SOURDOUGH RUM-SOAKED RAISIN & CRANBERRY FRENCH T110 FLOUR

Hot out of the oven, the crust nicely browned and ‘singing’!

My Sister-in-law gifted me a 1kg packet of this French Type 110 flour( see picture below). It is a “Farine de blé complète” or in English, a complete wheat flour. From the symbols on the package, it’s organic as well. Since my sourdough starter needed feeding, I thought I’d bake a bread using this flour.

Farine de blè compléte

I already soaked the raisins and cranberries in rum, (preferably overnight).

Cover the bowl with cling wrap.

Shake up the bowl occasionally to mix the ingredients with rum.

Method:

​In a Kitchen Aid bowl, mix the two flours with 150g of the filtered water and then let this autolysis for 20 to 40 minutes.

Mixture comes off the sides.

In a glass container with the remaining 50g of filtered water, add in 100g of the Sourdough starter and mix in the honey and dried yeast, ( and nutmeg powder -optional). Let this stand at room temperature till bubbly.

​At the end of this time, mix in the SD starter mixture with the flour in the KA bowl, and knead at low speed for 10 to 13 minutes or till the dough is smooth and silky.

Halfway through, add in the salt, 2 tsp coconut oil; and when you’re about to stop, add in the cranberries and raisins.

Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and fold the dough a few times, finally shaping it into a ball.

Proof this at room temperature for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes, fold the dough again and shape into a ball, and proof again for 30 minutes. Then repeat this a third time, and proof for another 30 minutes. 

At the end of this time, do a final folding gently, and shape into a boule.

Proof another 30 minutes on a  floured baking paper.

Meanwhile, heat up the oven to 250˚C. with the Dutch oven (DO) without the cover, inside. ​

The shaped boule proofing on baking paper.

At the end of this time, transfer the dough by gently lowering this into the hot DO and cover the DO with the lid. Return the DO back to the main oven and bake at 240˚C for 30 minutes.  Then remove the DO cover and bake further to brown and dry the crust of the loaf for another 10 minutes at 220˚C. The final internal temperature I got in this loaf was 94.3˚C.

Baked in the Dutch Oven for 30 minutes covered, and 10 to 15 minutes uncovered. 

Boule, from the French for “ball”, is a traditional shape of French bread, resembling a squashed ball. It is a rustic loaf shape that can be made of any type of flour. A boule can be leavened with commercial yeast, chemical leavening, or even wild yeast sourdough. The name of this bread is the reason a bread baker is referred to as a “boulanger” in French, and a bread bakery a “boulangerie”. 

Final internal Temp 94.3˚C

Sliced after cooling, to show the thin crust and the even crumb which is soft and spongy. 

Remove hot loaves from the DO immediately after baking and cool them on a rack to prevent the bottom crust from becoming moist and soggy. 

Never slice a hot loaf of bread as the crumb would be sticky and slushy. Also to keep the crust crispy, store the cut loaf in a paper bag and not in a plastic bag.

This allows the loaf to ‘breathe’ as it were, prevents moisture condensation, and keeps it firm. 

The Boule cooling on a metal rack.

I noticed that the French Type 110 flour imparted a very nice deep brown colouration to the crust of the loaf, and further baking experiments using this flour gave the same deep colouration if this flour was incorporated into the recipe. All I did was to add about 30 to 40 gms to a 400gm bread-recipe.