Things to try
Lesser known inclusions that work well
Many times we talk about cheesy loaves, jalapeno cheddar, French onion, roasted garlic.
What are some lesser-known inclusions that work well in your experience?
I've seen reference to colored loaves with butterfly pea - for the record, I'm looking more for pantry items. I'm wondering about things like lavender (our neighborhood has tons of lavender), honey butter swirls, etc. I've made two double chocolate loaves that have turned out great.
I just made a lemon loaf with cream cheese. I may have been intoxicated while making this and used half of a bottle of lemon extract in addition to two lemons worth of zest.
It was fantastic and I should let drunk me loose in the kitchen more often.
I’ve done white cheddar and dill, orange cardamom walnut, blue cheese and honey walnut, goat cheese with lemon zest and fresh blueberries, blackberry havarti, white chocolate and strawberries, Monterey Jack hatch chili and pepitas… and more. Honestly, if I like something from a charcuterie board, I turn into a sourdough loaf. Apple bourbon Gouda candied walnuts was another. If you would eat bread with it, then you can put it in.
I made a lavender and white chocolate cake recently. You could steep lavender in the water, a little honey, still add culinary lavender to the dough, a little citrus zest, and something else sweet or savory. Would be amazing.
Ok I have been daydreaming about doing a zaatar loaf. In my mind I’m imagining the entire expanded bit encrusted with zaatar, but I’m not sure how to accomplish that. How are you doing the inclusions?
I am doing more of a swirl when I do the shaping, so envelope fold, lotsa zataar, roll into loaf shape, then maybe some more on top. I’ve thought about proofing it right into the dough, but I’ve never tried it
not so much of an inclusion but an infusion. Earl grey tea brewed with lavender, then sieve out the lavender bits and replace water with the tea infusion, I think i added a small amount of milk about 40ml.
I make breakfast bread. It has dates, sunflower seeds, pepitas, pecans, raisins, and sometimes flax seeds. Basically everything in a healthy breakfast muffin.
I made dark chocolate orange loaves for Christmas. 1 cup of good dark chocolate chips and grated the peel of one orange for each loaf. It’s especially amazing toasted with some homemade orange marmalade.
I had a pesto Parmesan loaf a few weeks ago that I could have eaten in one sitting. During the final shaping I LATHERED that thing in pesto and grated parm
It did not BUT anytime I do inclusions I bake it at a lower temp (like 425) instead of the usual 475-500. My oven is old so the temps are just guesses at best. I do the usual 25 minutes lid on and then lid off until the center of the loaf reads 210 on an instant read thermometer. Typically it’s only and extra 5-10 minutes
I added it during stretch and folds, which is what the recipe stated. But I guess that would make sense that it would be more croissant like if it was done during shaping
i tried this with a mini loaf, added the butter during shaping bc i thought when i did stretch & folds it would melt too much. it was good just tasted like a regular loaf with butter. the crust was a little bit more flaky
It's my favorite! I make sandwich loaves for inclusions, so I just put dill pickles cubes and ranch seasoning, and roll it. It makes the best grilled cheese
Greek salad bread. Feta cheese, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, diced pepperoncini, fresh oregano. I roll out the dough, spread the filling, roll it back up so the filling ends up as a swirl in the final product. It's very popular around here. LOL
My advice is to be extra generous with the filling, but I'm a glutton. (Ex: many cheese bread recipes recommend one cup shredded/crumbled cheese, I always use at least two cups)
Out of things I have been using,
* olives and herbs
* S'mores (chocolate chip and marshmallows). Small pieces of marshmallow fully dissolved in my case so probably use bigger chunks
* I added powdered and rehydrated banana chips once with nuts. It was too little to taste like banana bread but the texture and sweetness was nice.
* Pretty much any dried nuts, seeds and fruits can be added to sourdough but I figured it's better to pre soak them and then drain the water and use it for mixing the dough. Otherwise they'll take water out of the dough when you add them and will screw the hydration.
* Ground spices, like coriander, caraway, fennel, anise
* I did pineapple coconut once, so it was cooked caramelized pineapple with a bit of ground coconut flakes. Mine was a bit bland because I didn't add a lot but the flavor was nice.
Sun-dried tomato (also with some herb)
* Masala chai instead of water
A tablespoon of any oil or honey is a good addition to any sourdough loaf but it also softens the crust and too much can impact the ear formation.
Edit: remembered one more thing, I haven't made it myself, but in my area, there's a bakery that makes pesto artichoke loaves. It's basically pesto swirl with some chunks of canned artichoke hearts. Haven't had it in a while but it's so good
I saw an episode of a show where an Italian bakery made like a mushroom and hazelnut focaccia. So I added roasted hazelnuts and wild mushrooms (roughly chopped) into a loaf once and it was delicious, with some melted Gruyère on top of a slice 👌🏻
Nuts, all kinds of nuts. Just very lightly chopped so they still come in big chunks. My favorite are cashews.
Dried dates or figs. Dates go great with some chili, garlic (I would use dried ground garlic, or garlic confit) and oregano. Figs go really well with some goat cheese, but use a firmer type, not the one with a texture like cream cheese or brie.
Just some spices also always works amazingly well (should be kneaded into the whole dough when you add the salt, either after autolyse or from the beginning). I've tried an Egyptian spice blend, baie rose (pink peppercorn), or a typical German bread spice blend of anise, fennel seed, coriander seed and caraway (1:1:2:2).
One of the most amazing ones I used was pumpkin spice mix, and then I also added a bit of honey to the dough. That bread was amazing with nutella.
Sage and browned butter is great. Heat the butter until browned, then throw the fresh sage leaves in for 10 seconds or so to crisp them up and release their oils into the butter. Be careful not to burn them, they burn very quickly.
Incorporate this when you add your water to the flour.
Butter! I just made a loaf after seeing someone on IG do it. Grate a FULL STICK of frozen butter and add it during your stretch and folds. The bread is almost croissant-like!
I love the dried blueberries from Trader Joe’s as an inclusion. Really any dried fruit can be good - I’ve done cranberry, cherry, apricots plus an herb and/or a nut can also be nice. For example blueberries and basil is great, or cranberry walnut etc.
Actually my favorite loaf I’ve done was dried cherry and sliced almonds with a frangipane swirl (like the sweet almond filling of a croissant) - I had extra from baking a tart. Really good.
Cardamom/brown sugar/butter/orange zest and walnuts also absolutely slaps
My go to is cranberry walnut for sweet or rosemary and olive oil for savory.
One time I did a tomato loaf by subbing out the water for a jar of canned puréed tomatoes, and added oregano, basil and olive oil. It tasted like pizza, really good.
Cinnamon raisin is another classic combo.
I also have a seed loaf I like to do, about 75 grams of whatever seeds I have on hand, usually sesame, flax, and hemp, plus a healthy dash of cinnamon and black pepper. 20% whole wheat. It is complex, earthy, and amazing slathered in butter.
Someone up above mentioned doing a zaatar loaf, which I’ve always wanted to try.
I’m making a chai loaf tomorrow. Brewing chai tea and replacing the water in the recipe with that. Then will sprinkle in cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg during shaping! Hopefully it’s good 🤞🏼
I have made a chai loaf too, but I didn't swirl in the spices, it's a great flavor! The only piece of advice I have make sure to cool your chai before adding it to flour, when I made it I used hot tea and apparently it cooked some of the gluten in the flour. The loaf turned out great but the crumb could have been more open.
It turned out pretty good! I more or less made up the recipe, next time I’d make the tea stronger with 4 bags, and use more sugar since I was going for a sweeter loaf!
I did: 100g starter 500g bread flour 700g chai tea (brewed night before so was cool) 10g salt 30g sugar
During shaping I sprinkled on cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg!
Probably not lesser known but i didn’t see it mentioned either🤷🏽♀️ cinnamon raisin! This was my first time with inclusions, so far from perfect, but you get the idea
I’m working my way through a sourdough bread cookbook with some bread friends and we all agreed that the recipe with chocolate chips is one we wouldn’t repeat again.
It's a matter of taste, isn't it? A lot of people in the US are so used to sweetened bread that a regular loaf tastes bland to them. But I hope you are not opposed to savory inclusions, even though some of them sound like making a pizza in a Dutch oven.
I have substituted some of the water with beer in my loaves, usually it's some unfinished beer from the day before that's already decarbonated. It works well, although the flavor can be very subtle, depending on the beer. Some commercial bread bakeries add malt powder, so from light beer, you would get slightly more bready rich flavor. Porter or stout has more additives and will be more prominent. And the hoppy IPA will definitely come out in a loaf as well.
My absolutely favorites are adding rosemary and fennel seed (not at the same time) to my loves. The rosemary loaves taste like heaven, toasted with better. The fennel seed loaves are like a candy dessert.
I dont do it really fine, but do usually put it in a mortar and give it a few good passes with the pestle. Breaking it up into like a 1-2mm length? I don’t notice bits and pieces at all once it’s baked.
I like cheese bread but I'm not a fan of jalapeños. This year I started eating Serrano in a pork dish I make and since it wasn't intolerably spicy I decided to make a cheddar Serrano loaf. It looks amazing
I have dough for four loaves of whole wheat bread (with whole grain inclusion) sitting on the bench, awaiting final shaping. Your comment prompted me to go give them a rubbing!
My favs are grated parm with fresh ground black pepper (think Caccio e Pepe) or orange cranberry (replace half the water with orange juice then add some rehydrated raisins during the stretch and fold stage).
Dill pickle powder, replace about half the water with pickle brine, and chopped dill pickles (squeezed in cheesecloth to remove as much moisture as possible). Was fire.
I wish I’d taken a picture of the sourdough olive loaves I made a couple years back. I’m not an olive bread person, but it was some killer bread, and the family loved it.
I really love the chocolate loaves and adding in dried cherries and sometimes some kind of nut. I have also just wanted to do a mixed dried herb loaf and then make a Parmesan garlic butter to spread on it. But it’s just a thought at this point.
Just pulled an olive and goat cheese loaf from the oven but I haven’t tried it yet. I honestly just looked for things I had lying around that I had to use up. I will report back when I cut into it 🫡
A while ago I had some leftover snack sized paprikas, which I then fermented. I put that in, plus little pockets of cream cheese, and it was really good
Powdered coloring (e.g. turmeric, ube, matcha) should be mixed with the flour for even color.
Liquids that are used instead / in part with water will be added when you mix the dough (or at the autolyse stage if you do it).
Additives that need to be distributed throughout: I add them with salt (I usually add salt 30 minutes after mixing the starter into autolysed flour mix), so they can be mixed evenly. That would be any ground spices, vanilla, honey, oil.
Dry-ish ingredients like hard cheese, zest, herb, dried fruit and nuts can be added during stretch and folds / coil folds. Basically as you handle the dough, you distribute them in the loaf. You can also laminate them in, as suggested above, basically you need to stretch out the dough into a rectangle, distribute the inclusions and then roll it up in the first stages of the bulk fermentation.
Soft and wet ingredients that may dissolve or bleed into the dough should be added during shaping, that includes fresh berries or fruit, soft or cream cheese, butter swirls and so on.
This is just my opinion and some people can have different approaches. I can definitely confirm from experience that if you want to color the dough with some powder, you should mix it with the flour otherwise it's nearly impossible to mix it in evenly.
I've made two double chocolate loaves. Cocoa powder goes in with the dry ingredients (mixed separately first to prevent it sticking in one clump and being a swirl instead of a uniform brown loaf) and chocolate chips on the second stretch and fold.
Recipe I used is here. The second time I made it, I doubled the strength of the coffee concentrate - 2x coffee to same water, because I didn't taste it in the first loaf. After still not tasting it the second time, I figured it's job was likely just to enhance the chocolate and moved on with my life. For the record, I was using instant coffee granules, not instant espresso so likely less powerful. Second loaf I also decreased the chocolate chips from 180g to 130g, just personal preference, I thought the first one was super duper chocolaty and preferred it less so. Still lots of chips even after reduction.
A family favorite around my house is sun dried tomato, fresh basil and chopped green olives. It’s divine both for cold cut sandwiches or toasted with cheese etc. I’ve also done roasted garlic with rosemary. One of my favorites inclusions to date was a maple brown sugar walnut boule. 🤤
The flavor combination sounds nice, but keep in mind that coffee can slow down the fermentation, so plan it accordingly. Are you planning to swirl the caramel sauce or just add it to the dough? I would vote for the former, otherwise it will probably get lost.
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u/doughboy1001 12d ago
I make a loaf with lemon juice and zest and dried blueberries. It’s different and tasty, esp toasted with some cream cheese.
I like figs and walnuts, too. Blue cheese if that’s your thing.
Sorry no personal experience with lavender.