There is not a thing that is more positive than bread - Dostoevsky

I’ve begun to do remember the things I’ve told myself I need to do. 95° water at auto-lyse, keep the dough warm during the bulk ferment, don’t fear the loaf during the turn and prove, make sure to turn the oven down to 450° when I put the loaf in the oven, bake for twenty-five minutes lid on, twenty-five minutes lid off. And yet, I don’t know if there’s a quantifiable improvement in the loaves I’m making. One large caveat is that at loaf twenty-four I moved and am now in a kitchen that is ambiently cooler, roughly 60 degrees, while my previous kitchen was in the high 60s to 70s. Now that I am keeping my dough warm during the bulk ferment I am a regular and open crumb, but without as the much sought after large pockets of air. I don’t know what to do to get those big bubbles, I don’t know if I need to do anything, the bread still tastes like bread, but at the same time, there’s a sense of pride / desire to achieve that photo finish product. Part of me recognizes this is a silly impulse and yet another part of me says until I can produce such a loaf, I haven’t “made it”. So I will press on, making bread, hoping for air, and occasionally, as in the case here, torpedo my own best efforts by stuffing the loaf full of cheese and such.

After the bulk prove, I folded a handful of cheese and olives with aleppo pepper and honey into the bread, then put it in a banneton to prove overnight. A quick aside to praise the aleppo pepper: aleppo pepper is amazing. The flavor is rich and sweet and earthy without being hot, it’s a lovely spice. Asiago was the wrong cheese. It did not melt inside the bread, instead it turned into chewy cheese lumps, not particularly pleasant for eating. Nor were the olives fine enough. Were I to do attempt a similar bread, I’d leave out the cheese and chop the olives much more finely, into almost a tapenade, with the spices, honey and oil.

Dough
400 g bread flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
100 g whole wheat flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
400 g h2o
80% hydration
10 g salt

Levain
10 g starter
50 g all purpose flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
50 g water

Filling
1 cup Asiago Cheese
1/2 cup Green Olives
1 tbs Aleppo Pepper
2 tbs Honey
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

What I did right:
The crumb was good and I followed the guidelines I’ve been trying to lay out for myself.
What I did wrong:
I added too much, and what I added was too heavy, and I put cheese inside a pocket where it had no chance to melt so instead it turned into coagulated, heated, cheese lumps which were as appetizing as I hope my descriptors have made them sound.
What I learned:
Maybe a different cheese would have gone better, maybe just cheese without honey and olives, and maybe I just shouldn’t fold cheese into a loaf where it won’t have a chance to melt. I think all of the above but I imagine I’ll try and make this mistake again. Until then, maybe I’ll stick with herbs or even bread filled bread.