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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Pearsauce Bread

Pearsauce is just like applesauce, except it's made with pears. If you can't find pearsauce, you can use applesauce.

The brand I used was a local one called MMLocal. They process fruits and vegetables from local farms, which is pretty cool, and they put the name of the farm and its location on their labels, so you know exactly where your food has come from.

They also don't use a lot of extra ingredients like corn syrup or strange preservatives. I'm really fond of their high desert hot peppers that I used in a recipe for Chicago-Style Italian Beef sandwiches a while back.

The pearsauce didn't add a huge amount of pear flavor to the bread, but it did add some sweetness and moisture to the loaf. But it wasn't too sweet for use as a sandwich bread.

If you use a very sweet sauce, or one that includes cinnamon, your results will be different.

The only tricky part about making this bread is that different brands of pearsauce (or applesauce) will have different amounts of liquid, so you might need to adjust the amount of flour in the recipe.

But that's okay. You can do it.

Pearsauce Bread

2 cups (9 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 cups (6 5/8 ounces) white whole wheat flour, divided
1 cup pearsauce (or applesauce)
3/4 cup water
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine the bread flour, 1 cup of the white whole wheat flour, pearsauce, water, and instant yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Knead until the mixture is elastic.

It might not be completely smooth because of the bumpiness of the fruit.

The dough should be tacky, but not sticky. If it's sticky or it doesn't gather around the dough hook as you knead, add the additional white whole wheat flour, as needed.

Add the salt and olive oil and continue kneading until they are completely incorporated.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until the dough has doubled in size, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center of the oven.

When the dough has doubled, remove it from the bowl, knead it briefly, and form it into a log about 9 inches long. Place the log in a 9x5 bread pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside until the dough has risen about an inch over the top of the pan, about 30 minutes.

Slash the top of the loaf and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the loaf reaches 200 degrees.

Remove the loaf from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.