No photo for this one because it ended up overproofed and horribly deformed. It was still very tasty though. And the whole orange worked out well, so I wanted to do a quick write-up for it.

Orange Spice Sourdough

Slightly adapted from Sourdough Companion

Ingredients

• 100g hard (strong/bread/high grade) whole wheat flour
• 400g all-purpose flour
• 50g sugar
• 125g sultanas
• 5g coarse sea salt
• 200mL milk
• 1 large orange (~175g)
• 150g ripe/active starter (100% hydration)
• 50g unsalted butter
• 1 tsp. mixed spice

Directions

1. Combine whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, sultanas, and salt.
2. Place whole orange in a blender with the milk and purée.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the starter and the orange-milk mixture.
4. Working from the centre outward, gradually incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet.
5. Smear half the butter onto your work surface and dump the dough out on top of it. Knead on the buttered surface until all of the butter has been incorporated, then repeat with the remaining butter.¹
6. Cover and allow to ferment at room temperature, stretching and folding every hour or two.
7. Once the dough feels light and active, press it flat and sprinkle with half the mixed spice.
8. Fold the flattened dough into thirds like a letter and press it flat again. Then sprinkle on the remaining mixed spice and repeat the letter fold on the opposite axis.
9. Press flat again and divide into two roughly equal portions.²
10. Round each portion, cover, and rest for ~30 minutes.
11. Grease two 20cm by 10cm (8x4") loaf pans.
12. Press each portion flat, letter fold, and then roll up like a jelly roll and place seam-side-down in loaf pans. Cover and proof at room temperature until light and well-risen.
13. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
14. Bake at 230°C (450°F) for 10-15 minutes.
15. Reduce temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
16. Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.
17. If desired, brush with melted butter, diluted honey, or another glaze of your choice while still hot.

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¹ I didn't actually handle the butter this way this time. TF ended up mixing up this dough for me and just melted the butter and mixed it in along with the other wet ingredients. This worked fine, but I think working the butter in during kneading would be preferable. ^Back
2 I only made a single hearth loaf this time, but I think this bread would work well as pan loaves. I'm not sure whether it would be better to make one very large loaf or two small ones, but my instinct is to go for the small ones. Maybe in the future I can play around with scaling up the recipe slightly in order to get two decent-sized pan loaves. ^Back