Raisin Walnut Cranberry Sourdough Bread

Aussie Bill came up with nice walnut raisin loaf.  I converted the recipe with a few tweaks of my own. So here is Raisin Walnut Cranberry Sourdough :

• 2 cups starter at 166% hydration – 18 oz (starter fed with flour and water using the same volume measurement).
• 1 & 1/4  cup water – 10 oz
• 1 cup milk (scalded, cooled) – 8 oz
• 2 large eggs – 3.4 oz
• 3 Tablespoons oil – 1.5 oz
• 3 Tablespoons honey 2.1 oz
• 1 Tablespoon salt – .7 oz
• 2 cups Whole Wheat flour – 8.4 oz
• 4 cups Bread flour – 18 oz
• 4 cups All Purpose flour – 16.8 oz
• 1 -1/2 Tablespoons Cinnamon or Mixed Pumpkin Pie spice

I put all of these ingredients together in my mixer and mixed just until incorporated(adjust water/flour if too dry or wet). Then I let the dough rest for 15 minutes (autolyse). I then mixed the dough for one more minute and let it bulk ferment for seven hours, the dough was very sluggish because of the spice in it, which tends to slow down the yeast. I then put the dough into the refrigerator overnight.

Next morning I took out the dough and let it warm up for four hours. I shaped the dough by dividing it into three pieces, and then rolling out each piece into a 20 x 8 inch rectangle. After I rolled out the dough , I spread evaporated milk over the surface and sprinkled a cinnamon sugar mixture over the whole surface ( I like the cinnamon mixture heavy on the cinnamon and light on the sugar). I then sprinkled walnuts and raisins on the first dough, I used only raisins on the second one,

and on the third one I put raisins, walnuts and chopped, frozen cranberries.

Then, roll up the dough…

Here are the three loaves ready to proof. They took two hours to proof. When ready, bake at 375 degrees  for about 40 – 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean(I baked all three together and did not use a baking stone). I had to put aluminum foil over them towards the end of the bake to keep them from getting too dark.

This recipe makes 5 lbs 7 oz of dough.Here are some pictures of the finished bread:

A lady named Kris was one of the winners on the recent forum contest. She very kindly sent me a beautiful Linen Proofing Cloth embellished with her own artwork. I am very pleased! Thankyou Kris! Here is a picture of my bread with her cloth and business card. If you are interested in buying some of these cloths for a gift, give her a call, her number is on the card below (707-839-8379) or email her at : still_kris2004″at”yahoo.com.  A better picture of her cloth is at the beginning of this blog entry.

This bread is so delicious, my daughter described it as “Killer Good”. However, you haven’t tasted it until you toast a thick slice and slather it with real butter…..MMMMMMM! All three loaves were almost gone the first day. I hid a piece for myself to have with coffee this morning!

Sourdough Pretzel Bread !!!

I am so jazzed! This pretzel bread has been on my mind for some time. I didn’t know how it would turn out, but it sure turned out a super winner! It was so much fun to make! It tastes so terrific! I baked this bread up on the very last day of 2007 and it was a perfect ending to a great sourdough year! Here is how it started:

I made up a thick preferment using the Austrian Sourdough Starter in a motherdough form. The dough fermented overnight and the next day I added the rest of the ingredients and let it ferment four more hours. Then it looked like this:

I divided into four pieces weighing 1.5 lbs each. I experimented with how to shape the bread to give some idea of it being pretzel bread but nothing worked out to my satisfaction.

 So I just shaped it like a regular french bread shape. I put all four loaves into the couche as I was planning on baking them all at the same time.

I let the dough proof about two hours and it looked ready to go:

I was now ready to do the pretzel thing! I had hubby make me two metal handles that I attached to a grate from my toaster oven:

This little gizmo was going to be used for dipping the dough in a hot bath of soda/salt water. I had about 2 gallons of simmering water in a large roasting pan on top of the oven, I added baking soda and salt to the water which will give the classic pretzel taste and is safer/cheaper to use than the baking lye. There is quite a lot of soda in there at 1 Tablespoon per cup. The water foamed up as soon as the soda hit the water:

I then placed the dough on the grate and lowered it into the hot soda bath. The dough floated and I had it in there about 15 seconds per side. The grate was under the dough and I pulled it up to take out the dough as gently as possible. You can’t see me do that as I needed both hands and couldn’t take a picture of it. Here is the dough floating in the hot water:

After I removed the dough from the soda bath, I placed it on a greased baking sheet, spread egg mixture and sprinkled flaked salt over the top and sliced in some x’s  :

I repeated the bath for the other dough and had two baking sheets with two loaves on each sheet. I popped the first sheet into the oven as soon as it was filled and then worked on the second sheet. Soon they were both in the oven at 400 degrees:

The first sheet came out five minutes earlier than the second sheet and here were the first two loaves:

Here are some pictures of this terrific, unique sourdough bread:

Here is a view inside:

This bread went way past expectation. The crust was thin, crisp and dark brownish red (looked just like a soft pretzel) The top was crusted with flaked salt. The inside was soft yet chewy. It got shocked raves immediately. You could tell that the bread would be great with swiss cheese, strong mustard and some pastrami. I only had one loaf left this morning and had stored it in a brown bag overnight as the salt on the crust will leach out moisture from the crust if kept in a plastic bag. It was SUPER as toast this morning with butter and cream cheese. I consider this one of the most wonderfully unique breads I have ever tasted. You can look forward to seeing the recipe in my upcoming book. See Northwest Sourdough  forum http://teresal.proboards84.com/index.cgi  for a  soon to be announced contest for naming my new sourdough book.

 Have a great year everyone!

Sourdough Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

This recipe is a variation of the Cranberry Applesauce muffins and can help you use up that extra sourdough starter.

In a large mixing bowl combine:
• 2 cups active sourdough starter
• 3/4 cup  pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup Oil
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs

Beat all together with a wire whisk, or in your mixer. Then…

In a medium sized bowl stir together:
• 2.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Allspice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder

Add the dry ingredients of the second bowl to the wet ingredients of the first bowl and gently stir until just combined(stir on low speed in your mixer). Add 3 cups chopped frozen cranberries and stir in gently. Oil or grease bread pans and fill the batter not quite to the top.

Bake on the center rack in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 1 – 1.5  hours or done (when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean). Cover the top with foil for the last 20 minutes or so if the bread is getting  too brown (as you can see mine did). This recipe will make a batch of muffins (12 muffins baked at 375 degrees for 25 +/- minutes)and one regular tea loaf. I baked up three large sized loaves by doubling the recipe. Besides the cranberries, I also like to add walnuts and raisins to the batter just before spooning out, however, the majority in my family don’t  like raisins and walnuts in their tea breads!

As you can see, there was plenty of room for walnuts and raisins!!

Today… Baguettes !

The Australian Forum is having a Baguette bakoff, and I was asked to submit. So today I baked up six one pound Baguettes. I just used the Basic White recipe on my site at :  http://www.northwestsourdough.com/recipes.html , and I added a cup of motherdough. If you don’t know what motherdough is, do a search on my blog here, there are some other posts about it. I mixed up the dough yesterday, but instead of shaping the loaves and putting them in the refrigerator, I put the whole bowl in the refrigerator and warmed up the dough and shaped this morning.

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Super Holey Pane Teresa Sourdough

This bread is so wonderful!! It has the most unique flavor and terrific holes and it pops in the oven like a miracle. I am amazed everytime I bake it again! You MUST have a vigorous motherdough at 80% hydration going to make this recipe work. I made up the dough let it cool overnight and next day:

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Sourdough Biscuits (Scones)

I have a recipe that I have used for years for Sourdough Biscuits. The ingredients are usual, the mixing is not. As a matter of fact, if you don’t mix these biscuits the way the recipe directs, they won’t come out nearly as nice. It is usual to mix the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another bowl and then combine them. That won’t exacty work for this recipe and I have tried it that way, it just doesn’t produce the right results.Here is where you can print off the recipe:Continue reading

Update on the Kaiser Rolls

Okay, so I liked the Kaiser Rolls earlier formula but I wished they were softer inside and not quite so dense. So I got to thinking of what I could do to the recipe to change those parameters that I didn’t like. I Did it!!! I substituted some milk and more oil and more water to make the hydration higher and …..yes! Here are the results:

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Sourdough Kaiser Rolls

I decided to try out my luck with Sourdough Kaiser Rolls. Using Northwest Sourdough starter, I made up a sponge the night before and had a good vigorous sponge by morning. Then, in the morning I added the rest of the ingredients and proofed the dough for 2.5 hours at which time the dough doubled. Sponges usually proof faster as so much of the dough is really a starter. Also the house was warm with it starting at 72F degrees and it being 82F degrees when I baked. Here is the first proof at 10:30 a.m. after 2.5 hours of proofing:Continue reading