Homemade bread with dried cherries and walnuts

Description

Bread baked in winter is special. It smells of honey, nuts and something else magical.

Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions

Step 1

Fry the walnuts until golden brown, cool, mix with dried cherries and set aside.

Step 2

Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Set aside - it's a dry mixture. Mix the starter and water in another container - this is a wet mixture.

Step 3

Now add the dry mixture to the wet one. Knead the dough. Add cherries and nuts to the dough, mix everything.

Step 4

Cover with cling film and let rest for 10 minutes.

Step 5

Next, follow the author's technique http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Iv-z6kcpU: the dough is stretched and folded 10 times (this takes 10 seconds - one addition per second); then cover the dough and leave to rest for 10 minutes; the whole process described is repeated 4 times.

Step 6

Next, put the dough in a container previously greased with oil, and let it stand in a warm place for about an hour to come up.

Step 7

Now lightly flour your work surface and form the dough into a ball.

Step 8

Flour the proofing pan generously (the dough is quite wet, if there is not enough flour on the form, the dough may stick in some places and come off the main mass when you lay it out for baking). Place the dough in a proofer and let rise until doubled in size, this process will take 2 to 6 hours.

Step 9

20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 240 degrees and place a container of water for steam on the bottom of the oven. As an alternative (without a container of water) you can use a bread pan with a hood, such as Emile Henry, in which case the mold must be heated together with the oven.

Step 10

Remove the dough from the proofer, make cuts (optional) and place in the oven. Reduce the temperature to 220 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is a nice brown. Baked bread should make a certain sound when tapped on the bottom of the loaf. It is difficult to describe this sound, but I would call it short with a high tone.

Step 11

Cool the finished bread on a wire rack.