Scraping the Skillet

I was recently blessed with A LOT of fresh dill as part of my weekly CSA pickup. I know most of the rest of the country is buried in (or melting out of) snow. I know, a fresh herb seems out of the question for you all. I guess this is one of the good sides of Tucson. Talk to me in June or July…I’m sure we’ll be able to find something for you to hold over my head…

Anyway, my dear friend Kim makes a fabulous dill bread that is yeasted, but has a very wet dough, so it’s really kind of like a quick bread. I wanted to try and create the same delicious dill flavor, but in a straight-dough yeasted loaf. I started with this recipe from King Arthur Flour (one of our standard favorite loaves) and changed things around quite a bit.In the end I was VERY satisfied with the result. So were Dylan and Kim

Yeasted Dill Bread

Sponge

• 1 c lukewarm water (8 oz)
• 1/2 t instant yeast
• 1 1/4 c bread flour
• 1/4 c white whole wheat flour

Dough

• all of sponge
• 1 c fresh dill, chopped (~2 oz)
• 8 oz plain yogurt
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t instant yeast
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c bread flour
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c white whole wheat flour

Mix together the sponge ingredients and let sit covered, at room temperature for 3 to 12 hours. The longer you let it sit, the more interesting and complex the flavor of your loaf will be, but you can definitely do a short fermentation and still have a yummy loaf.

Once you are done fermenting, stir down the sponge and mix in the dill, water, yeast, salt and flours. You’ll probably do best if you add the flour in 1/2 c increments. You’re shooting for half bread, half white whole wheat flour, so keep that in mind when you are adding in flour.

Knead for 5 minutes (at speed 2 in a stand mixer). Let the dough and gluten rest for 10 minutes and then knead 5 more minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let rise 1 hr, or until doubled in size.

Deflate the dough and shape into whatever form you’d like. I’m a fan of free-form round loaves (often called Boules) because they are really easy. For the batch I photographed here I actually made 2 Boules.

Let the shaped loaf (or loaves) rise again for 45 to 90 minutes. I usually check after 45 because it’s always pretty warm in Tucson. Be sure to start preheating your oven to 475° about half-way through your expected rise time!

About 10 minutes before you’re ready to bake fill a shallow dish (Pyrex baking dishes work great) with about 1 inch of water. Set on the very bottom rack in the oven.

When your dough is ready to bake, turn the temperature in the oven down to 425° and insert the loaves. If you have a baking stone, I reccomend using that. Set the loaves on an upside down baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes. CAREFULLY remove the pan of water. Continue to bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, until a tap sounds hollow.

Remove and cool on a wire rack for (if you can) at least 2 hours.

One more thing…I’m submitting this bread for this week’s YeastSpotting over on Susan’s Wild Yeast Blog.