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Golden Raisin and Walnut Bread
May 23, 2008 | 28 Comments
This recipe is from Jeffrey Hamelman‘s Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes. Hamelman is the baking director at King Arthur Flour in Vermont. This book is considered a benchmark on artisanal baking and has beautiful sketches of the bread-making process.
Most of his recipes rely on long fermentation times with a third of the yeast we normally use for leavening. In a bakery environment where the air is teeming with wild yeast, this may work. We find that we need to double the amount of yeast recommended in his recipes.
This was the first bread we tried from his book. We’ve made many more since then. The results are always fantastic. This recipe can be easily halved to make one large loaf.
GOLDEN RAISIN AND WALNUT BREAD
Makes 2 large or 3 medium loaves
Stiff Biga (Starter):
4 oz. bread flour (7/8 cup)
4 oz. whole wheat flour (7/8 cup)
5 oz. water (5/8 cup)
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
Mix the yeast in the water and stir. Add everything else and knead to form a stiff, but supple dough. Adjust water if necessary. Cover with a plastic wrap and leave to ferment at room temperature for between 12 to 16 hours.
Final dough:
1 lb. 5.6 oz. bread flour (5 cups)
2.4 oz. whole wheat flour (1/2 cup)
1 lb. 2 oz. water (2.25 cups)
1 tablespoon salt
2.5 teaspoons instant yeast
**original recipe has 1.25 tsps
all of the biga
1.25 cups chopped walnuts
1 cup packed golden raisins
To make the final dough, combine all of the ingredients except the biga, walnuts and raisins in a mixing bowl. Chop the biga up into small pieces and mix or knead it into the final dough until they are thoroughly combined. This is quite difficult to do by hand. Use a mixer or bread machine for kneading if you have one. If kneading by hand, knead for 8 to 10 minutes until the two are fairly well combined and the gluten is well developed. If you stretch the dough, it should be fairly elastic and stretch into a thin membrane.
Add the walnuts and raisins and mix until they are evenly incorporated.
Place the dough back in a greased bowl, cover and ferment for 2 hours, punching down or folding the dough once after one hour.
To fold: Take the dough out of the bowl, spread it out a little on a board, fold it in thirds like a letter, rotate it 90 degrees and fold it up again, return the dough to the bowl and cover it again. Folding degases the dough without damaging the gluten.
At the end of the fermentation, divide the dough into two pieces and pre-shape each lightly into rounds on a lightly floured surface and place with the seams up. (Or shape into smaller pieces for rolls) . Cover with a clean towel and let each rest for 10 to 20 minutes before shaping into the final shape.
Shape into tight round or oval loaves. Place the loaves on a baking sheet, cover them with a clean towel and set aside for a final rise, approximately 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
Halfway though the final rise, begin preheating the oven to 460 degrees F.
Just before placing the loaves in the oven, score them with a knife. Use a squirt bottle to steam the oven (take care not to squirt on the bulb).
Place the loaves in the oven and squirt again.
After 20 minutes of baking, lower the oven temperature to 440 F. Bake for another 20 minutes. Watch them towards the end ‘cos the raisins may burn quickly.
When an instant read thermometer stuck inside the loaf reads around 200 F, it is done. Cool on a wire rack for atleast 20 minutes before slicing.
Golden Raisin and Walnut Bread is our entry for Waiter, There’s Something in My … Dried Fruit and Nuts hosted by Andrew @ Spittoon Extra
Filed Under: Jeffrey Hamelman, Nuts, Raisin, vegan recipes, vegetarian recipes, Walnut, Wheat, whole-wheat
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28 Comments
Great combo in bread, looks scrumptious! I love Oatmeal chewy cookies with this combo as well!:)
I’m amazed you bake your breads…I simply go buy them!
Delicious looking bread.
I do make bread at home, but never made with a starter.
wow! you bake ur cake huh?great! gotto try once…anyways ur pics are nice
Wonderful bread, looks delicious.
Hey love ur blog…u have so many wonderful recipes…this bread just looks divine..
Now, that is such a gorgeous looking bread
Have a great weekend
I love raisin bread without the cinnamon flavor and the nuts together should be heaven. The bread is perfect
That bread of yours looks gorgeous – makes me want to dive right in! Have a lovely weekend you two!
wow, theyre really good pics! a great entry! it mustve been perfect, i love everything with nuts in them!
Amazing!! I love the flavors in that bread, man, I think its time i gave bread-baking try! lovely loaf there Bee!:)
nice bread bee
Haven’t ever baked bread with a starter but you are encouraging me to.
Btw, tried your no knead bread like you suggested and it was really good, especially considering very little effort went into it.
The bread looks too delicious.perfect for breakfast
Raisin and walnut must’ve really kicked this up several notches.. Looks so good.
These loaves are rustic and gorgeous.
I loveee the texture there!! Now I am craving walnuts
absolutely gorgeous bread! and after your comment i did a search for savory muffins and found your cheese and red pepper muffin, which sounds and looks delicious!
Oh dear , I just made raisin bread for the weekend, but i would love to add some nuts,sounds delicious and healthy too.
Thanks
Its a weekend..got up late and I saw this. Great loaf, and good pictures too, as usual!
Oh, these are totally stunners!
looks delicious!
Gorgeous bread! Looks absolutely delicious!
Wotta-bread! Wow!!!
Delicious! Those loaves look like they rose perfectly.
Crazy serendipity – I just posted about a recipe I tried from one of the King Arthur books and was poking around for another one to try tomorrow, I’m thinking I’ll be making this one
Bee dear, I made again the raisin bread and I added walnuts to it. It was really delicious and we all loved the taste. I mean just adding walnut would make the same recipe so yummy, never though that.My son enjoyed it too!!
Thanks
walnuts and raisins sounds like an interesting combo!!!
Dried Fruit and Nuts – The Waiter Round-Up…
We have them up-side down, baked, and stewed. We have them sweet ad we have them savoury. We have 29 wonderfully diverse recipes to work through! for today ladies and gentlemen we have the Waiter There’s Something In My… Dried……