Carrot Currant Loaf

After yesterday's successful artisan-style loaf, I set out to find a Jim Lahey recipe and tweak it to be faster. I found this brilliant-sounding loaf that he presented on Martha Stewart:

• 3 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 1/4 teaspoons table salt
• 1/4 teaspoon instant or other active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed carrot juice
• 3/4 cup currants
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds

I finally purchased some bread flour. It supposedly has a higher gluten concentration, but I'll have to find out how it's processed differently.

The most major modification I made was using a high amount of yeast. While the recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, I used 1 1/4 teaspoon so that I wouldn't have to sit around and wait 24 hours for the bread to rise.

Instead of using carrot juice, I used 3/4 cup of finely grated carrot and 1 1/2 cups of apple juice.

I let it rise in a warm spot for just 2 hours, then transferred it onto parchment paper, leaving it inside the overturned stainless steel bowl to help it grow vertically for 30 to 40 more minutes. Then I sprinkled it heavily with flour and some cumin seeds, made two incisions, placed it into the preheated 450F oven, tossed in a few cups of water, then immediately closed the door to bake in high humidity for 25 minutes. I then removed the water pan and allowed all the steam to escape from the oven, and baked for 20 more minutes until it had a nice light brown tinge.

The result was magnificent - certainly the best looking loaf I've pulled out of the oven yet. It was also very flavorful, both sweet and spicy. The currants added much more sweetness than I had anticipated.