22d (edited) • 🍞 Recipes
Tree of Life Hearth Bread
Gaelic Celtic Bread Challenge A ritual bread year, one loaf each month
One loaf for each turning of the year, using modern methods to honor ancient ways. Each bake is inspired by:
- An Irish mythological deity, spirit, or persona
- A solar or lunar threshold
- The agricultural and hearth traditions that shaped Irish foodways
Bread is where grain, fire, water, and time meet, and that meeting lies at the heart of the Celtic year.
#GaelicCelticChallenge
My April bake honors the ‘The Bright-Dark Threshold.’
April in Ireland is the month of the Scairbhín na gCuach (the "rough time of the cuckoo"). Mythologically, this is the final battle between the Cailleach (the Hag of Winter) and the burgeoning spirit of the May Queen. The weather is famously "bright-dark" - sunshine followed by "lamb-killing" snow.
This is the ‘Seasonal Turning Point: The Hunger Gap.’
Historically, April was the leanest month in the Irish year. Much of the stored grain is sprouting or rotten, and the new crops are not in. It was a time of stretching resources. This bake honors the "Agricultural Hearth" by using ingredients that would have been scavenged or preserved:
- Hazelnuts; The hazel (Coll) is the ultimate symbol of wisdom and poetic inspiration.
- Dried Apples: The apple (Quert) represents immortality, healing, and rebirth.
- Butter from the early spring churning.
- Eggs showing the spring renewal.
Tree of Life Hearth Bread
A yeast-based hearth loaf built on the past and the promise of the future.
This loaf honors the life-giving forest: making the best of what was and having faith in what has not yet grown.
Formula: Scaled to fit a 25 cm (10-inch ) cast iron Dutch oven.
With 70% inclusions, this recipe makes a dense, fruit-and-nut-forward enriched bread.
- Total dough: 1516 g
- Total flour: 555 g
- 100% Strong (Bread) flour (555 g)
- Hydration:
- 63% Buttermilk (347 g)
- 30% Hazelnuts (167 g)
- 40% Dried apples (222 g) reconstituted wt.
- 10% Egg (58 g)
- 6% Butter (32 g)
- 3% Brown sugar (87 g)
- 3.5% Mixed spice (20 g)
- 3% Instant yeast (17 g)
- 2% salt (12 g)
METHOD: Using a planetary mixer and a Brod & Taylor proofing box @ 26°C (78°F)
- Chop or crush the hazelnuts and toast in a 205°C / 400°F oven for 10 min.
- Combine the dehydrated apples with 350 grams of apple brandy or cider and soak overnight. Drain any remaining liquid and toss them in flour to coat.
- Mix all dry except fruit and nuts
- Mix in all wet
- Knead on #2 for 10 min.
- Add apples and nuts. Mix on #1
- Proof until double in size, about 45-60 min.
- Shape into a ball.
- Put the dough in the Dutch oven and proof until doubled, about 1 hr.
- Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
- Bake for 30 min. With cover, remove the cover and bake for 20 min.
- Glaze with apple or apricot preserves while hot.
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Tree of Life Hearth Bread
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