My daughter thinks I’m too conservative. Not politically, thank the goddesses, but too stuck in my ways. I refuse, apparently, to try new things. I disagree, but she’s right when it comes to bread. After literally years of experimentation, I found a recipe that works, and decided to stick to it. She decided I was too staid, so lately she’s taken over folding my bread and adding to it. And, to be fair, it’s been amazing.
The latest experiment has been adding blueberries and lemon zest to the dough. Generally, we do all the additions when folding the bread after the autolyse. The dough is a little more dense than it would be without the additives, but not disastrously so. The resulting bread wasn’t sweet, but was great slathered in butter, or even melted cheese. We didn’t try it with jam or similar spreads, but I suspect that would work just as well. Even though it’s been delicious, the blueberries all fall to the bottom of the loaf. To try and ameliorate this, we’re going to smoosh them up and spread them over the dough, rather than add them as large fruit. (And increase the amount of lemon zest. We have a lemon shortage, because we aren’t yet on ‘can we have a lemon’ terms, so lemons are being rationed for the time being).
The cheese and olive loaf – which disappeared before a single picture could be snapped! – was divine. Especially if your family are devotees of the Cheese, as we are. We worshipped at the golden crust of this loaf, and it will definitely be added to the rotation.
The other loaf we tried was apple and cinnamon. To my horror and disbelief, my child who liberally coats every meal with cinnamon failed to add sufficient to this loaf! Next time, we’ll probably toss the apple pieces in cinnamon first and then add them. The least successful of the three, but we’ll be refining it as we go along.
One of the reasons experimentation didn’t happen earlier is undue deference to authority (argh, I *am* getting conservative!). A published bread author and winner of important things in the baking world advised against ever adding things to your dough, add them to the bread as spreads and toppings, he intoned. He was wrong.
In bread, as in all things, if you want to add things to your loaf, go ahead! Don’t let other people tell you that your bread cannot have blueberries. Enjoy experimenting, and be fearless with your fripparies.
