Chocolate and Currant Levain

The recipe comes from an excellent book on bread-baking I recently discovered, How to Make Bread by South-African born and UK-based baker Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. Here are a few of the things I love about this book:

• It stresses that "accuracy is crucial in bread baking" and encourages the baker to use a precision electronic scale
• It lists all quantities in metric weights first, followed by American cups and/or ounces, tablespoons, etc. 
• All recipes are illustrated with clear explanations and gorgeous pictures (some of the pages can be seen online on this blog)
• All recipes are mixed by hand (stretch-and-fold method) but they are wrist-friendly because the quantities are always on the small side (the downside is that the yield is smaller than what I am used to and I am tempted to just double the amount of ingredients but then the wrist-friendly aspect becomes less obvious. A professional baker would also tell you that because the amounts are small, there is no mass-effect which makes it harder to coax all possible flavors out of the grain. Life is all about compromise, isn't it?)
• The book explains the basics of bread making, then offers recipes for yeasted breads, sourdoughs, flatbreads, soda breads and pastries (among which pains au chocolat for which the reader is shown how to make his or her own chocolate batons). There is even a gluten-free bread recipe with two variations (I love the fact that it doesn't use any xantham gum or other barbarious sounding binder). Hadjiandreou writes that he learned his trade as a baker in a German-style bakery and he includes a recipe for dark rye bread which he says is one of his all-time favorites. There are also wheat-free breads, including a prune and pepper rye bread that looks marvelous and is definitely on my to-bake list! He also includes an award-winning recipe for a marzipan stollen
• I find How to Make Bread a great resource for both new and experienced bakers and if I ever teach bread-baking, I would be tempted to use it as a workbook since it covers a lot of ground in a friendly manner and makes home baking look deliciously rewarding (which it is, I can testify to that!). 

Although I have already baked quite a few recipes from the book (including a pretty pink-dotted beetroot sourdough for the Easter dinner bread basket), I am showcasing the chocolate bread since I recently made and froze a new batch in anticipation of our grandkids' arrival on spring break at the end of the week. It is a kid-friendly bread that even adults not blessed (or cursed, depending on the point of view) with a sweet tooth can enjoy, all levain-based and chokeful of good-for-you currants. I used bittersweet chocolate chips as that's all I had on-hand (Hadjiandreou suggests using milk or semisweet which we would probably have found too sweet anyway). This blog entry comes with a warning though: once you have made this bread, you'll likely find yourself compulsorily making it again and again. 

Ingredients: (for two small-loaves)

• 200 g Zante currants
• 80 g semisweet chocolate chips
• 330 g unbleached all-purpose flour (Hadjiandreou says to use "strong or bread flour" which contains a high amount of protein (up to 17%) to trap the carbon dioxide during fermentation and give the bread a good texture. That would be considered too high here in the US but then our flours are quite different. To be on the safe side, if you do live in the UK, your best bet is to follow Hadjiandreou's advice)
• 8 g salt
• 20 g cocoa powder
• 170 g white levain (sourdough starter) at 100% hydration*
• 250 g warm water

* The starter I used is one that my friend Teresa from Northwest Sourdough kindly sent me when I came back from my trip to France (saving me the tedious task of reactivating my dehydrated levain). Appropriately called Northwest Starter because it was originally cultured near Willapa Bay, Washington, it is wonderfully fragrant and so active that I was able to bake with it after just one feeding. No wonder it was once featured in a TV show (in 2006 during the "What's Cooking?" segment on KNOE TV Channel 8/CBS affiliate). Why, if I had been the one to capture these wild workhorses yeasts, I would probably have tried to get them on Animal Planet! Well done, Teresa, and thank you!

Method (slightly adapted):

1. Mix the currants and chocolate and set aside
2. In one small mixing bowl, mix the flour, salt and cocoa powder together. This is the dry mixture
3. In a larger mixing bowl, mix the sourdough starter and water together until well combined. This is the wet mixture
4. Add the dry and chocolate-currant mixtures to the wet mixture and mix until incorporated
5. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes
6. After 10 minutes, stretch and fold the dough inside the bowl by going twice around the bowl with four stretches and foldings at each 90° turn (8 stretches/foldings in all)
7. Let rest 10 minutes again. Repeat twice
8. Complete a fourth stretch and fold cycle and let the dough rest one hour (I actually let it rest closer to three hours before it was fermented enough, probably because my house was colder than the lab where the recipe has been tested)
9. When the dough has doubled in volume, punch it down to release the air (I didn't really punch it as I am always weary of completely deflating it), lightly flour a clean work surface and transfer the boule of dough to it
10. Divide the dough into two equal portions and roll each one into a ball
11. Dust two small proofing baskets with flour (Hadjiandreou uses a long oblong one into which he fits the two balls snugly together but I don't own one like that) and set the boules in them, seam-side up
12. Let the dough rise until doubled in size (it can take between 3 and 6 hours)
13. About 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 475°F/240°C with a baking stone on the middle shelf and an empty roasting pan at the bottom. Fill a cup with water and set it aside
14. When the boules have doubled in volume, tip them out seam-side down on a parchment-lined semolina-dusted rimless half-sheet pan and slide them onto the baking stone. Pour the reserved water into the empty roasting pan and lower the oven temperature to 425°F/220°C
15. Bake about 30 minutes. To check if the bread is ready, tip it out upside down and tap the bottom. It should sound hollow
16. Let cool on a wire rack
17. Enjoy!

The chocolate and currant sourdough bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting.

Jeffrey Hamelman's Whole Wheat Scones

Related post: Baking with Locally Grown Grains

Having experienced first-hand during his apprenticeship in Ireland how light and flaky scones could be (nothing like the sturdy and mealy-greasy items that often pass for scones on this side of the pond), Jeffrey Hamelman resolved to recreate the recipe for his bakery in Vermont and while his version isn't likely to meet with the approval of the cholesterol police, it is still packed with wholesome nutrients since it relies exclusively on whole wheat flour. In case you are partial to scones, as I am, you are likely to be wowed if you try it at home.

If you are concerned about the amount of fat the recipe contains (Hamelman even advises using full-fat buttermilk if available), you can try taking out some of the butter, replacing some of the cream by more buttermilk, using a bit of sour cream, or mixing yogurt and buttermilk. I haven't tried any of these skinnier suggestions but I will once the fourteen scones still waiting for us in the freezer are gone. The number of scones the recipe yields depends upon the size of the scoop used to shape them. In class we used a scantily filled 2.5 inch scoop and we got 16 scones. At home I used our regular 2-inch ice-cream scoop and I got 22 smaller ones.

Jeffrey uses Vermont white whole wheat pastry flour. I used Fairhaven white whole wheat pastry flour which is sold in bulk at my local natural food store. Other sources can surely be found in other parts of the country. It will be interesting to see if they yield the same results.

Scones can be scooped out and frozen raw close to each other on a sheet pan (covered with plastic) then bagged once frozen. There is an almost imperceptible flavor loss but the convenience makes up for it. They should be taken out and put on a sheet pan (spaced properly this time) in the refrigerator overnight for baking first thing in the morning (although I know some bakers bake them directly from the freezer, presumably adjusting the baking time accordingly). Don't egg wash and/or top with sugar the scones you are planning to freeze (the dough would absorb it all).

Now for the funny part: I do not relish sweets and although I loved the scones we made during the class, they were a bit too sweet for my taste (I actually like savory scones best). But it was my first time trying my hand at the recipe at home and, contrary to my rebellious nature, I decided to follow it scrupulously.

In the best culinary school tradition, I did what we French call the "mise en place", that is to say, I scaled all the ingredients and got them all lined up in little bowls on the workbench. I mixed the flour and the baking soda, I incorporated the butter as indicated. I poured in the liquids with the egg and mixed until just combined. I scooped out all the scones: 8 nicely spaced on one half-sheet pan, 14 closely packed on the other. I egg-washed and pearl-sugared the ones I intended to bake right away. I reached for a plastic bag to cover the sheet-pan destined to the freezer and that's when I did a double-take: a hot pink bowl was sitting forlornly on the counter. It was full. Of sugar. I hadn't added a gram of sugar to my dough. Freud was right: the subconscious rules! My scones were going to be savory indeed.

Nothing to do at this point but go forward. So I went ahead with the baking. My scones didn't spread as much as the ones we made in class and I had to leave them in 5 minutes longer. I don't know if that had to do with the lack of sugar or with the different absorption capacity of the Washington flour or with my oven... No way to know. What I do know is that my first bite into a cooled down scone was very tentative... I had completely skewed the formula. Would it still work?

Ladies and gentlemen, the answer is a resounding yes. So my advice to you is to do as you please with the sugar amount. The pearl sugar and the currants provide enough of a sweet hint to make the scones attractive to sugar lovers (who can always lather them with jam or honey later on) without displeasing those of us who have less of a sweet tooth. Leaving the sugar out or reducing it could potentially be a sure way to make everyone happy in the family. Think of the smiles around the table on Thanksgiving morning!

Before baking

Ingredients (for 22 small scones):

• 545 g white whole wheat flour
• 136 g sugar (optional as it turned out. Can also be reduced instead of just taken out)
• 33 g baking powder
• 3 g salt
• 136 g butter, unsalted, diced, pliable
• 109 g currants, tossed in a little extra flour
• 60 g egg (1 large one)
• 204 g cultured buttermilk (full-fat if available. I made mine at home using full-fat local Guernsey cow milk)
• 289 g heavy cream
• egg and milk for egg wash
• Pearl sugar for decoration (optional) (I bought mine at Ikea)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven at 375°F/190°C
2. Dice cold butter and leave at room temperature until pliable/soft. Toss currants in a little extra flour
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg and add the buttermilk and heavy cream
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, blend the dry ingredients to combine
5. Add the diced, pliable butter to the mixing bowl and, using the first speed, paddle into the dry ingredients until pea-size
6. Add the currants, then the wet ingredients all at once to the mixing bowl. Still using the first speed only, blend until just combined.
7. Portion with scoop of desired size onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
8. Egg wash tops of scones and sprinkle with pearl sugar (if using)
9. Bake (with no steam) for about 13 minutes or until tops are barely springy (I baked mine for a total of 18 minutes).

Printable recipe

Jeffrey Hamelman's whole wheat scones are going to Stefanie (whose marvelous blog Hefe and mehr will be hosting this week's issue of Yeastspotting.)