@Abe Abe, I love walnuts too. At some point I’m going to substitute walnuts for the pecans in the recipe. I haven’t done it yet because I still have pecans in the house. Perhaps the next time I want to bake this bread I’ll just use my walnuts so I can try it that way. I’d been thinking about doing that. I just haven’t yet. The following is a different recipe here on the site that’s a strictly whole grain cranberry walnut sourdough bread. Whole Grain Cranberry Walnut Sourdough Bread | Breadtopia Since I don’t stock those wheats in my house I’ll just substitute walnuts for the pecans in the trusted recipe I already use.
@KeithG2965 Keith, yes, it’s delicious! And it’s all mine because my husband doesn’t like eating nuts!
@Benito Benny, seeing a smaller Cyril in my fridge is still a bit nerve wracking. Admittedly, I have not done any recipe that uses a small amount of starter and builds a levain from there. My standard recipes that are easy and have proved to consistently bake successfully for me just use a measured amount of starter out of the jar instead of building levains separately and going from there. These days I do have to keep things as simple and easy for myself as possible so I’m still sticking to baking what I know works well for me.
On the plus side, I’m sure Cyril is happier not having to raise a behemoth of himself when eating! It was quite shocking a few days ago to find that he had doubled in just 3-1/2 hours on the counter instead of his usual 5-7 hours (depending on kitchen temperature, of course). Now that I have a full loaf of my husband’s cinnamon bread, a full loaf of cranberry pecan and a half loaf of rye, all of them sliced and in my freezer, I can just let Cyril sit and chill until he’s needed again.
Today I baked a Cranberry WALNUT bread using the Cranberry Pecan recipe! I love that recipe. It’s simple and it’s always baked me a tasty loaf. I love walnuts as much as I love pecans and decided that for a change of pace I’d just substitute walnuts for the pecans in today’s bake.
I look forward to slicing into this loaf and taste this bread with walnuts! Next bake I may use half pecans and half walnuts.
@Benito and @Abe I’m starting to get used to having much less Cyril around! It’s actually quite freeing not having to worry about maintaining “gallons” of Cyril or concerning myself with “discard”. I fed Cyril yesterday, prepped the bread last night and baked this morning. All I had in Cyril’s jar before feeding him was a mere 42g. That’s all, just 42g; a far cry from the 400+ grams I used to keep! Knowing I was only baking a single loaf of bread this week I fed him 55g each of flour and water so that I’d have enough for the recipe and enough left to make more Cyril. I think I can get used to this! I know, I’m “preaching to the choir” but keeping far less Cyril around is newer for me even though I know I still keep more Cyril around than you two keep of your starters. But I think I can get used to it!
Lovely bake Leah. I too love walnuts and cranberries. If you like this then you’ll also like the Swiss Farmhouse bread which is walnuts and raisins. Comes highly recommended!
I made another starter after I posted Hamelman’s formula. Decided to give it a go and bake a bread from it. Have made quite a few starters but after a bake with them they get amalgamated into my ongoing starter. Well this starter took off so well and made such a lovely sourdough that I decided to keep it going. Didn’t need two wheat starters though so converted my old one into a rye starter. Now I have one rye and one wheat plus some yeast water. Not too much of any mind you but we now have a bit more variety.
@Abe Abe, several times I’ve contemplated making a rye starter to be a brother to my Cyril. I’ve come to realize that with my history of keeping way too much Cyril, perhaps making a second starter wasn’t yet in my best interest! I’d better get consistent at controlling the amount of Cyril in the house before even thinking about giving him a baby brother!
What a beautiful loaf Leah, I love cranberry walnut breads and yours looks delicious. It sounds like you’re enjoying and getting used to having less of Cyril, it is liberating.
I just keep a rye starter and have yeast water as well in my fridge. It is so easy to change your starter to another flour if you felt like it I wouldn’t feel it’s necessary to have more than one starter unless you just felt like it.
I sliced and sampled my cranberry walnut bread last night. It was delicious! I loved the walnut flavor as much as when I use pecans. How marvelous to have a favorite recipe where it’s so easy to change the flavor by just a simple substitution! I’m now thinking about trying raisins and walnuts as a combination AND sometimes combining pecans and walnuts instead of a single nut or maybe a quarter amount each of cranberries, raisins, walnuts and pecans. The thought of making all those different breads from a single, easy favorite recipe is dizzying!
My friend Alan has a lovely pine nut, fennel and raisin recipe using a mix of durum semolina and bread flour. I make it often and it’s absolutely delicious. Holler if you would like the recipe.
Sounds delicious though I don’t have any durum semolina in the house. I’ve actually never baked with it. I’ll have to let you know when I get some. With limited storage space to these days I’ve kept my grains to what I use the most often: Hard White, Turkey Red or Red Fife, Rye, and Kamut.
I noticed something quite remarkable with the last loaf I baked that I made as a cranberry walnut instead of cranberry pecan. When I used the walnuts the flavor of the nut was more pronounced in the finished loaf than when I used the pecans. Delicious! It never dawned on me that pecans had a milder flavor since I love both pecans and walnuts. I actually love and enjoy all kinds of nuts. I don’t know why, but I honestly didn’t expect that much of a flavor change. I should have, just didn’t though. Home-restricted brain-drain? So now I’m thinking more about what @Benito Benny said about trying different dried fruits. I need to feed Cyril and I may bake another loaf using my favorite cranberry pecan recipe (because it always works for me and I love it’s ease and simplicity) but use a combination of pecans, walnuts, cranberries, and cherries. That’s the nut and dried fruit collection currently in the house! I’ve also got raisins but I’m thinking the cranberries and cherries to be a better combination for this next loaf. After that I’m thinking of making the loaf as a walnut raisin loaf. Just thinking that one of my easiest and favorite recipes can be changed into a totally “different” bread is incredibly intriguing.
I also add a little walnut oil when I want an even more pronounced flavor. I think my dried sour cherries would compete with the flavor of cranberries, but you’ve got me thinking of cranberries with apple, and of course using a stout apple cider in place of water.
Richard
@evnpar Richard, when I read this I swear my mouth started watering! Cranberries and apple! Oh, that would be sensational. Now I’ll have to see if I can order some dried apple in my next grocery order. Stout apple cider instead of the water…oh my. All I’ve got in the house is some apple juice. Yeah, not the same, right?
Drying apples is easy. Core and dice your apples, then lay them out on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper, then bake in an oven preheated to 250℉ for one hour, then turn the oven off and leave the apples inside to continue drying overnight. I usually dry about 2 lbs. of apples for a recipe for two medium sized boules. For the liquid I use about an equal amount of hard cider to water in the dough.
Richard
Something I keep in the back of my mind is the rule of thumb of keeping the flavor additives in breads to just 2 flavors at the most; e.g. rosemary and olive bread, or cranberry and pecan, etc. Any more than 2 flavors and it gets complicated; flavors collide, conflict with each out, get tangled together, get lost … As a test before baking those ingredients into bread, you can put the cranberries, raisins, walnuts and pecans in your next oatmeal cook and see how they all tastes together. If it works in a bowl of oatmeal it will probably work in a loaf of bread. Btw, walnuts turn oatmeal purple.
@Otis Otis, now keeping the flavor combo down to only 2 flavors isn’t something I had ever thought of. Your reasoning is extremely sound to my thinking; the fact that too many flavors could compete or overshadow others. Many thanks for your insight! I’m quite grateful!
I’d better get consistent at controlling the amount of Cyril in the house before even thinking about giving him a baby brother!