I ran across a recipe from Joan Nathan that I wanted to try. It was "Quick Goat Cheese Bread With Mint and Apricots." From Nathan's description, the bread sounded really good and a bit different--savory rather than sweet. Nonetheless, rather than following her recipe, I had sourdough discard to use, so I decided to try to adapt her quick bread recipe to the sourdough process. I'm afraid I took liberties with her recipe. A lot of liberties. I did try to keep the basic flavors she included in her bread--goat cheese, apricots, and mint, but I made a lot of changes and substitutions to accommodate the sourdough process. The result was a yeasty loaf with the unusual flavor combinations Nathan included in her original recipe. I let the bread rise overnight and should have baked it early the next morning but didn't (I needed to get to church on time), so my loaf over-proofed a bit. Oops. I baked it anyway. It didn't look quite as nice as it should have, but the texture was fine. The bread doesn't include sugar and is, in fact, on the savory side. Nonetheless, I found that the apricots do lend sweetness to the loaf. It's quite good with eggs for breakfast. As Nathan suggests, you also could serve the bread for dinner or lunch with a green salad.
Sourdough Apricot Goat Cheese Bread with Mint -- Makes 2 Loaves
1 cup of sourdough starter/discard
1/4 cup of canola oil
1 1/4 cups of apple cider or water
2 cups of white whole-wheat flour
In a large bowl, combine the sourdough starter/discard, canola oil, apple cider (or water), and white whole-wheat flour and let the mixture sit, loosely covered, at room temperature for about 4 hours or until it rises by at least one-third. Add:
1 egg
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of chopped dried apricots
2 teaspoons of dried chopped mint leaves
1/2 cup of shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese
1/2 cup of goat cheese
Mix the ingredients well to blend them and divide the mixture between two 8 x 4-inch loaf pans coated with non-stick cooking spray. Smooth out the batter/dough, spritz the tops of each loaf with non-stick cooking spray, and cover the loaves loosely with plastic wrap. Let the loaves sit at room temperature for 6-10 hours or until they rise by 1/3 - 1/2 in volume (ideally--mine rose over the tops of the pans, which is too much, but I baked them anyway). When you're almost ready to bake the loaves, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the loaves for 35-50 minutes or until golden brown and a thermometer inserted into the middle of a loaf registers about 190 degrees. Let the loaves cool completely before slicing them (to prevent them from being gummy).
