Plantain pain au levain with walnuts and sprouted flour

The truth is that at our house we eat plantains for breakfast almost every day and as we love its flavor, why not turn it into a bread? I decided to add walnuts for extra flavor and goodness, but I didn't put a lot, so if you love walnuts add some more. Also I decided to use a dutch oven, I don't like to use them because I tend to not like the crust as much as I like without. I think that the breads cooked in the dutch oven tend to gain a darker more beautiful color, so this bread was quite like that. I hope you try it and let me know your thoughts.

 TOTAL INGREDIENTS:

 40    g of Starter 
200   g of Water (80ºF)
200   g of Sprouted Flour or Whole Wheat 
340   g of White Bread Flour
  60   g of Toasted Walnuts
215   g of Cooked and mashed plantains
    7   g of Salt

 Levain Ingredients (starter)

  40   g of Starter 
200   g of Water (80ºF)
200   g of Sprouted Flour or Whole Wheat

Mix the above ingredients and let it stand covered at room temperature until very active (6-12 hours, depending upon room temperature). You can do this  overnight or early morning. I started mine at 8am.

After starter is ready, 6-12 hours later, proceed to:

Walnut Preparation:

Toast 60 g of walnuts (or more if you like) for 8 minutes at 400ºF. Let it cool down. 

 
While the walnuts toast, prepare plantains:

 Plantains Preparation:

 
 Cook 200g of ripe Plantains cut in rounds (1 plantain was enough for me)  in 60g of water in low heat until very soft, keep mixing with spoon to evenly cook and not burn.
You need at the final 215 g of plantains cooked and mashed, so add or remove water to achieve amount.

Plantain uncooked (above)

Plantain cooked but not mashed (above)

Plantain Cooked and mashed (above)

Proceed:
Mash the plantains with a fork, let the temperature cool to 100ºF


Autolyse: 

215  g of Cooked and Mashed Plantains (100ºF)
  85  g of Water (room temperature)
340  g of White Bread Flour

Mix the above ingredients into a sticky dough for about 5 minutes, cover and let it rest for 1 hour.

Final Dough: 
 DO NOT ADD walnuts now.
Add autolysed ingredients with starter ingredients, sprinkle salt at the top and mix for 6 minutes by hand until well incorporated into a smooth dough. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes and proceed: DO NOT ADD walnuts now. 

Before mixing (above)

 After mixing (above)

Stretch and Folds: 

After 30 minutes, add the walnuts and mix into the dough doing the stretch and folds.

Do another 5 sets of stretch and Folds at 30 minute intervals, for 3 hours total. After that, let it rest covered  for 1 hour or more (until some air bubbles appear). 

 With walnuts inside (above)

Pre-shape: 
Spread flour on your counter top and pre-shape your dough very gently. Let it bench rest for 20 minutes. 

Shape and Proof:

Shape your dough and let it proof covered for 45 minutes.
Then, place the covered dough in the refrigerator and retard for 12 hours. Bake straight out of the refrigerator.

Baking:  

I used a dutch oven to bake:
Preheat oven to 510ºF for 45 minutes. I don't preheat my dutch oven!
After 45 minutes, place dough into dutch oven, score.

  Bake covered for 22 minutes at 450ºF

  Photo above shows after uncovering (past first 22 minutes of cooking).

Then, reduce temperature to 420ºF and cook uncovered for another 27 minutes or until golden brown.

It was delicious, with honey, by it self... so will you make some and Eat Bread With Me?