More Bread

Despite the complete lack of update here, I've been pressng forward with my bread making over the weekends. We are both loving all the fresh baked bread, and I am definitely getting better at using my instincts on hydration and whatnot.

As a follow up to the french bread, I baked another batch of Ciabatta. I was more aggressive with the hydration this time. I still didn't quite get the crumb I was looking for, but at least it didn't look like a chicken. We managed to eat it all before I got a picture, so you'll just have to trust me on that.

I followed that up (last weekend) with Pain a[funny accent here] l'Ancienne, which Reinhart spends much of the 100 page intro to the book rhapsodising.

This bread uses deferred fermentation, which means that you retard rising overnight by using ice water in the dough and putting the bread in the fridge. This allows the secondary reactions that usually occur concurrently with rising to get a head start, leading to a very different flavor. While most of the breads using a pre-ferment have a sharper, more savory flavor, this one has a smoother, sweeter one.

My loaves came out a bit rustic (which is the polite way to say 'ugly') but they had a great, open crumb and wonderful flavor. I wanted to make baguettes, but because of the size of my baking stone had to keep them pretty short. I made six, fifteen inch long loaves and by the end of the first day half of them were gone. The taste and texture of this bread was just great, and we really enjoyed it. It did seem to lose freshness a little quicker than some of the other breads I've done from this book, but a quick visit to the toaster fixed that just fine.

This was a truely amazing bread, and was one of the easiest to make. No pre-ferment is needed, and because of the hydration level all the keading is done by machine. This guy took very little effort, and made a wonderful loaf.

So far in this bread frenzy, I have been using only all purpose and bread flour. Since over the past few years Mary and I have managed to accumulate quite a collection of flours, I was interested in making a recipe that would use something else as well.

This weekend, I found that in Pain de Champagne, which uses a small amount of wheat flour. This bread is back to the more standard method (pre-ferment mande the prior day and kept in the fridge overnight after rising) and according to Reinhart is the one most often used around France for creative shaping.

I chose to knead this one by hand rather than with the Kitchen Aid in order to get a better feel for the dough. I was very pleased with the hydration level and feel of the dough, so I'll probably continue this habit in the future. The hand kneading doesn't take that much longer, and once you get the hang of it and don't constantly have dough sticking to your hands is quite fun.

Mary had suggested that I make rolls so that we could have meatloaf sandwhiches, so most of the dough got shaped into small batards for that purpose. I did, however, save out a chunk in order to attempt the most absurd of bread shapes -- the Epi or sheaf of wheat. To shape bread in this way, you first shape a baguette and then perform a series of cuts and pulls to make the lobes of the wheat berries.

I was very pleased with my shaping this time around, and only had one real ugly duckling in the rolls. The baguette for the Epi came out so wonderfully that I considered just baking it in that form. Because I was going to bake it in a sheet pan rather than on the stone, it was long and slender and I had managed to shape it to a very even thickness. Still, the Epi was so silly that I just had to press forward. While you won't mistake mine for the picture in the book, I do think I did a good job of at least approximating the proper shape. Next time, I'll cut a little deeper and at a sharper angle, in order to allow the 'wheat berries' to be pulled a little further out from the loaf. After baking, I realized why this was such a great shaepe: The ratio of crust to crumb was way higher than with a regular baguette, so we ended up with a loaf full of end pieces. Could there be anything better?

Chickenbread

Since we have somewhat limited kitchen space and are not packrats by nature, I am always a little cautious about buying new cookbooks. I've been giving a library copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice a test run to determine if I wanted to pick it up, and after making two breads from it I have pulled the trigger.

The book is all about artisanal breads, which tend to be more rustic and have more character. They are also a bit more involved than the breads I have made out of the Better Homes and Gardens book, but the flavor and texture (even when I mess that second bit up) are beyond compare. Most of the breads use a pre-ferment, where you make a sponge (basically a less-risen, unkneaded dough) the previous day and let it take a long, slow ferment in the fridge. You then incorporate that into the final dough and put it through the twelve (!!) stages of bread baking and end up with a delicious, salty, sharp-flavored loaf of wonderfulness that may or may not look like a chicken.

Last weekend, I was inspired by our Italy trip and took a stab at ciabatta. Ciabatta is a rustic italian bread with a soft crust and (in theory) a very open crumb (that means lots of big holes.)

The starter is very moist (think pancake batter) and the final dough should be quite hydrated as well. Now after reading the hundred page introduction telling me that the baker should trust his instincts and bake by feel and texture, did I listen? Or did I just slavishly follow the recipe and hope that the pretty clearly underhydrated dough got moister later? You guess. It wasn't until after trying to shape the first loaf using the instructions in the book (which lead to the lovely loaf on the left) that I realized I was being dumb and just used pushing and prodding to get the second loaf into shape.

Ultimately though the final bread lacked the open crumb that it should have had and looked like we were about to shove stale bread in it's cavity, it still tasted great. There are several recipes for ciabatta in the book with various savory ingredients added, so I think I'll try one of those soon and aim for redemption.

This weekend, I decided to attempt french bread. The starter and dough are much firmer, and this time I was more sensitive to the feel of the dough early on. I started out with a little extra water after the troubles the prior weekend, only to end up keeping it under the dough hook for an extra ten minutes trying to get enough flour in to reduce the hydration. Still, the dough ended up closer to the firmness it should have had, so it was worth it.

Since one is supposed to handle the dough minimally to prevent degassing, I decided to try a batard (wider, shorter loaf) rather than full baggettes. In reality, I think I fell somewhere inbetween, since the batard should have been a little shorter and fatter. Still, no chickens this time, so...that's a win.

The bread tasted great and had a fairly good texture, though I still felt that it should have had a looser crumb. It had a great crunchy crust, with a slightly chewy and tangy interior.

Overall, I'd say that both breads were winners. I can't wait to try these again, as well as some of the other recipes in the book. Of particular interest is the foccacia, where you bake the bread covered in a half cup of herb infused olive oil. That's a lot of oil, but wow it sounds good.