Carrot Sourdough Bread (with juice)

Replacing the water with carrot juice is not exactly the same. Carrot juice is thicker as it contains some carrot particles inside. This has of course some impact. First, the dough feels stiffer and you need to increase the hydration (compared to the bread with pulp). Second, it will affect the gluten network. Those little particles act as a barrier to bound the gluten. These two impacts come to complete one to each other. If the dough is stiffer there is little need for extra manipulation of the dough to build the structure. When the gluten network is weaker, you need to add some extra dough handling. In the end, the difference in terms of the method is just that I added an extra coil fold and it went just fine.

As expected, the dough has an orange crumb. As for taste, I feel it a bit sweeter than normal bread and the flavour is clearly specific. However, none of these is pronounced: this is not a sweet bread/cake and does not smell strongly of carrots. The flavour is mild but noticeable.

I like this bread, although due to the reasons I mentioned above I won't do it very often. I prefer to use the discarded pulp in bread rather than the juice. You should however try this bread at least once to see how it tastes.

Ingredients: (75%hydration)

• 756g strong wheat flour (14% proteins) 
• 100g wholemeal flour
• 620g fresh carrot juice
• 175g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
• 17g salt

Directions:

1. [Day 1, Saturday, 8:30] Scaling. Start by scaling your ingredients using a balance and put them on the table to ensure that nothing is forgotten.
2. Mix water + flours. Mix only the flours with water until well combined. Do not knead at this stage, just ensure there is no unincorporated dry flour resting in the bowl and that's it. For this recipe, you need to target a dough desired temperature of 24ºC.
3. [Day 1 Saturday, 9:30] Sourdough starter. Add the sourdough starter over the dough and mix by hand or with a standing mixer for 10 minutes.  After mixing, let the dough relax for 1 hour.
4. [Day 1 Saturday, 10:30] Salt. Add the salt and mix again for 5 minutes. Then, let the dough relax again for  1 hour.
5. [Day 1, Saturday, 11:30] Divide and Stretch and Fold. Take the dough out of the mixing bowl, put it on the slightly wet table board and divide it into 2. Stretch and fold each piece on the board and place them in squared glass bowls. Let them sit covered for 1 hour.
6. [Day 1, Saturday, 12:30] Lamination. Take each piece out of the bowl and do the lamination. Let the dough rests for 1 hour. 
7. [Day 1, Saturday, 13:30] Coil fold 1. Start now a set of 3 coil folds performed straight in the bowls. Do the first coil fold set in each glass bowl and let them sit for 1 hour.
8. [Day 1, Saturday, 14:30] Coil fold 2.  Do a second set of coil folds in the glass bowls and let them sit for 1 hour.
9. [Day 1, Saturday, 15:30] Coil fold 3.  Do a third set of coil folds in the glass bowls and let them sit for 1½ hours.
10. [Day 1, Saturday, 17:00] Shape the loaves using the classical letter fold and roll method and put them bottom-up in bannetons. Put them straight into the fridge overnight.
11. [Day 2, Sunday, 9:00] Score. Before scoring, you need to preheat the oven and 2 Dutch Ovens at 230ºC. 
    Take the dough out from the fridge and reverse the bannetons on baking sheets. Decorate the bread as you like.  Immediately after, put the lids on and slide the loaves in the hot Dutch ovens.
12. Bake at 230ºC for 20 minutes with the lid on. After these 20 minutes, remove the lid and continue to bake for 20 minutes.
13. [Day 2, Sunday, 9:40] Cool. The bread needs to cool for at least 2 hours until it reaches room temperature. The cooking process continues slowly even after taking the bread out of the oven, so this is why it is important to not skip this step and to resist cutting it too early. If you can, of course...
14. [Day 2 Sunday, 11:40] Cut. Now is the big moment to enjoy a slice of bread...