I never baked bread until I made my own sourdough starter about 16 months ago so my experience is quite limited. This recipe produced the most wonderful loaf that i have done so far. Tasty, it had a nice rise and decent crumb and I pretty much followed the timeline since I am still trying to figure out when to move from one step to the next. However, with most of my loaves, including this one, the bottom is close to being burned as well as the top and sometimes they are burned. I use a lodge cast iron dutch oven which is not to be heated over 450. I left the loaf at 450 for 30 minutes took the cover off for the remaining time. I put three sheets of parchment paper underneath and a cookie sheet on the rack below the dutch oven which was recommended elsewhere. While this was a wonderful loaf I even thought it could have baked a few minutes more for the crumb to be a little more open but the top was so dark I thought it needed to come out. Any suggestions? Thanks. The bottom was not so dark I would cut off.
I put a baking sheet under any cast iron baking vessels 15-20 minutes in – on the same shelf with contact. And 10 min later when i remove the cover, I check the bottom, and if it’s getting dark, I do that last 5-10 minutes with no baking vessel.
I will try it! Thanks!
First of all the the final baked bread was absolutely fabulous! However, I did change a few things. In my hands, the dough was too sticky to knead and form so I added another 100 grams of flour. It would have been way to wet for the Banetton. This added flour seem to help quite a bit. Secondly, I proofed the dough for 4 hours in the 85 degree oven and then 16 hours in the fridge. Then baked in a Dutch Oven and it was just the best raisin bread ever. Thank you.
My bread didn’t rise as much as I would have hoped. Is this because of the hydration?
I have now made this bread several times. My wife loves it. I am now mixing the dough at 85% hydration. Here is my dough formula:
I have always used less raisins and maple syrup than the original recipe calls for. I use the 20 grams of sourdough starter to build 100g of levain and, when that has doubled, I mix it in as part of the dough. The quantities shown in the formula are the totals. So in the final mix, I take into account what I used to build the levain and do do not duplicate that.
I do a Bulk Ferment at about 78° for about 9 1/2 hours and then do a Retarded Proof in the fridge overnight (about 12-13 hours), after shaping and placing the dough in a lined, rice-floured, banneton.
This is a wet dough and it does not rise much during the Bulk Ferment, perhaps only a 50% increase in volume, and there is no perceptible increase in volume during the retarded proof. I have had good oven spring, however, as shown in the image I posted previously.
Stumbled upon this post and tried the recipe with few tweaks based on the comment read. Turns out to be good and taste amazing.
This bread is fantastic. If your family likes cinnamon raisin toast, they will love this. Judging by the comments, it sounds like I’m not the only one who found the recipe as presented resulted in a very wet dough. I though this might be due to my starter, which I keep relatively wet (50/50 water/H2O). I added an addition 100-150 gm of bread + Fife flour and did several coil folds to get a consistency that allowed me to form a better loaf.
Yesterday, I made the Kamut Sourdough Bread 40% and was quite pleased with the outcome.
Today, I made the Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread. I started before I read most of the comments about it being wet and sticky. I’ve made one recipe with red fife a few weeks ago, so I knew it will be. I found a topic on how to deal with wet and sticky dough on u tube, so I did most but not all tips. I did stretch and fold twice, coil fold twice and laminated before shaping the dough and I think it made a difference. It was still wet and sticky but manageable. I divided the dough into 2 small boules, used 2- 500 gram well floured wood pulp proofing basket, baked in my 2 quart clay baker. I’m quite happy with the outcome.
@lynettelaas That looks wonderful! The cinnamon raisin is one of my favorites but I’ll admit it’s a trickier one for me to make. I swear it has a personality all its own and one particular time the resulting dough was so wet and sticky it acted like an angry amoeba when I was trying to shape it to go into the banneton to rise. I swear it was fighting me the whole time. If I remember correctly the resulting loaf still came out delicious even if not the prettiest.
Baking blessings,
Leah
Leah, thank you for the reassurance that whatever works today may not work tomorrow. You mentioned cranberry and pecan. I cannot find that recipe and both are one of my favorites It will be a great homemade Christmas gift.
@lynettelaas Hi! The video and recipe for my favorite cranberry pecan sourdough bread is below. Enjoy!
https://breadtopia.com/no-knead-recipe-variations/#CP
Baking blessings,
Leah
I had honey from our farm that I substituted for the maple syrup. Just 50 g, so I adjusted the water to 750 g. This is two biggish loaves from a doubled recipe. I used 50% red fife that I fresh-ground and 50% bread flour. I used half golden raisins and half regular brown ones. It is addictingly delicious, soft on the inside and nicely crunchable on the outside. I don’t think I’d have had the courage to bake it this dark without reading the comments on this thread.
This is a recipe I’ll use again and again.
I’m having trouble when I make this loaf achieving 200 degrees F internal temp without burning the outside of the loaf. I’ve tried reducing the oven temp to 445 and replacing the lid after the 20 minutes at 500, 10 minutes at 450 and 20 minutes at 450 uncovered. Still about 15 degrees cooler than target (I use 200 for everything).
Quick question on this recipe. Excited to make this, but I have no Red Fife, so planning on using Breadtopia Bread Flour Select for the Bread flour portion (so not a pure white bread flour), and a bolted whole wheat for the wheat portion. Will I need to make any adjustments to the hydration levels using these flours as opposed to those in the recipe?
@salberty83 This is a favorite bread of mine but the dough is a bit tricky and can be finicky. You can easily use whatever bread flour you prefer and what whole wheat you prefer. I’ve used Turkey Red in this recipe as I alternate between keeping some Turkey Red and Red Fife in the house. I haven’t tried this recipe with Hard White though. Breadtopia’s select bread flour is delightful! I’ve also used Breadtopia’s High Protein bread flour. Both are excellent choices. I haven’t tried the Whole Grain bread flour though. I have found that I need to reduce the amount of water in this recipe to keep the dough from acting like an angry amoeba (my description of a rather wet dough, LOL). Yes, different wheats seem to need different levels of hydration. For me it’s been lots of trial and error and lots of notations on my printed copy of the recipe.
I’m afraid I can’t be more specific as to the amounts of water I use in this recipe. I’ve had to modify it tremendously for my husband’s medical dietary restrictions. The resulting recipe I developed for him no longer even resembles the original one you’re writing about. Thankfully, he loves it! I haven’t made the original recipe in quite a long time. I do think there are loads of comments on a variety of threads devoted to this particular bread. Perhaps by reading through them you’ll get a good feel for how this particular dough seems to act and bake up so that you can make a few adjustments for a successful attempt. No matter what, I know you’ll have a tasty “experiment” to enjoy.
Baking blessings,
Leah
Made this bread yesterday because my husband enjoys cinnamon raisin bread. After reading all the comments I was worried it wouldn’t work out. I tweaked it ever so slightly and it turned out soft on the inside and better than any store bought option. It tasted wonderful, I was relieved! Will be making many times more I’m sure.
I used 200 grams of Hard Red Spring Wheat and 300 grams of Breadtopias Soft White Winter Wheat. The water and maple syrup I only decreased by five grams each, so not much. Decreased cinnamon by half and kept everything else as written. Used golden dry raisins, not soaked. In fact I’ll add a bit more raisins next time.
My house was at 70 degrees and the dough sat for 9-10 hours before the final proof of 1.5 hours. I end up wrapping it in a wool blanket and place it in warmest part of house in hopes to keep it warmer since the house is cooler. It probably expanded by 50% on the first proof and not much by the final proof.
It was sticky when I placed it on the counter to shape for final proof. I sprinkled the top with flour and gently shaped into a rectangle. Every time it would stick to my hand I would sprinkle more flour. It wasn’t typical bread flour consistency, but I wasn’t expecting this to be. You have to keep the proofing basket close and swiftly rock it and lift it inside since it’s so soft. Since all the comments mentioned there will be issues of sticking to the basket, I took the advice and lined inside of a rectangular bread loaf baker with parchment paper and placed shaped dough inside for final proof. The parchment paper did the trick; I lifted the sides of the parchment paper and placed it directly in the preheated Dutch oven, cut any extra paper that was sticking out per recommendation. Scored and baked based on temperature as written, but per recommendation from the comments, I reduced time by five minutes in the beginning and five minutes at end of the bake. It turned out very tasty and soft on the inside. Reached 200 degrees.
Just wish there was a way to prevent bottom from burning, quite honestly I have the same issue when baking any bread, so will need to experiment later on.
Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe. I was happy with the results. I’m trying to convert my husband away from bread made with yeast and these recipes help. He was impressed with the taste. This recipe requires minimal effort I couldn’t believe and I’ll be making many more.
Today’s bake was my husband’s special bread, which is a medically modified version of the Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread. My Cyril is a very happy starter! Since my husband and I are space junkies and amateur astronomers, let me just say, “Houston, we have liftoff!”
Baking blessings,
Leah
Leah,
Lovely looking loaf.
Keith
Today’s bake was another one of my husband’s cinnamon breads. This just came out of the oven and is cooling. I do bake this for him about every 10-14 days.
Yes, in the words of this space junkie who is “patiently” waiting for the anticipated test flight of SpaceX Starship10 today…“Houston, we have liftoff” and my hubby has got bread!
BTW, Is it my imagination, or does the second picture resemble a bit of a sleepy bunny face: I see eyes, nose and a bit of whiskers on a slightly downturned mouth. Oy! I think I’ve been sequestered and homebound way too long. We’ve been totally homebound since March 5, 2020 so in a couple more days it’ll be an entire year! I’m seeing things in bread!
Baking blessings,
Leah