Fruit Bread

Levain

Ingredients:

50g water
50g Organic flour

Method:

A few days in advance there are a couple of things to prepare, start with the levain. Place your flour and water into a jar, stir, place the lid on and set aside. Feed it with a little more flour and water on day 2, 3 and 4 and it should be ready to use. This process adds awesome flavour and texture to your loaf.

Fruit

Ingredients:

100g dried figs
80g dried apricots
80g sultanas
35g Orange pulp
60g water

Method:

Roughly chop the dried fruit, make sure you remove the hard tip of the figs. Put everything in a sandwich bag with the orange pulp and water, mix it all together and set aside for a few days in the fridge until ready to use.

Dough

Ingredients:

5g cinnamon
6g dum ka masala powder
2g ginger powder
2g cocoa powder
24g brown sugar
10g salt
12g olive oil
7g sachet dry yeast
100g levain
400g strong flour
270g water

Method:

Dump all ingredients into the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook attached. mix on low for about 10 minutes or until the dough is coming away from the sides of the bowl.

Fold the fruit into the dough by hand, ensuring it’s evenly distributed throughout the dough. Cover the bowl with a damp teatowel and allow to rest and double in volume. This may take 1-3 hours depending on the temperature of your room.

Coat your loaf tin in olive oil. Lightly flour your bench and scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the bench. Shape it into a loaf, coat in flour and place into the prepared tin. Allow to prove again for 1-3 hours.

Place a dish that can hold water on the bottom of your oven and preheat to 180C. When you’re ready to bake pour boiling water into the dish to generate steam then bake the loaf for about 45-50 minutes, remove from the tin while it’s hot and return to the oven on a flat tray for 10 minutes.