Wednesday - June 03, 2020

This May Not End Well

Riots, protests? Nah. Muesli bread!

I wanted to try making some kind of mult-grain bread with nuts and goodies in it, so I had the genius idea to use Alpen. Turns out Alpen is pretty hard to find where I live, so I got some of the Bob’s Red Mill stuff. Found some fairly fresh raisins in the cabinet, and some Craisins that weren’t too ancient. The dates were like gravel, so I tossed them. Oooh, let’s go all granola-squad and put some honey in.

And then when I was most of the way through getting out all my kit and collecting all the ingredients, I figured I’d look online ... and found out that my “original” idea has been done a million times already. Well fine. So I adapted a recipe, but added some extra bits anyway.

It makes a rather sticky dough. Not quite bread, but not quite muffin batter either. At least it has actual yeast in it, unlike those quick breads. Which are fine, but not what I wanted to make today.
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So it’s in the big 4qt Cambro, rising. About time to check it. Update later maybe. A 2qt Cambro would work too, filled right to the top when the first rise was done.

UPDATE: It came out pretty darn nice. On the one hand, very tasty with lots of yummy bits inside. On the other hand, most of those bits were solid things which don’t dissolve. So the volume of the dough got quite large even though there wasn’t all that much flour in it. I wound up finishing the final rise in my biggest meatloaf pan lined with parchment paper. I don’t usually do pan bread, but the pan holds a wet and sloppy dough in shape, and the baked loaf is easy to make sandwich slices from.

So, based on this recipe, I enhanced it to become:

UPDATE: This is the revised recipe. The original dough was far too wet, so I cut down on the water and added some bread flour.  Also, it had too much yeast, so I cut that in half. Worked just fine. This recipe makes a kilo of dough, a very solid loaf.

Crumb is better with the less moist dough as well. Not super open, but not lead bread either.

Muesli Fruit Loaf

1 cup (248gm) warm whole milk. I used the organic kind, which has more fat in it.
1/3 cup (82gm) water
1 1/2tsp SAF instant yeast
3 tbl (62gm) dark honey or a tiny bit more (75gm is OK)

1 1/4 cup (150gm) bread flour
1 cup (120gm) all purpose flour
1 cup (120gm) whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp (12gm) salt
1 cup (140gm) Bob’s Red Mill old country style muesli
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup Craisins
1/8 - 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Warm milk in the microwave for 1 minute. Dissolve honey in milk, then add the water to cool it. When below 100°F add yeast and stir. Let sit 10 minutes to activate. It will be very foamy.

Whisk together all dry ingredients including muesli and fruit.

Add the liquid to the dry in your mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly at low speed, using soft spatula to wipe sides of bowl. Adjust the feel of the dough; it may need a little more flour. 5 minute rest. Dough will be somewhat sticky.

Knead. Transfer to large (4 liter) greased rising bucket, let double. With the small amount of yeast this took almost exactly 90 minutes.

Dump dough onto a well floured work surface. Do 2 or 3 stretch and fold kneads, working dough into a rough batard ( stubby log shape ) and pinch seams.  Transfer dough to a well floured banneton, seam side up. Let rise 1 hour. Flip dough from banneton into a parchment lined large meatloaf pan, let rise another 30 minutes while the oven heats to 450F. Deeply score top of loaf, then bake 25 minutes. You can add steam if you want. Remove from oven, lift loaf from pan. Check brownness on sides and bottom; it may need a couple more minutes baking. Fruit on surface will char if over baked. Return loaf to pan, let cool 10 minutes then remove from pan and let cool fully.

VERDICT:YUM. This is almost desert bread. It’s got a slightly sweet taste from the honey and the coconut. It has lots of tasty bits inside. Texture is like a hearty whole wheat bread, slight crumb.

It is not a hard crusty loaf. I’d call it a keeper.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/03/2020 at 02:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Bread •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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