Naturally, Colored Sourdough Loaves : Tips and Tricks

For orange :  Using fresh carrot  juice give great orange color. You  need to use only juice  not the puree. Carrot sourdough bread is not only beautiful color one but also delicious and very colorful.

For pink:  Use prickly pear fruit juice  which gives light pink color. Beets juice also  gives great pink color to sourdough dough but on baking betacyanins pigment in the beets breaks down and color gets pale. Prickly pear sourdough bread beatuiful pink color. However it becomes light pink after baking.

 For Green: Spinach puree is best to get a green color. I think we can add it to the dough . Next sourdough bread will with spinach.

 For Blue:  Use butterfly pea flower tea to color the  blue . Only thing you need to remember that butterfly pea flower tea can degrade the gluten  so give only a short autolyse and add salt while autolyse the dough.  If you  dough is so acidic there is chance of it  becoming pink. Here delicious and beautiful butterfly pea flower sourdough bread

For red: I  think dried raspberry and strawberries can be used to make red color sourdough bread. I have not tried that I will update once I try that bread.

For black : Charcoal power give black color for the sourdough bread. I am yet to try that I will update once I try that bread

For brown: I like cocoa powder to brown color to sourdough bread . Chocolate skillet focaccia is made with coca powder.

Once you tried with single color sourdough bread, you can try two or three colors together to give marbled effect .

For Marbled effect sourdough bread 

Marbled purple sweet potato sourdough: In this bread I used boiled sweet potato puree. I found that using roasted sweet potato can make dough dry and heavy  for lift. You need to use higher hydration to get open crumb.

Marbled butterfly pea flower sourdough bread:  In this sourdough bread I have used butterfly pea flower tea and used two types of dough. Since I  incorporated dough after 2 hours of stretch and fold. I got  marbled effect. I think  If you want  more prominent marbled effect try to incorporate the dough after one hour of   incorporating salt .

 

For swirl sourdough bread: You need to wrap the two dough together tightly to give the swirl effect

For Speckled sourdough bread: You can use  sundried tomatoes, fresh cranberries, blueberries to give speckled  effects to Sundried Parmesan sourdough bread.

Points to remember while naturally coloring the dough .

1) If you want darker color you need to use thick extract, since you are using natural colors,  you need to use higher quantities.  However, consider how it is going to affect the taste in your sourdough bread. If you use too much turmeric it will going to be bitter.

2) If you are planning to use beets on sourdough bread, try it in dinner rolls or sandwich bread as they can be baked at   375°F / 191° C. As betacyanin is known to breakdown at  122 °F/ 50° C to 248° F / 120° C,  I think if we use dried beets powder it can retain little color. Have not tried that myself.

How to make marbled butterfly pea flower sourdough bread?

You need following ingredients to make the bread.

Leaven: I used a bread flour and rye flour leavain with 100% hydration of  Starter ( 50: 50 all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour starter )  I used 7% of the dough.

If you do not have an active starter in hand, check out here to make one.

Bread flour: Use  Bread flour to give chewiness to the bread. You need to high protein bread flour ( around 13 % protein )   (84 % of dough)

Rye flour: Adds nuttiness to bread  11 % dough)

Spelt flour: Also added to give extra boost to the bread,  4.8 % of dough).

Water:  I have used 85% hydration.

Salt: I used 2% of salt in the dough. It gives taste and controls the rate of fermentation.

BAKING SCHEDULE

Make Leaven/Leavain 8. 00 A.M

Autolyse the Flours with  water 12.30 A.M . For White flour dough give 45 minutes autolyse while for blue colored dough give only 30 minutes.

Incorporate leaven/levain into the dough 1.00 P.M

Add salt into dough around 1.30 P.M

After 1 hour stretch and fold the dough around 2.30 P.M

Then around 3.30 P.M stretch and fold the dough for second time.

Around 4.30 P.M Laminate the dough. Incorporate both white colored dough and blue colored dough.

First coil fold 5.30 P.M Coil fold the dough.

second coil fold at 6.00 P.M

Pre-shape at 7.00 P.M.

Shape the dough 7.15 P.M

Cold Retard/ Refrigerator Overnight up to 14 hours

Bake at  7.00 A.M

These are tips and tricks for making naturally colored the sourdough loaves with fresh ingredients. If you tried any of the recipe, please tag me @nidhinikhil on instagram and @zestysouthindian on facebook.