Artisan bread recipe for moist tropical fruit

[dsm1212]

I'd like to try to repro this bread in my WFO: http://www.sendbread.com/cart/index....products_id=31

It's a medium-dark artisan boule. I'm not sure what base recipe to start with for adding moist fruit like Mango and Pineapple. Any suggestions?

steve

[SableSprings]

Steve, I do several breads that contain fruit and nuts in my WFO. You will probably want to go with dried fruit rather than fresh. Do you currently bake bread in your oven? The bread in the link would probably work for you using a 64-66% hydration dough and adding no more than 20% (Bakers %) dried fruit. I do a Papaya/Almond whole wheat that uses about 18% dried Papaya and 5% chopped almonds in a 63% hydrated dough. I know that Mango & Pineapple are available in dried form and using them gives you much better "chunks" in the end product than using fresh as well as allowing you better control of the bread's moisture.

I know this is a bit vague as an answer to your question, but it would be useful to know a little more about your baking experience. If you'd like some sample formulas of my breads, let me know the number of loaves you'd be interested in trying as a batch and I'll send you a pdf of my formula spreadsheet for them. (p.s. all my formulas are by weight not volume )

[dsm1212]

Yes, I've done enough to work with that. I talked to the guy at "when pigs fly" in Maine who actually makes this bread. He wasn't keen on discussing the recipe :-), but I got the impression he was using fresh mango and dried pineapple. I found a couple of standard bread recipes that seem to use fresh mango. I'll try it both ways. I've got starter but I'm tempted to use instant yeast for my first try on this because I fear it will be dense. Maybe with an overnight in the fridge.

The PDF would be great, my mixer is best for 2 loaves at a batch, but I often load the oven up with 2 or 3 batches of different things. I'm hoping this rain will let up for the weekend as my oven is outdoors (heavy floodlike rains in MA right now).

thanks
steve

[david s]

Try a small batch first. I had a disaster a few years ago when using paw paw and mixing it in a bread maker. I think because the pawpaweasily turns to mush and contains so much sugar it reacted very strongly with the yeast. When it started to rise it went berserk and I had frothy dough overflowing from the mixing bowl everywhere.

[SableSprings]

I've attached three pdfs for you-I hope my spreadsheet format makes sense (not a lot of detail notes on the dough handling, so if you have questions just let me know). One is a Pecan Apricot Whole Wheat (PAWW), a Whole Wheat Papaya, and my basic poolish/levain baguette. I have started using my basic baguette dough (Bill is my +42 year old sourdough pet) as a base for experimental taste combos. The baguette dough will handle quite an array of additions, (such as cheese, olives, garlic, etc.) usually put in during the final shaping. I've also used the dough base and substituted Guiness Stout for half the water. You might think about doing a little experimentation with this or one of your basic white (or light wheat) doughs to reduce the number of variables.

I do all my mixing by hand and as David noted any soft fruit will mush up totally during mixing. I have done Hawaiian Sweet Rolls using canned pineapple juice for part of my liquid and it worked pretty well. How about using mango puree as substitute for some of the water and add some chunks of dried pineapple and mango. It should give you lots of flavor and some real bits of fruit. Also as David noted (and I'm sure you are aware), the higher sugar content in these breads can make for some pretty dark crusts and bottoms if you aren't watching them closely. Good luck and I strongly suspect after a couple of experiments you'll have a loaf as good (if not better) than the When Pigs Fly outfit.

BillyBaguettesX6.pdf
PAWWx2.pdf
WWPapayaX2.pdf

p.s. My primary flour is Harvest King from General Mills (it's their Better for Bread flour just packaged in 50# sacks). The protein is low for American "artisan" bread flours, but it's very close to the protein content of the French bread flour (just under 12%). It's my favorite and I haven't seen any need to buy the more expensive flours aimed at the home bakers who are told they have to use "high-end flour" to produce quality breads. I generally try to use All Trumps with my whole wheat breads because it's very high protein and helps supplement the lower gluten levels of whole wheat flour.

[dsm1212]

Wow, great response! I'll have to look through these and make some decisions. My starters are all dormant as I don't do much with it during the winter. I don't think I have time to activate them for this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.