A picture of my date-nut loaf on a board with prosciutto, cheese, olives, preserves, and red wine.
Recipe:
Ingredients: 70% Bread Flour. 30% Whole Wheat (emmer this time) flour.
20% chopped dates and apricots soaked in earl grey tea, drained well reserving liquid. 15% chopped nuts, lightly toasted. 2.5% NaCl. 0.7% instant yeast.
78% H2O, use the soaking liquid from the dates as half the water.
Method: Mix all the flours and water, cover, let rest/autolyze for 30 minutes.
Fold/pincer in the yeast and salt. Cover and Rest 10-15 minutes.
Fold in the dates and nuts. Cover Rest another 10-15 minutes, until the dough relaxes a bit.
Fold one more time, then room temperature bulk, 2.5 hours
Shape and room temperature proof 1 hour.
Put loaf into cold Dutch oven, put Dutch oven into COLD oven and set 230c
Cook in Dutch oven 30 minutes covered.
Uncover and turn oven down to 220c for 30 minutes.
It always needs five more minutes, even if it already had five more minutes
Let cool if you can.
En Guete!
Why do you start with a cold dutch oven instead of preheating it?
It saves time and electricity.
I think I got the idea from chainbaker on YouTube and find that it works just as well.
In this case I was also doing baguettes so I had the oven preheated with the other loaf.
Hey Trabic
A fine looking loaf with a fine looking meal, just as I would eat
I have never used a dutch oven.
I will follow your recipe and make it without the dutch oven.
it will be a good comparison
They do produce and amazing deep crust.
I will try the recipe in the next few days and upload the photo
It works great without a Dutch oven, you should probably preheat the oven though, and maybe use some steam. Or don’t and let us know how it goes.
En guete!
