Sourdough fruit bread - cake style
We had a combined leaving/welcome/Christmas celebration at work today, so I wanted to make a festive bake, something fruity, with a little spices. And Abe shared with me a yeasted recipe from a bread machine which seemed to tick all the boxes. Here is a rescaled version converted to sourdough with a stiff starter and a stiff preferment: https://fgbc.dk/13ja
As fruit I used some homemade candied orange and grapefruit peel, dried cranberries, and walnuts, in approximately equal proportions. For the spices, used a Tbsp of cinnamon, around half Tbsp each of dried ginger and ground cardamom, and also ground up 4 or 5 cloves.
Build the preferment in the evening, in the morning is more than doubled. I mixed the dough (microwaved the butter and milk together until butter started melting) and left it by the window for around 3 hours, since I had to go out. By the end of that it barely rose, but then I warmed it up and doubled relatively quickly. I then shaped it and put into two of my tins, and also I was not sure how much it would rise, so just in case took a small part of the dough and shaped into three balls and put into buttered muffin molds. Not being used to enriched dough, it was very strange - not very strong, but also not particularly sticky, due to the butter I imagine.
Proofed for a couple hours until nicely risen (hard to say exactly, but definitely at least 50% growth), and baked at 180°C. Before baking, I brushed the tops with some orange&grapefruit syrup I had from candying the peel, and some milk, and topped with some flaked almonds. I wish I used an egg wash instead of milk, would have been darker colour on top I imagine. I then later thought, maybe some melted butter would work instead too? When done (darkened on top, and I checked the internal temperature too just in case, 95°C), brushed the top with that syrup again, and even repeated it again later when the bread cooled - it added a beautiful shine to the top, and a nice aroma of course.
The crumb is very unusual, it is indeed cake-like, a bit crumbly. And the deceiving look is very strange - it looks just like a cake would, both inside and out, but taste is much less sweet than you expect! Next time I would for sure use even more fruit (probably the full specified amount as fruit, and then any nuts or other inclusions in addition to that), but it's really good as it is too.
Comments
Looks great, Ilya! I have been working on a sourdough stollen recipe with similar ingredients, so your post piqued my interest. Mine is also turning out surprisingly cakey for sourdough--though that sort of crumb is quite like the yeasted stollen I'm used to, so it is a pleasant surprise to find out how well the sourdough performs with an enriched dough.
Curious about how you've done conversions from conventional to sourdough. Do you have a formula, or do you estimate based on a typical sourdough recipe?
Thank you!
Simple - I use the foodgeek bread calculator to do the maths (it accounts for the added water and flour weight from the starter, although unfortunately it doesn't support different starter hydration in the yeast-to-sourduogh conversion, had to adjust that manually), and I just decide what inoculation I want based on experience and general principles. For this enriched dough I was planning a high inoculation with a stiff starter and a direct dough method, but life got in the way and instead I built a large preferment (basically, a giant starter!) to accommodate my schedule (thank you to Abe for some tips about that!).
Curious about your results for stollen!
Interesting bake Ilya. I haven’t tried anything quite like that so haven’t experienced a sourdough bread that is somewhat cake like in crumb.
Benny
I am now thinking whether it has something to do with the way I incorporated butter? Conventional wisdom says to develop the gluten, and then knead in the butter. Foodgeek's experiment shows that it doesn't matter whether you do it that way, or just melt it and add in the beginning. On top of that, half of my flour was from a preferment, and effectively had developed gluten. Therefore I thought it will be fine regardless. But maybe it's actually important?
By the way, interestingly, the crumb in the mini-cupcakes was much more "normal" and bread-like...
From my experiments with when to add the butter (and this is experience from yeasted doughs for brioche or pan dulce), I can get higher rise by developing the dough first, before adding butter. But it's probably because I am impatient with kneading the dough. Your bread looks very light and tasty. Nice that you candied the fruit peels yourself - I'm sure those are fragrant and delicious. Could you post a link to Abe's recipe? (with permission, if it's not already on Freshloaf).
I did only manage to partially develop the gluten in the beginning. I was trying to knead it using the Rubaud method (it seemed too slippery and loose for anything else), but it just wouldn't develop properly. So I was hoping time would do its magic, but can't say the dough was very strong in the end either. So that could be another factor, you are right. Maybe next time I'll try adding butter later, after gluten development. It's not a huge amount here, should be OK to incorporate it by hand.
Candying the peel was my discovery of the month for sure - it is easy, and the result is amazing. I'll try to make it every time we make fresh orange juice at home. We also used some to dip into melted chocolate and going to send that as small Christmas gifts. And the syrup you get in the end is sooo goood too.
Abe's original recipe comes from a manual to a bread machine he used to own, here is the formula:
And and whole manual is available online here: https://www.lakeland.co.uk/content/documents/Panasonic_Bread_Maker_Instructions_15352.pdf