Sourdough Milk Bread with Poppy Seed Filling

 MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

A slice of bread with cherries and crème fraîche

Poppy seed filling:

500 g poppy seeds

110 g pecans

300 g dried fruit mix (figs, prunes, dates, apples, apricots)*

* I think the filling would be more tasty if I had added  even 400-500 g of dried fruit or substitute a part of them with 3 tablespoon of honey/maple syrup

Put the poppy seeds in a large pot and cover with a boiling water. Cover with a lid and let sit overnight. Drain using a cheese clothe. Grind the poppy seeds using a meat grinder or food processor. Soak the pecans and dried fruit in boiling water for 20 minutes, drain and mix in into ground poppy seeds. The grind all of the ingredients another time.  You can prepare the filling in advance and store in a refrigerator up to 3 days in a tightly lidded container.

Dough:

200 g mature rye sourdough starter, stiff

504 g whole wheat flour 

381 g  skim milk

 Combine the ingredients and autolyse for 1 hour. Add 10 g salt and knead the dough. Cover and let ferment for 7 hours.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces. Roll  out each piece of dough thinly and cover with filling. Make two  tight rolls and put them into loaf pans lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate for retarding up to 12 hours.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Preheat your oven to 480 F. Bake for 20 minutes at 470 F and for another 20 minutes at 440 F.  Remove the rolls from the pans and let cool before slicing.

I submit the Christmas loaves to Yeastspotting.