@Fermentada Melissa, I just checked my ingredients so I could bake this bread after Cyril has finished his feeding. The only almonds I have are unsalted dry toasted, not raw ones. I’m sure I could still use them in this recipe though. What do you think?
Yep, that’s an simple substitution. Salted would be a little trickier.
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WOW! what a bread adventure! Here she is, just out of the oven to cool!
@Fermentada Melissa, I am so looking forward to slicing into this later today! I have never attempted anything like this bread before. It was definitely a first! It probably took me a lot longer time to get things ready and prep this bread simply due to my self-perceived inexperience and definite lack of confidence.
Though I do immensely prefer following a recipe exactly the first time I’m making it I did end up using some substitutions for lack of exact ingredients. I did not have any orange blossom water (used to have some years ago but it’s long since gone). I simply substituted orange juice for both the water and the orange blossom water called for in the “additions” portion of the recipe. I didn’t have any fresh oranges in the house either so I simply didn’t use any orange zest. I had some lovely jarred organic applesauce so I used that instead of cooking/mashing apples (MUCH easier choice for me). The almonds I had weren’t raw ones. They were unsalted dry toasted so that’s what I used. So right off the bat, I had to make substitutions to the “additions.” The subs didn’t end there! I didn’t have any durum flour either. I substituted a mix of 1/3 Turkey Red and 2/3 Hard White for the durum. I had both of those berries so I simply weighed them out and milled them fresh with my Mockmill.
With all my changes I admit wondering if I’d get a viable loaf. Since I could tell this would be a very heavily loaded loaf of bread with all the applesauce, nuts and raisins, I fed my sourdough starter, Cyril, yesterday morning and prepped this bread yesterday evening with him freshly fed about seven hours later. I knew I needed Cyril to be beefy, pumped up and ready to go. He was going to have to work hard to raise this behemoth.
Melissa, I must compliment you on your instructions for this recipe! It was so clearly written that I had no trouble following it. I really appreciated the link to different folding/gluten development videos as I had never attempted even the simple stretch and fold before. I’m a true “visual learner” so being able to actually see something being done work awesomely for me. With a little bit of trepidation I approached my dough to stretch and fold. It was easy and it worked! YAY! You should have seen me when it came time to add all those additions to the dough. Doing that stretching and folding with all the stuff mixing in was absolutely comical. What a mass of dough! It was a very good thing I used my largest ceramic mixing bowl! I was laughing while mixing!
Since it was a little too early to leave the covered bowl of dough out on the counter I put it into the fridge for a couple hours. I put the dough on the counter about 10:15pm and when I went into the kitchen at about 7:30am today the dough was ready for the next steps.
I needed to let the dough rise in the bran coated banneton for about 1-1/2 hours before putting it into the preheated clay baker. I almost forgot to slash the bread with my lame. That was the one thing I noticed wasn’t written into the instructions but when I looked back at all your pictures I thankfully saw a picture of slashed dough before it got baked. I slashed!
I followed the baking instructions to the letter but when I took the bread’s temperature it only registered 170 degrees. I wasn’t really surprised. There was a lot of “stuff” in that bread. So back into the oven she went but since she was already a nice color I loosely covered the clay baker with foil so she wouldn’t get too overly dark. It actually took another 20 minutes of baking for the internal temperature of the bread to reach 206 degrees. I’m glad I put the foil on top. She still did get a bit darker than I would really like but not bad at all.
So now I’m waiting for her to cool completely before slicing. I’m looking forward to a nice thick slice, perhaps toasted, with butter and a strong cup of Moka Java coffee for an afternoon treat. I’ll post some pictures once I slice this loaf…at least I’ll try to remember to take pictures! 
Baking blessings,
Leah
@Fermentada Melissa, this bread is a triumph and this recipe is now one of my new favorites.
This loaf is now in the realm of “I can’t believe I actually baked this!” I’m in bread-heaven AKA sourdough stupor!
Many blessings and thanks,
Leah
Leah, that looks delicious and beautiful! I’m so glad you enjoyed trying the recipe and the results. 
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Yesterday I started a babka variation on this recipe.
The ingredients in the “additions” list went into the food processor, minus one apple and minus the 50g water. The apple that did go in was peeled and cored but not cooked. So that’s almonds, raisins, honey, orange blossom water, zest, and raw peeled apple.
I lowered the hydration of the dough a bit too, only 335 g water instead of 350 g. I wanted to be able to roll it out nice and easy. After the dough had almost doubled, I chilled it while I slept (optional step) and then rolled it out.
I spread the almond-raisin-etc paste onto the dough, then added thin slices of the second apple. I rolled the dough into a tube, cut the tube lengthwise, twisted it around itself, and carefully smooshed it into a loaf pan.
Proofed for several hours and will update on the results soon.
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Now which step is the optional one, chilling or sleeping or both. 
Love this babka idea Melissa I bet it will be delicious.
Eh I guess sleep and chilling were optional for me. I’d mixed the dough late in the day and estimated a middle of the night end to bulk fermentation. I’m not a night owl, so I could have refrigerated it early in the fermentation, and spent much of today waiting for it to get going again. Instead I set an alarm for 1am (my guesstimate of end of bulk), got up and put the dough in the refrigerator, and went back to bed 
I made this today using storebought applesauce and blanched almond flour in lieu of the fresh apples and whole almonds. I observed all the correct amounts (using gram measurements) of these equivalents. I found that when I mixed in the additions, there was so much excess liquid that the dough became batter consistency, and I had to mix in another 1-1 1/2 cups of bread flour to get it back to a foldable consistency. Not sure how to account for this!
I’m guessing it was the applesauce that added a lot of extra water. If you make it again I would take that 335 g of water and use only 250g. After everything is mixed up you can always add more water if needed. I hope the bread came out okay 
When you find yourself in the situation of adding a lot of flour, you may want to add a little more salt too (0.02 x grams of added flour). So for 1 1/2 cups that’s 195g x 0.02 = 3.9 g salt or approx 3/4 tsp.
Thanks, Melissa! I actually did remember to add some extra salt, and just in time! The bread is in the oven. I will follow your advice (or make my own applesauce) next time!
Pro move on adding salt! 