Walnuts sourdough bread

I love walnuts and I love bread, but what I love the most is walnuts bread. This week in my pantry I had 3 different type of flours and I decided to bake a walnuts bread using all of them. The first one is a high protein bread flour, the second one is a first clear flour and the third is an ancient grains flour. See the flour classification table. The starter is my old friend Mr. Rye.

Ingredients (make one loaf)

For the poolish

  • 115 gr flour
  • 115 ml water
  • 50 gr rye sourdough starter

For the dough

The poolish is a batter made by a small amount of sourdough starter, in this case a rye flour starter, water and flour; it is prepared the day before because it needs 10-12 hours to ferment. Put in a bowl the rye sourdough, the water and the flour. Mix with a spoon and cover with cling film. Store it overnight in a warm place. I keep it in the oven.

The morning after you need to add the remaining flour, the water (warm water, the temperature is related to the kitchen temperature, if it is winter and the temperature is 18-19 °C, you might need to heat water at 40-45°C). Mix in the stand mixer with the dough hook, for 1-2 minutes at speed 1. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes and then mix for another 4 minutes, at speed 1. Cover the bowl with the cling film and let the dough rest for 45 minutes (autolyse).

At this point you can add the salt and mix the dough by hand inside the bowl. Add also the minced walnuts.

Lightly flour the working surface and stretch and fold your dough (stretch the dough and then fold it left over right, right over left, bottom over top, top over bottom). After the stretch and fold let the dough rest for 15 minutes and then stretch and fold it again for a total of 3 times.

Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with the cling film and put it in the oven (with the oven light on, to keep the oven lightly warm) for 4 hours. This is the fermentation phase. The dough will rise (about 1.5 times the original volume).

Walnuts bread dough

After the fermentation, put the dough on a floured working surface. Stretch and fold the dough and put it in a floured (use rice flour) proofing basket (banneton). Cover with cling film. Keep it in a warm place for 2 hours.

The dough before final shaping

Banneton

Put the cast iron pot in the oven and pre-heat the oven for 30-45 minutes at 250°C. Put the dough into the pot, cut the top of the loaf with a bread scoring tool, put the lid on and cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and continue cooking at a lower temperature, 220-230°C, for 25-30 minutes.

When the bread is ready, let it cool completely on a wire cooling rack (1.5 hrs). Enjoy!

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