Alan posted delicious looking cinnamon raisin batards (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60371/maurizios-cinnamon-raisin-levain-baguettes) so I had to jump on the bandwagon too. I scaled up the original recipe from Maurizio to make three boules of my usual size which is usually around 1100 g of flour.
I didn’t go as far as Maurizio to make my own raisins but I certainly thought about it! Due to it being a crazy week, I went with unsulfured Thompson raisins and soaked them in some bourbon overnight. His wholewheat flour was replaced by freshly milled Red Fife wheat done on the finest setting I could get on my Komo mill. I did not sift out the bran. It took a bit to find the Saigon cinnamon but one of the local health food stores had it.
As well, I used my Kitchen Aid Pro Line mixer to mix and develop the gluten instead of using slaps and folds. When it was time to integrate the levain and the salt, I put the mixer on speed one for 1 or two minutes, then I put it on speed two for 9 minutes to develop the gluten. After the 9 minutes, I added the cinnamon and the raisins and mixed for another minute. The rest of the recipe was followed as per Maurizio’s instructions. This is the link to Maurizio’s original recipe: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/cinnamon-raisin-sourdough/
So here is my rescaled recipe:
Makes 3 loaves
Levain:
60 g trice refreshed sourdough starter
30 g strong bakers unbleached flour
30 g home milled red fife flour
60 g of filtered water
Dough:
740 g strong bakers unbleached flour
300 g freshly milled red fife flour
830 g filtered water (divided into 730 g and 100 g)
22 g salt
180 g levain from above
220 g unsulfured Thompson raisins
22 g Bourbon
12 g Saigon cinnamon
The night before:
Raisins
- Soak the raisins in the bourbon and cover overnight.
- Be sure that your starter has been refreshed a couple of times already and give it one more feeding. You should have a total of 60 g of starter.
- Mill the required amounts of Red Fife berries on the finest setting possible. Reserve.
Dough making day:
Levain
- Early in the morning, add the water and flours for the Levain to the starter and let sit for 3 to 4 hours.
Dough
- About an hour before the levain is ready, mix the dough flours and 730 g of the water together in a stand mixer on the lowest speed for a minute or two, and then let autolyse for an hour or so.
- Add the salt, part of the reserved water, and the levain and mix for a minute on the lowest speed. Then mix on the next speed up for 9 minutes.
- Then add the remaining water and the cinnamon. Let that mix for 30 seconds or so and then add the soaked raisins. Mix until the raisins are fairly well distributed. Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place.
- After 30 minutes, give it a set of stretches and folds until it feels quite firm.
- 30 minutes after that, do another set. Then let rise for another 3 or 4 hours. My dough temperature was 76 F when Maurizio called for 79F. I placed the dough in a warm spot (oven with the door cracked open and the lights on) to compensate for the cooler dough. I let it rise until I saw a number of large bubbles on top and the volume had expanded by 50%. This was an additional 4 hours and 15 minutes after the folds for this particular dough. So the total bulk was 5 hours and 15 minutes.
- Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~775 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter.
- Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make as tight boule as you can.
- Place the dough seam side down in rice floured bannetons. Cover, then refrigerate overnight. The loaves spent 15.5 hours in the fridge.
Baking Day:
- The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside.
- Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Watch that they don’t burn. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.
- The house smells amazing!