Four Berry Bread

Four Berry Bread

Unfortunately I left the pictures of this bread on my home computer so I’ll have to upload the pictures of the bread when I get home I decided this time to really increase the amount of fruit puree and whole fruit in the bread. The only issue I ran into with the puree was not thinking about frozen fruit being lower in moisture content than fresh fruit. I even used puree to build the starter this time

Four Berry Bread

Makes: 2 medium, or 3 small loaves

Time: Day 1: Elaborate starter. Day 2: Mix final dough, fold dough shape, proof, and bake.

Ingredients:

	Ounces	Grams	Percent
Starter
Bread Flour	8 oz	230 g	100%
Water	2 oz	56.7 g	25%
Berry Puree	3.3 oz	94.5 g	41.7%
66% Levain	3 oz	85 g	38%
Final Dough
Starter	16.3 oz	463 g	87.4%
Bread Flour	14.6 oz	413.4 g	78.5%
White Whole Wheat	2 oz	56.7 g	10.8%
Spelt	2 oz	56.7 g	10.8%
Fruit Puree	10 oz	283.5 g	53.8%
Water	7.7 oz	217.35 g	41.3%
Rasp, Black, Blue, and Strawberries	14 oz	396.9 g	75.3%
Salt	.25 oz	7 g	1.3%
Oil	1 oz	28.35 g	5.4%
Final Weight
	67.75 oz	1920.7 g	364.6%

Directions:

1. Elaborate your starter however you choose, but ending up with the same flour, puree, and water weights. (or make a commercial yeast preferment) Allow it to rise overnight.
2. The next day cream the starter with the water and puree for the recipe, then add in the oil.
3. Mix together the flours and salt, then mix in the starter, puree, water, and oil mixture til the dough just starts to come together as a ball. Let the dough sit covered in the bowl for 20 minutes
4. Lightly dust your counter or work space with flour and scrape the dough out. With lightly floured hands, give the dough a stretch and fold and then flatten it out into a rectangle. Add the berry mixture on top of the dough, then give it a fold or two and some gentle kneading to incorporate the berries. You may need to add quite a bit of flour if the berries get squished in the kneading and release water (I did).
5. Leave the bowl covered for 40 minutes to an hour, turn the dough out (seam side up) and give it another stretch and fold, then return it to the bowl. You can also give the dough one final stretch and fold after about 40 minutes.
6. Let the dough rise until nearly doubled, and turn it out again onto your work surface.
7. Prepare well floured brotforms, or flour a towel you can use for the final proofing of the bread. Treating the dough gently, seperate it into however many pieces you want loaves. Either shape the loaves into boules, batards, or do a letter fold and stretch them tight for brotforms. Place the shaped loaves in brotforms or on the towels (seam side up)
8. Leave the loaves, covered, to proof, for me this was about an hour and a half.
9. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with your baking stone (on the middle rack) and steam pan inside and heat 2 cups of water to just shy of boiling.
10. Very gently grab loaves rising on a towel, and move them to a peel with flour, cornmeal, or parchment paper. If using brotforms, just invert the loaves onto parchment or a peel. Just before you load the loaves into the oven give them a few shallow slashes. Load the loaves into the oven and carefully pour about a cup of the hot water into the steam pan. Be careful of the window and light bulbs in your oven.
11. Bake for 10 minutes, turn loaves 180 degrees and remove parchment paper if using. Continue baking for another 10-20 minutes (depending on shape), the loaves should sound hollow on the bottom when complete. Remove finished loaves to a cooling rack and let sit for at least 1 hour before cutting.

So, the puree gave me a bit of trouble with being lower moisture, and the raspberries proved to be a bit too fragile and made the dough a bit overly moistened. But it all turned out worthwhile, because this bread is so full of berry flavor that it tells forest berry jam to get lost! It turned out very moist, full of flavor, and a nice dark color from all the berry puree. Blueberries and Blackberries work the best as whole fruit in the dough, the Raspberries are just too fragile and Strawberries are frequently too large to integrate well, and just get dried out when sliced. All stuff to take into consideration for the future. Well, this is my submission for YeastSpotting this week, and it should have pictures by the weekend!