Sweet and slightly tart, this cranberry apple sourdough is a delicious way to use those cranberries you stocked up on since they are finally in season again.
Even if you are not a fan of cranberries, don’t turn up your nose too quickly to this loaf – the tart cranberries are balanced with the sweetness of the apple so you don’t get that intense bite as you do from eating straight cranberries.
Equipment:
This recipe does use a clay baker (thus far, all of my sourdough loaves do) but you could try substituting a dutch oven (I believe they bake fairly similarly, but have not tried it) or simply bake in a loaf pan. Keep in mind that the texture is likely to be different, and with a loaf pan you should probably decrease the oven temperature and increase the bake time. If you try either one of these swaps, please come back and let us know how it turned out!
This cranberry apple sourdough also uses a stand mixer to help develop the gluten. Although it is possible to do so by hand, I cannot say that I recommend it – it’s an exhausting process. However, if you wish, go the math ahead!
I have not yet experimented with “no-knead” sourdough loaves, but hope to do so in the future. If you experiment with turning this into a no-knead loaf, please let us know how it works out.
Cranberry Apple Sourdough Ingredients:
All of the sweetness of this loaf comes from honey and apple. If you wanted the loaf to be sweeter, or wanted to reduce the honey, you could try reducing the honey to 1 tbsp (to help the rise) and adding Trim Healthy Mama gentle sweet when you add the salt.
Just a word of caution: don’t use too much gentle sweet or you could potentially hurt the rise. I have not done much experimenting on this front yet, however from some light reading it appears that too much sugar alcohols could hinder the rising process.
Cranberry Apple Sourdough Bread
Equipment
- stand mixer (with dough hook)
- clay baker
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 c sourdough starter active
- 1 1/4 c water
- 1 c whole wheat flour
- 3 c white whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp vital wheat gluten
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 Honeycrisp apple Peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
- 2 c cranberries (I used frozen)
- 4 tbsp honey
Instructions
- In a stand mixer bowl, combine the starter, water, 1 c whole wheat flour, vital wheat gluten, and honey.
- Mix until combined.
- Add the 3 c white whole wheat flour, cranberries, and roughly chopped apple (you want fairly large pieces or you won't taste the apple at all).
- Mix well.
- Let rest 20 minutes.
- Add the salt, and mix for 9 minutes.
- Place in a greased bowl and let rise for 6 hours.
- In the last 20-30 minutes of rising, soak your clay baker.
Second Rise:
- Dump the water out of your clay baker, and place empty clay baker in a cold oven.
- Preheat oven with baker inside to 425 for one hour.
- Meanwhile, divide the dough into two loaves and place in two separate greased bowls, seam side up.
- Allow to rise for one hour while the clay baker preheats.
Baking:
- Gently flip one loaf onto a piece of parchment paper, seam side down. Score the top of the loaf as desired, and carefully place in the clay baker.
- Bake with the lid on for 15 minutes.
- Remove the lid, and bake for five more minutes.
- Repeat with second loaf.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] you are looking for a loaf more on the sweet end of things (but not too sweet) consider this Cranberry Apple Sourdough Bread. Cranberries are finally in season (but not for much longer) and it’s definitely worth a […]