If you are bored with eating plain bread, adding fruit/vegetables/herbs or cheese is a great way to zhuzh up your regular bread. Have you tried my Olive & Rosemary sourdough? I also have a Spiced & Dried Fruit sourdough and Orange Scented Fruit sourdough. They are all super popular on the blog!
As you can see I love adding dried fruit to my bread but for this one I am using fresh blueberries. I get it, if you’d rather have your fresh berries as a snack, I mean they are too good to be thrown in bread right?. I often make this bread when I have some leftover berries sitting in the fridge for weeks. No one likes them when they are not super fresh and got a wrinkly skin. So I just throw them in the bread dough instead.
This makes a regular white sourdough pop with color and you will bite into a tang berry here and there which is very satisfying.
If you want to give this a try and don’t have fresh berries? Dried works too. Just soak them in warm water for a few hours.
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The first few steps until the second fold is similar to that of making a regular sourdough. The only difference here is that instead of the third coil fold, I will be incorporating the berries. Nonetheless, I will mention all the steps so you wouldn’t have to jump between recipes.
Get your levain ready. If you keep your starter in the fridge, take it out and bring it to room temperature. And then let it get activated. Remove some of it and feed the starter. Once this is active and bubbly, you can use some of it to make this bread.
Dissolve the levain in the water. This ensures that starter/levain is evenly distributed
Then add the above liquid to the flour and mix until all the flour is hydrated.
It will look like this. A little wet. Now cover this bowl and set aside for about an hour.
After the hour, add salt and mix until a dough is developed. Use slap and fold technique. 2-3 minutes of kneading will do.
Now let it rest in a warm place, covered and perform two coil folds at 45 minute intervals.
After the second coil fold, the dough will look a lot smoother. Let rest for 45 minutes.
Then take the dough out on to a bench and stretch gently as thin as possible without tearing.
Scatter the blueberries and fold the dough laminating the blueberries.
Once the dough is folded back together, place this in a bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for about 2 hours for the final bulk fermentation.
Once bulk is over, pre-shape and let the dough relax for about 20 minutes.
Then shape the loaf and place in the proofing basket. Cover with a food grade plastic bag and refrigerate overnight (18-24 hours).
If you ferment longer, the oven spring will be less but there will be more sour flavor and less gluten (more digestible)
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Score the bread and place in the oven.
Use your regular baking method. Use a DO or bake on a steel with convection setting ON.
This is my baking setup. I use a bakingsteel. Purchase link below.
A pan with boiling water for steam. A little spray and a big ice cube for extra steam.
As soon as you place the bread in, reduce temperature to 450°F. bake for 20 minutes. then remove the pan of water. bake for another 20 minutes. If the loaf is getting too dark, reduce the temperature to 440°F – 430°F.
Baking steel (you can use a pizza stone/any heavy oven proof base)provides constant heat from the bottom of the loaf, which helps oven spring and open crumb. The steel is heavy and should be pre-heated with the oven. Even though the thermometer placed inside the oven registers 500F, the steel may still be heating. So I usually give another 20-30 minutes for the steel to heat up.
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Always let the bread cool completely before cutting into it. This helps with cleaner cuts. As the bread cools down, some of the moisture will evaporate, making the crust even more crispier.
Fresh slices are great with butter and jam!. If my bread is day-old (it is usually the case as I always bake bread in the evening for the breakfast on following day) I like to toast the slices.
This is not a sweet sourdough. It has a very natural flavor so you can pair with cheese, pate, oils and other non sweet condiments. Here are my favorite ways to eat this bread;
- toasted with butter and honey
- toasted with butter and fresh berries
- fresh with butter and jam
- simply dipped in maple syrup
Ingredients
- 350 g strong bread flour (13% gluten)
- 80 g active mature starter (100% hydrated)
- 260 g water
- 6 g salt
- 1/2 cup (or more) fresh blueberries
Instructions
- Feed the starter ahead of time and once ripe, measure some(levain) to make the bread and feed the rest and refrigerate again
- Mix water (260 g) and levain
- Then add the mixture to the flour and mix thoroughly
- Cover and set aside for an hour
- Add the salt and mix to incorporate.A few minutes of slap and folds would be enough. Check the blog post steps for more details and video links.
- Let this dough rest for 45 minutes, covered
- And give a coil fold after 45 minute rest. Check photos and video above
- Repeat the coil fold in another 45 minutes and let the dough rest again
- After the final 45 minute rest, stretch the dough on a bench top (any non-stick surface would work)
- Scatter blueberries evenly and roll the dough back into a dough ball
- Place in a bowl, cover and bulk for about 1-2 hours (depending on the room temperature)
- After the bulk proof, pre-shape the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes
- Then shape the loaf and place in the proofing basket
- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 18 – 24 hours
- Check the post for different baking settings. You can decide to use a Dutch Oven or Open bake the bread depending on your oven and preference
- So preheat accordingly
- When the oven is ready, take the bread out of the fridge, score and bake
- Let the baked bread cool off on a wire rack before slicing
- Use a serrated knife to slice the cooled bread and enjoy!
