Tomato Bread

by A.J. Coltrane

We had company the other night, and I wanted to make a short-notice bread.  Lacking the time for the flavor to develop on its own, I decided to use tomato puree from the freezer in place of some of the water.

I went for a slightly higher “hydration” bread, with the expectation that the puree wasn’t 100% water. So:

400g bread flour, 166g puree, 94g water. (65% hydration). 8g salt. 1 tsp instant yeast. The dough was mixed for 10 minutes on low speed, followed by a 90 minute rise.

A dutch oven was preheated to 425F. The dough got 22 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered. (A longer time uncovered might have created a super dark bread, due to the sugars in the tomato puree.)

The picture makes it look smaller than it really was, though it didn’t rise or spring as much as I would have anticipated, and the crumb was relatively tight.

I’m of the suspicion that the actual water content was around 50% or so. Next time I’ll look at the dough rather than just doing the math and walking away — even 25 grams of water might have made a big difference.

Still, it was attractive and it tasted good. Another lesson learned.