know European sources. I got mine from San Francisco. Unless one of our European members speaks up, I'd suggest you do an internet search for vendors.
David