I'm tired of apples and bananas. I'm ready for cherries and berries, fuzzy peaches and tangy apricots. Real spring is almost here, so in the meantime I went back to my baking quest -- baking my way through Jim Lahey's My Bread cookbook. I took a small being hiatus while I was out of town with no oven, but now I have started in with this simple apricot almond bread.True to Lahey's no knead method for this colorful loaf I combined 280 grams (2 cups + 2 TB) of bread flour, 20 grams (2 TB) of whole wheat flour, 1 1/3 cups chopped dried apricots (65 grams), 3/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp yeast in a large bowl. Instead of just water, for this recipe, Lahey instructs to blend 3 Tb of unsalted creamy almond butter (okay I used salted, I would have just no use for unsalted at all) and 1 cup + 2TB of water. I mixed the liquid into the dry ingredients and stirred with my hand until there were no lumps and the dough was wet and sticky. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and left it to sit and rise for 18 hours.
After the first rise I scraped the dough out onto my board and just barely tucked in the edges to make a sort of round ball. I placed the ball, seam side down, on a tea towel I'd heavily dusted with wheat bran with about 2 TB chopped almonds in the center. I sprinkled the top with more chopped almonds and covered the dough to rise for 2 more hours.
Meanwhile I preheated the oven to 450ยบ with my trusty 5 quart Le Creuset (flame orange just like Julia's) inside.
When the dough had risen I turned it, seam side down, into the preheated pot replaced the lid and set the pan in the oven to cook covered for 45 minutes, after which I uncovered the pot and allowed the bread to cook for another 10 minutes to color a rich golden (well maybe dark) brown.
After the bread had cooled I sliced it for toast for James. It's nice with just butter but for a real winner try this slightly tangy, nearly hearty bread with creamy brie or better yet a sharp stilton cheese drizzled with honey. Delish!
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