Inspired by the different things that Alenka is cooking with Spruce Sprouts I decided to try to see if it would work in bread. Initial Internet search didn’t show any prior art in this area. There are some people that bake pastries. Most of the uses for spruce sprouts I found was to mix it with sugar to make syrups or to just drop it into schnapps.
I’m using basic sourdough technique from Foodgeek.dk and he describes it much better than I can. I used 20g of fresh sprouts for 500g of flour at 75% hydration.
So, how was it? The taste was interesting. Some of select quotes from taste testers:
It’s like eating Car’s Air Freshener
Oh, that’s what my Christmas tree would taste like
Exotic
Overall experience changes with time. Directly from oven it tasted woody with resin texture. Aroma itself was overpowering to the point that it was too much for me. After it cooled down it become much more subtle. I tried adding honey on top of it and it made for okish bread.
One interesting side effect of this bread was that it has a very long after taste. It’s probably because of little bits of resin that will keep the taste for at least half an hour.
What I learned
It was fun to try to create something new like that. It’s also my first practical project since starting to explore more foraging from the nature. I don’t think I’ll bake this again in such a format. I want to try it next time with a syrup as a base.