Baby Steps … to Bread

Intro…

Prior to embarking on my Sourdough Journey, my go-to breat purchase at the grocery store was Cinnamon-Raisin, anything…bread, English Muffins, Bagels, etc. Considering my all-time most-liked bake is Cinnamon-Rolls, I decided to honor my Step-Son’s request. I tried making a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin Bread, documented here.

It goes without saying that I searched for a popular recipe to serve as my basis for this bake. As often happens, I ended up on the website of “Amy Bakes Bread”. Her recipe appealed to me and can be found at this link:

https://amybakesbread.com/cinnamon-raisin-sourdough-bread/

Recipe

• 400g KA Bread Flour
• 50g KA Whole Wheat Flour
• 50g Spelt Flour
• 350g of 90 degree Bottled Water
• 120g Sourdough Starter
• 10g of Kingston pure salt
• 120g of Golden Raisins (or regular Raisins)

Overall dough temp when starting Autolyse was 76 degrees. The flour is stored in my garage so it was about 45 degrees. Hence, the water-flour combo yielded 76 degrees. After a few Stretch & Folds the dough temperature decreased to 73. The house is set to 71 so that probably explains the decrease in dough temperature.

As to the choice of flours, this was an experiment. I often combine bread flour with whole wheat. I’ve heard good things about Spelt. So, I decided to incorporate a small amount.

Raisins: I added 120g of Golden Raisins during the third stretch & fold. I didn’t account for the addition of dried fruit in the first water addition. So, I soaked the raisins in very hot water for a few minutes before adding them to the bowl. From what I read, dried Raisins from the box can draw water from the dough. You can either add water in the beginning, or soak the Raisins as I did in warm water.

Dough Development

Being a mix of Bread Flour, Whole Wheat and Spelt, I didn’t know what to expect following Autolyse. Here’s what I ended up doing:

• 1 hour of Autolyse with just the flour and water
• 1 hour of Fermentolyse after adding Starter and Salt
• Following Fermentolyse I did about five minutes of Slap & Folds. I find this process very beneficial, especially with the higher hydration dough’s. You gain a lot of dough structure following Slap & Folds. Here’s a good video showing the technique: https://youtu.be/bWN9mxR_iXI?si=P3N5EFJ03-C8Ek-h
• Every 30 minutes following the Slap & Fold’s I would alternate between Stretch & Folds and Coil Folds.

Bulk Fermentation

Well, I just checked the dough temperature following the last Stretch & Fold. It was 79 degrees. Looking at the Fermentation Table from the Sourdough Journey website, I am planning on a 5.5 hour fermentation to 30% rise before moving on to Lamination, Shaping and then Cold Proof in the refrigerator.

Well, after 5.5 hours, there were many bubbles throughout the dough. But, not many of them rose to the surface or upper edges. The surface was “loose”, but not quite “jiggly”. I decided to wait. After another 45 minutes, I decided we were close to the desired outcome. I moved the dough back to the bench for lamination. I then incorporated the Cinnamon/Butter/Brown Sugar mix. Several online recipes mentioned including flour and salt to this mix, so that’s what I did.

Cinnamon-Sugar Filling

• 55g Unsalted Butter, softened
• 60g Brown Sugar
• 6g Cinnamon
• 3g Bread Flour
• Salt…just a pinch

Combine the ingredients above and mix with a fork until it makes a paste. When I make this again in the future I’ll most likely increase the amounts above by 50%. It was tough stretching this paste enough to coat all three layers.

Handling & Shaping

After dumping the dough to my work-surface, I managed to push things out to a rectangle of 12″ x 15″. Doing so without deflating the dough was a challenge. A little flour on the fingers helped a great deal.

This is hard to explain. I “buttered/pasted” the Cinnamon Mix on the center, vertical section of the lamination. It was about two inches wide. My thought was to keep the sweet mix away from the edges once the dough is rolled. I then folded the right-half toward the center to cover the lamination. I pressed the dough down lightly with my fingers. I then laminated over the top of-center again to a width of 2 inches. Then, folding the left-half towards the center, I used the remaining Cinnamon-mix to cover the center once again.

Once finished, I gently pinched the edges closed to contain the sweet paste inside the dough. And finally, I rolled the dough towards me and sealed the ends and the seam.

Maybe not required. I allowed the dough to relax for about ten minutes. Then, I gently placed it into a Batard shaped Banneton and let rest on the counter for 30 minutes. My goal here was to let the dough continue fermenting more to guarantee a good bake with ideal crumb.

After resting the bake in the Banneton, I covered with a plastic shower cap and placed everything in the refrigerator. There it rested until about noon the next day, so a total of about thirteen hours.

Baking

Here’s where I diverged from my normal process. Normally I cold-bake everything from a cold oven and cold Dutch Oven. In this case I decided to try pre-heating at 500 degrees and then turning the oven to 450 and starting the bake once the loaf was loaded.

I used my favorite rectangular Dutch Oven called a Kook Pan. I love that pan because it keeps the steam in and it’s the perfect size to contain everything. After 30 minutes at 450 I took off the lid to continue baking at 400. Frankly, I was horrified when first removing the lid as it appeared very burned on top. As it turned out, that was some of the filling leaking through and of course sugar will do that when subjected to that kind of heat. I checked the temperature of the loaf and it had a ways to go. I then recovered using the lid and continued the bake for about 10 or 15 minutes. The loaf temped at 205 so I pulled it from the oven and placed on the cooling rack.

Some folks, and especially those in Europe who really know how to make Artisan Bread, tend to cook their loaf’s a little longer and hence, end up with some dark areas. Knowing that made me feel better and I ended up with a very good crust, supplemented by a cinnamon-raisin mix. And as you can see in the picture below, the Cinnamon-Raisin swirl in the bake was outstanding!

Summary

WOW! This bread was AMAZING! Probably my best so far. It is really, really good! Enough said…give it a try!