It was around Thanksgiving time, when my sister and her family were visiting from Texas. I wanted to make sure they had sourdough bread for their breakfast. I made my usual sourdough bread but I also wanted to make something a bit special, so I decided to try cinnamon raisin for the first time. I checked my pantry to find I was all out of raisins, but I did have dates. I was also running low on cinnamon. I decided to substitute with the dates and put half allspice and half cinnamon, I'm so happy that I did! I've included a timeline below to help you stay organized.
Ingredients:
250g active sourdough starter
735g water
1,000g all purpose flour
25g salt
200g dates roughly chopped
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon allspice
Makes two loaves of bread.
Method:
Mix the starter and water together till the mixture is well combined and looks milky. Next, add the flour and mix till a shaggy dough forms. Cover and let it rest for 2 hours. Next, combine the orange juice and dates in a small pan and simmer on the stove until the date are soft and the liquid has mostly evaporated. Allow the dates to cool.
Once your dough has rested, add the salt, spices, dates and another 50g of water. Pinch the spices and dates into the dough and fold the dough over itself a few times. Cover, and allow it to proof for 4 hours or until it has doubled in size. Next, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and cut in half. Pre shape each half of the dough. The shape doesn’t need to be perfect at this point, it’s just the first shaping. Cover and left rest for 20 minutes. Then, shape the loaves again, a bit more gently this time. Place the loaves in their proofing baskets and place in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.
Once the loaves are proofed, put your Dutch oven into the oven and preheat to 450 degrees. When your oven has reached temperature, allow your Dutch oven to continue to sit in the oven to heat up for another 30 minutes. Take the first loaf out of the fridge, place it on a few pieces of parchment paper and give it a score, have your 50g of water ready. Take the Dutch oven out and carefully place the loaf inside and poor in the water. Be careful that steam is hot! Put the lid on and cook in the oven for 35 minutes. Next, take the lid off and cook another 15 minutes. Once the bread is done, take it out of the Dutch oven and allow to fully cook on a rack.
Enjoy with lots of butter or for a sweet treat, toasted with warm butter and bit of sugar on top. It also makes an amazing french toast or french toast casserole!
Here is a timeline to help you stay organized:
7am: mix the water, starter and flour and set aside. get your spices and dates ready.
9am: mix in the spices and dates and do one set of stretch and folds.
1pm: do your pre shape
1:30pm: do your final shape and place in proofing baskets.
3:30pm: preheat your oven to 450 degrees with the Dutch oven inside.
4pm: cook your first loaf of bread
The next morning: cook your second loaf of bread.
I sure hope you give this spice and date sourdough bread a try! If you are looking for more recipes like this one, or if you want to stay in the loop and never miss another blog post, just click here. Come on you know you want to!
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