8-10-2025 4:09am

Philosophizing About Food With Francine: Experimenting with Additions to Sourdough

Lesley Misko Editor

by Francine Black

Part 1--Early one recent morning, Francine's culinary thoughts gravitated back to sourdough -- one of her favorite outlets for creative baking...

"Today is an absolutely perfect day for sourdough baking, in my opinion. The morning air is gently cool and the humidity is low. While the multigrain loaves are cooling, I’m experimenting with another batch of sourdough.

This one is scented with fresh lemon zest and juice with the addition of fresh blueberries and pecans. When the dough has risen sufficiently, we’ll fill it with a sweetened cream cheese and egg mixture. It’ll be a few more hours yet until it’s ready to bake. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Enjoy this glorious day!

Part 2 -- A few hours later ...

If the aroma filling the kitchen is anything to go by, the blueberry lemon cream cheese sourdough bread is a success.

If I make this again, I may tweak the recipe as the dough was so soft and wet that I literally had to scoop it into the loaf pans.

The truth is, we can really add both sweet and savory tidbits to a sourdough loaf: olives, rosemary and garlic, caramelized onions, pepperoni, apple and cinnamon etc. The possibilities are as vast as our taste buds dictate. I’m sure some of my friends would even consider adding little crumbles of bacon with cubes of cheddar. I have some wonderful chunks of Callebaut chocolate and toasted hazelnuts in the pantry that I might try the next time!

Additional Tip: Fran rarely uses recipes and therefore, rarely shares them, but she has shared her filling recipe.

Here it is:

It’s a very versatile filling - I use it for Danish or even swirl it through chocolate cake batter.

8oz softened whole milk cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 large beaten egg and 1 tsp pure vanilla. Whip together and that’s all there is to it.

High in the mountains above Bally, where the dense groves of treetops seem to touch the sky, is Francine Black, Boyertown’s own version of chef Julia Child. Her daily activities reflect the things she most values: family and friends, music, and lovingly prepared food.