Turmeric Fennel Seeds and Black Pepper sourdough bread

Reader Recipes
21

@Snowywin Glad you’re enjoying the posts. You can use those bake times/temps for the oblong cloche. (It’s a cast iron pan, like the Challenger bread pan, that I might say to drop the temperature to 450F as soon as you load the bread.)

@seppaloha I’ve never worked with fresh turmeric aside from grated into a stir fry. I’m sorry I don’t know how much how to use in this dough. If you give it a go, I’d love to hear about your experience.

@anon44372566 Thanks :slight_smile:

22

Hello,

Thanks for this nice recipe with turmeric I love this stuff. One question what is EVO in this recipe?

Regards

Jan

1 Like
23

Extra Virgin Oil?

1 Like
24

Yes, extra virgin olive oil – thanks!

25

Melissa, Two topics for you to address:

  1. Do you have a certain percent hydration in mind when you develop or work with any recipe? How would you calculate the percent hydration when using starter? I know that I feed my starter with 50% water and flour by weight, but over time my colony gets thin and I sometimes just add flour to thicken it, but not quite as thick as the 50/50 mixture that I feed it. So the percent hydration of the starter is always different. Also how do you adjust the hydration percentage when using honey, barley malt syrup or oil as a wet ingredients.
  2. What dough properties determine when you should stop your bulk fermentation, or is it just a doubling of the dough volume?
    Gene Fioretti
26

Hi Gene,

Good questions – no simple answers unfortunately. Target hydration depends on the desired dough feel and the desired outcome…e.g. you don’t want a wet challah dough that you need to braid, but you do want a wet ciabatta dough that is shaped very simply and is meant to be airy.

The amount of whole grain flour in the dough, type of wheat flour, and seeds and berries will impact how much water is needed to get a particular “feel.”

Some rough targets I tend to hit on artisan-style breads are:
refined flour: low to mid-70s
under 50% whole grain flour: mid-70s-low 80s
up to 100% whole grain flour: 80s-100% depending on the wheat variety
Soft wheats can be as low absorbency as refined flour.

I can’t really speak to your starter feeding protocol, only to say that if it works well for you, then it’s perfect. When using a thick starter in a recipe calling for 100% hydration starter, you can use a little more water.

Most recipes with additional wet ingredients calculate them separately from the water e.g. pizza has olive oil and it gets its own line in the baker’s percentage table.

The bulk is stopped when the dough has expanded and become webby. For some dough, doubling works, and for others, that may be too much. How much you handle the dough can also mask doubling, which I explain a bit here.

It’s also important to factor in what kind of final proof you are planning. I tend to bulk far and final proof less. This is just habit. Other people have fantastic outcomes with a different approach: bulk less, final proof more aggressively.

I hope this helps and that other people in the Breadtopia community share their hydration and bulk fermentation strategies.

27

Melissa, that pizza with fennel/turmeric looks absolutely phenomenal!..making the crust this week.
~ Patricia

1 Like
28

Awesome, I hope you enjoy it.

29

Hello Melissa,
Pls clarify the photo showing two bowls of dough…one with turmeric and one without?
The turmeric-fennel pizza crust is still on my docket, but it’s close to really happening! :slight_smile:
As always, thanks for your superb recipes, photos, and wonderful posts; I really enjoy your breadmaking!
~ Patricia

30

Melissa, I’m not finding process instructions for the turmeric-fennel bread…can you pls post?
Thank you!
~ Patricia

31

I’m glad you’re enjoying my baking :slight_smile: Here is the message with process info. I linked to the yecora rojo blog post, because that’s just about what I did for gluten development and baking.

The dough in the other bowl is this
Chia and Pumpkin Seed Sourdough Bread - #12 by Fermentada

1 Like