Time Travel with Orange Sourdough Swirl Bread

Hello, I’m Martha Levie. Today I wanted to talk to you about time travel food. I’m sure you’ve had it before, even if you don’t know, that’s what it’s called.

Have you ever had food? That the second you took a bite of it it took you back to sometime in your childhood or when you were first married or whenever. You distinctly remember eating this food before.

That’s what I call time-travel food. Others call it comfort food or whatever. But I like to call it time-travel because it really does take you back. You travel back in time to that time when you remember having that food. You associate that food with a memory, a person, a fun vacation, or something special. Well, I’m going to talk about at time travel food for me, and hopefully, you can make it fun food for your family too.

When I was little, my grandmother made orange rolls at Thanksgiving, and oh, they were so good. I have distinct memories of spreading the mixture on the dough and rolling it up. Then we always got a piece of thread and cinched it under the dough and cut slices off the rolled dough

Anyway, it was wonderful. Then my grandmother passed away and even though my family made bread, we didn’t do rolls much. then I got into college and I said, “Mom, we need to make orange rolls again.” And we made them and it was so yummy. Then I started making them with my kids and it was super fun and they loved it too.

Later, as you know, we started doing sourdough bread, but sourdough rolls were kind of tricky. Maybe sometime I’ll do a video about rolls, but when we tried to use our sourdough bread dough and roll it out to make it into orange rolls, it did not taste good.

There was no time traveling when I bit into those rolls. They just weren’t the same as the bad for you, yeast bread, but delicious rolls. So we stopped making them. And my kids were sad because Thanksgiving would roll around and there would be no orange rolls.

But this year we discovered the secret. What we did is instead of making rolls, we just made orange roll bread and it was phenomenal. So what you do is you take your dough as if you were making normal cinnamon bread. You roll the out to about 5 inches wide and 18 inches long. Then you just cover the dough with a mixture of equal parts butter and some sort of sweetener. White sugar, if you’re into sugar. But we like to do raw honey and just mix it like you’re making honey butter.

Then you take an orange rind into that butter and sweeter mixture and spread it out on the dough. Then you roll it up, as you would for cinnamon bread and you bake it in your Dutch oven.

When it comes out of the oven, you can make an additional mixture to go over the top of orange juice and either honey or powdered sugar, as some sort of glaze that can go over the top of your loaf.

We have cut that and eaten it in so many different ways. It didn’t have much sourness that is too extreme to go with the sweetness. It just tasted wonderful.

We have cut that and eaten it in so many different ways. It didn’t have much sourness that is too extreme to go with the sweetness. It just tasted wonderful. Our favorite thing that we made French toast with this orange roll bread with real maple syrup.

My husband put the maple syrup all over it, then he took half an orange and he squeezed orange juice over it. It dripping with OJ and then we ate it. It was really heavenly. It was just so, so delicious.

So this is going to be our new time travel food. And although taking a bite of the orange roll sourdough bread, wasn’t quite the same as my grandmother’s orange rolls.

We’ve started a new time travel food from what my grandma gave us, which was the concept of orange rolls. And we’re making it better by using sourdough so that we get the great digestive properties and benefits. We don’t have the downside of the commercial yeast and the gluten that’s unprocessed, but we get the beauty of the orange roll in the beauty of the sourdough bread.

Now, one thing you can do, so this makes a great holiday bread for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or for Valentine’s day is adding raspberries. So that it’s red and it makes our swirl red.

So it will be raspberry orange and we’ll make a little raspberry glaze for the top. We can’t wait to try that. And that will be really good. So that’s perfect for Valentine’s day, even maybe the 4th of July, or any holiday that has red with it.

Why not create a new time, travel food for your family, and make some orange roll sourdough bread. You will not be disappointed.

Have a happy day.

My first attempt at this recipe turned out delicious. This bread can be easily formed into orange dinner rolls, the perfect Mother’s Day Dinner addition

Orange Sourdough Swirl Bread

1. Activate the starter
   4–8 hours before you want to make the dough you must activate the starter. Mix ¼ cup start with ½ cup (120 grams) water and ¾ cup (120 grams)  flour. Let it sit covered until it is bubbly and thick and smells sweet (approximately 6 hours). Your start is ready when it floats in water. 
2. Mix
   In a large glass bowl or stand-mixer stir water, starter and flours. Mix just until combined. Let sit for 30 minutes to autolyse the dough.
   Then add 2 tablespoons salt and ¼ cup water. Mix the water and salt into the dough, cover, and “turn” your dough (see next step).
3. Fold Dough
   Now “turn” your dough.  First, dip a hand in the water, then reach in, grab the bottom edge of the dough and pull up, stretching it, and folding it on top of itself. Do this four times all around the bowl. This all counts as one full “turn.”  Let it sit covered for 30 minutes. Then turn your dough again.  Let it sit covered for another 30 minutes. Turn your dough one final time.
4. Bulk Rise
   Next, let the dough sit for its bulk rise (8-12 hours).
   Tip: warmer temperatures will result in a dough that is ready sooner, and colder temperatures will require the dough to sit longer.
   During the bulk rise, zest an orange and combine 3 Tablespoons of zest with butter and sugar
5. Bench and Shape
   Dump your dough onto a floured or oiled surface. Roll out dough 18 inches long by 10 inches wide. Spread the orange-flavored sugar butter over the dough. With a pizza cutter cut up the middle creating two pieces that are each 18 inches by 5 inches. Roll each up like a cinnamon roll and place on parchment.
6. Proof the Dough
   Cover loaf with a damp towel and let rise until doubled (45 min to 1½) hours depending on temperature).  The dough is ready when it is puffy but has not yet doubled in size.
7. Score & Bake
   20 minutes before baking time, place your dutch oven in the oven to preheat at 475°F (246°C).  When the oven is ready, score the top of each loaf. Place the dough in a dutch oven and splash water in it with your fingers before covering with the lid. Bake for 30 minutes in the dutch oven, until the bread, is golden brown. Remove and cool completely before cutting (1-2 hours). Enjoy!