PANE ALLE MELE FERMENTATE , NOCI , ROSMARINO E CANNELLA

Bread with fermented apples, nuts, rosemary and cinnamon

Leggi In Italiano

I had wanted to try Russian fermented apples for some time. I prepared them a few weeks ago, before the Corona Virus arrived, because I had a lot of apples to exploit and, before they became too soft, I had to find an unconventional way to cook them.

So it was.

I ran into this recipe. On the web or you search for different ones, but then (as I always do !!) I modified a little in my own way the whole thing. The recipe, however difficult it may seem, is not. You just need to be careful and clean when preparing the ingredients and containers that will contain them.

The jars must be cleaned and sterilized.

In the ideal recipe you need currant leaves and cherry leaves, but I didn’t have them available and I prepared the recipe with what I had in the pantry. I don’t know if the Russian ones have this flavor, but I can assure you that these have a very good perfume and taste.

  

PROCESS FOR PREPARING FERMENTED APPLES

To obtain a good recipe of fermented apples it will be necessary to use quite hard apples. Let’s see how.

1 kg of apples

10/15 mint leaves

500 ml of water

8 g of salt

20 g of honey

5 g of rye flour

1.To prepare the first layer of ingredients it will be necessary to wash the apples and make them into thin slices.

Take a clean bowl and then start to arrange two layers of sliced ​​apples, alternating them with a few mint leaves; finish with two more layers of apple. As a last layer, mix all the remaining mint leaves together and place them on top of the apples.

2.Now it’s time to press: cover everything with a clean cloth and place on it a weight whose diameter is however smaller than that of the bowl in order to leave space between the edges, with a weight above.

3.To prepare the juice, boil the water and let it cool until it is warm; add salt, honey and rye and mix.

4.Let the mixture cool and mix again.

5. Add the brine prepared in this way to the fruit. Make sure that the apples are covered with brine, using a clean plate or stone as weight. Once fermentation has started at room temperature, leave the fruit to rest in the dark in a pantry (or cellar) for 2 weeks before consumption.

 

    

BREAD WITH FERMENTED APPLES, ROSEMARY NUTS AND CINNAMON

Bread can also be stuffed with unfermented apples but simply seasoned with cinnamon and rosemary.

I decided to lower the hydration because it is important to consider the sugar part of the fermented apples in the dough which will already speed up the fermentation process.

Since hydration also affects fermentation, I preferred to adjust the dough in this way.

I also reduced the fermentation hours in the fridge from 12 to 10 for the same reason.

When we insert a sugar component into a dough, we must consider that this will catalyze the fermentation. So we have to adjust accordingly with times, hydration and quantity of yeast.

 

 

Dough characteristics:

hydration 65%

Rising characteristic:

overnight in the fridge for 10 hours

Ingredients FOR LIQUID MOTHER YEAST REFRESHMENT:

120 g liquid mother yeast starter + 120 g water + 120 g TYPE 1 flour

To obtain a good recipe of fermented apples it will be necessary to use quite hard apples. Let’s see how.

1 kg of apples

10/15 mint leaves

500 ml of water

8 g of salt

20 g of honey

5 g of rye flour

 

MIX INGREDIENTS:

• 500 g type 1 flour W400
• 50 g mature liquid mother yeast
• 325 g of water
• 100 g fermented apples
• 50 g walnuts
• 10 g chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 10 g of salt

Preparation for step

Refreshment of yeast

Mix all the ingredients listed in the liquid yeast composition above in a jar and keep a warm place for 3 to 3.5 hours at 25-26 ° C. This will depend on the strength of your yeast and how you usually “look after” it. The yeast will have to double in about 3 hours if it is strong.

autolysis

Add the required flour and all the water and mix for 2 minutes. Using your hands, or a planetary mixer, mix the ingredients until there are no dry residues of flour left. Cover and keep somewhere at room temperature until ready to start the dough for half an hour.

dough

Start kneading and after 2 minutes add the ripe yeast (you will notice it because bubbles will form and it will have become double). Add the salt. The salt must be inserted when we begin to see that our dough “pulls”, that is, it starts to string. Stir everything until it comes together in a homogeneous mass, but still full of wrinkles. Then, turn the bowl over on the work surface and proceed with a type of dough called “slap and fold”. Work it like this until it has a smooth and homogeneous appearance and until it detaches completely from the surface. Alternatively, the first few times, you can keep the dough in the bowl and do a series of stretches and folds towards the center, with one hand while you rotate the bowl.Do this for about 7 minutes (it all depends on the strength with which you work the dough, so this is subjective. It is important, for this reason, to be able to “feel” the stringing of the dough). At the end of this process, your dough should be more toned.

Rest and Lamination

Let the dough rest in the bowl for half an hour, after which proceed with the rolling.

In a bowl, mix the fermented apples, walnuts, rosemary and cinnamon and mix. During the lamination we are going to insert these ingredients. We make additions, in this case, not during the dough but during the rolling.

Fold the dough on itself and give a light pirling and place in the bowl and after 45 minutes start the creases.

 

Fermentation OFF FRIDGE and folds

In this case, we will keep our dough out of the fridge only half an hour to give it just a round of creases and then we will put it in the fridge until the following morning. WITHOUT FORMING IT. During the fermentation in the bowl, I made 1 series of “stratch & fold” folds, after half an hour.

I decreased the duration of fermentation outside the fridge because we must consider that we already have a very high sugar component in the dough given by fermented apples.

Pay attention also to the fermentation hours in the fridge.

6. Leavening and aging in the fridge overnight 10 hours

We cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight at a temperature of about 4 ° C.

7.Division of the dough and pre-molding the next morning
About an hour before, acclimatize your dough that has been in the fridge all night and when it will be at room temperature (approximately), lightly dust the work surface and turn the contents upside down your bowl. Sprinkle the top of the dough with the flour and, using a tarot, divide the mass in half, if you want two smaller loaves. Dusting the flour on the dough will allow you not to stick the tarot to the dough. Do pirling turns with the tarot and do a light pre-forming, without touching the dough too much with your hands.

Let stand half an hour on the table (or cutting board) covered with a dry cloth.

8.Forming 
Sprinkle the baking basket with white flour.

Shape your bread. I have tried a new technique, which I have seen, it turns out to give more tone to my dough. I leave you here the video I followed to learn: video forming

9. Proving at room temperature (about 2 hours – indicative time)
Cover each basket completely with a dry cloth, after having thoroughly dusted the bread at the top and let it rise. The duration of the second leavening is 2 hours. It really depends on the environment you are in, so based on the temperature you will have to adjust with the “finger rule” to understand when it is ready.

10. Bake in the oven (I cooked in a pan, then preheat the pan at least 40 minutes before).
Preheat the oven to 250 ° C for 1 hour.

Pour the dough on parchment paper and using a straight cut razor blade, give a clean cut to the bread.

Bake for 60 minutes: the first 30 minutes with a lid at 250 degrees, the remaining time without a lid at 200 degrees.