Daily Bread: Multigrain Pain au Levain

Testing bread in earnest now.

This morning I baked two loaves of multigrain pain au levain, using Daniel Leader's formula from Local Breads. The multi grains, which soaked for eight hours while the levain fermented, were sesame seeds, flaxseeds, coarse cornmeal, and oats. The dough also contained small percentages of whole wheat and rye flours. I forgot to add the seeds until halfway through kneading, rendering the dough very wet and gloopy, so kneading was a long slow process, with frequent rests.

One of the things that I'm concentrating on now that the weekend's loaves will actually sold to people is my shaping and scoring. I consider the loaf above to be a triumph. It also tasted good, dark and moist. I took it in to the architects' office where I used to work, and they, German, English, Japanese, and American, were very complimentary. I'll be filling in at that office quite a bit in the next month, and am looking forward to re-gaining one of my more enthusiastic and knowledgeable audiences.

Compulsive baking--win friends and influence people.

Rice is Nice, but...

Bread is life.
In Uganda, one thing that came up a lot was the concept of a staple food. In Africa as in pretty much anywhere else, starch is the central defining feature of regional diet. Bill Buford mentions this in Heat, speaking of the polentoni and the mangiamaccheroni who populate the different regions of Italy.

In much of Africa, the staple starch is cassava, known also as fufu or manioc. In much of Uganda, it is matoke, steamed plantains. Rice is also common, though imported. Because food is tied to regional identity, and because this is reinforced for school children learning about exports and imports, the question 'What is your staple food?' is a fairly common one. For me, coming from New York, food crossroads of a wealthy country, the question took some thought. Is starch, in fact, the bulk of my diet? Or is it steak? Chicken? Do I prefer rice? Polenta? Maybe a new starch every night?
The answer I decided to give was wheat. I'm not sure if I eat more bread than rice by volume, or what I'd prefer under the other elements of my dinner, but I know how I feel about bread. I make it by hand, seek out special ingredients for it, plan meals around its leftovers, and seek it out everywhere I go. Bread is the starch that truly captures my cultural imagination, the metaphorical if not literal stuff of my life. Bread is places, bakeries and ovens, bread is the wheat fields waving in their endless American abundance. In this way, wheat, and by extension bread, is staple. It is my regional identity and all else is a kind of garnish.

It can't be that simple, of course. The real signifiers of my New England regional identity are apples, maple syrup, sweet corn, berries, and ice skates. But somewhere in the great mush of American identity, wheat is the base, and bread is our common understanding of how to eat. (Think, for example, of restaurants...it's a rare place, and usually an 'ethnic' one, that dares to skip the bread basket, or dares to charge diners for it. My grandparents were famously devoted to the bread basket, going into excruciatingly embarrassing and retrospectively hilarious shock when a restaurant failed to provide at least some crackers.)\

Bread is central, and making bread is also central--to my self-perception as a nurturing, capable, crusty post-hippie child. It is transformation and validation and it is delicious. Which is all code for--making bread is one of my greatest pleasures, and having enough time to make it is rare this season. Daniel Leader's recipe for Pane Genzanese (Pane di Genzano, Genzano Country Bread) has become my staple recipe for soft, crusty white bread. It is good every time, and keeps well, but last night's loaf was especially perfect, having avoided the usual frozen-and-impatiently-underthawed fate of most of the bread I bake. I only regret that I have a woozy cold and couldn't really smell it baking. But look at that crumb structure. I guess the fact that I obsess about crumb and hole structures and think anyone else will care means bread is definitely my staple food.

Pumpernickel Raisin Bread

I took another stab at Daniel Leader's Pumpernickel Raisin Bread from Bread Alone. Last time I made this, we found the molasses flavor too overpowering, so this time I upped the rye flour component, used about an eighth of the recommended molasses, and also used a bunch of stale bread crumbs, which I've heard is something that's done with pumpernickel. It was good. I still think the cocoa and molasses could be minimized a bit more (there's also coffee in it) but this is very acceptable toast bread. And Matt really likes it.

Pane di Genzano in a Basket

I'm blogging on deadline here, or more specifically writing a paper on deadline, thus not supposed to be blogging, but I thought you might like to see some pictures of my first successful attempt at getting pretty ridges on my bread. This is Pane di Genzano from Local Breads, proofed in a breadbasket, or 'makeshift banneton.' I just dusted hell out of the basket with flour and hoped that its sharp ridges wouldn't become a problem. They didn't, and the result was rather lovely.
I also tried out the whole wheat version this time--it was very soft and wet but not unmanageable at all. I formed it into long, sort of shapeless loaves, like this one.
It baked very quickly, almost burning, and the taste was good, a little more complex than the white in the one side by side tasting I did.

What do you see in the Rye?

Don't the markings on this loaf of Polish Cottage Rye just remind you of something...
Eyes and a nose? The fairy king brandishing a carrot? A tornado? Thoughts?

As I mentioned last time I made this bread, the dough is fairly sticky, so I decided that this batch would be best made in my new-old mixer. In retrospect, that wasn't the best idea, as I don't have a dough hook and so the mixture climbed right up the beaters and into their sockets. Cleaning job aside, though, the mixer handled the stiff dough very well, and the resulting product was easier to knead by hand. Definitely considering investing in a dough hook if I can find one that will fit this old mixer.

Pane di Genzano Returns

One of the wonderful things about bread baking is that, especially in an uncontrolled home environment, the same recipe turns out something different every time. The whole experience, from starter to kneading, varies with temperature, time, flour content, human error, and many other variables.

I have made this Pane di Genzano a few times now with a few recipes, and while it has been different every time, it has never disappointed. It's moist, light bread, with a near-burned rustic crust (check out the patterns the dish towel made on this one), and some heft. Perfect for soup-sopping and bruschetta making, or just eating.

This loaf was started with the liquid levain, the dough incorporated one cup whole wheat flour, and now that I remember it, I actually made only half the starter, planning on a smaller loaf. Forgot about that when it came to dough mixing, though. This is a forgiving recipe. It rose overnight in the refrigerator, and I baked it on Wednesday morning.

Success is a Fickle Mistress

After reviving my starter from its sullen, vacation-ignored oblivion, I decided to stroke its ego by having another go at the Polish Cottage Rye from Local Breads. This was going very well--the liquid levain is back at peak--until I got around to the actual kneading.

Because rye flour contains far less gluten than wheat, the book offers many tips to strengthen rye taste without sacrificing all rising. The first step is the creation of a special rye sourdough, in my case a spin-off of liquid levain, where the starter is refreshed with whole rye flour exclusively. Then the entire batch that is created is added directly to the dough, an unusually high proportion of starter to flour in the final dough, at least by French levain standards. But this is Polish rye, so French standards are not under discussion.

I mixed up all the recommended ingredients (substituting a cup of whole wheat flour for one of white) and was about to turn the mess out to knead when I noticed that it looked suspiciously wet.

...we interrupt this post to report in awe that it has just gone dark in my office, at 10 am, except for the ominous glow of clear skies far to the west. Weather is so much more extreme out here on the harbor, and the rumble I just heard confirms my hunch that we are in for a mother of a thunderstorm...

Here's the thing: these days, common wisdom holds that bread dough should be wet, the wetter the better, that's what helps it rise high and be full of light irregular holes. This is good to understand, but in this case, it screwed me up. I refused to recognise an unworkable dough when I saw one, and wasted a lot of time scraping dough off my hands in huge clumps and cursing. I ultimately wound up under-kneading, adding more flour, over-proofing, and coming out with an ugly but very respectable loaf. In fact, a really good one (curse you, wet dough). It's done a lot of duty already as bruchetta base and sopper of tomato soup. Incidentally, Alice Waters' tomato soup? Excellent, don't bother to strain.

The rain has just started sheeting down. I want to curl up in an armchair and stare out over the harbor. It's incredible.

Reviving the Starter

It's been so hot lately, and I've been so run off my feet, that turning on the oven and making bread just hasn't been that possible. But on Thursday, with a pile of transcription work to do and no other reason to leave home, I decided it was time to see if my much-neglected starter still had any life.

Refreshed overnight, it was at full strength, and did a great job raising these little boules, the basic pain de campagne from Local Breads. This, at least in this incarnation, is a soft-textured sandwich bread, with surprising lightness for a sourdough raised loaf (at least one of mine). It should probably have been wetter (I think I'm buying very absorbent wheat flour) but it was a pleasure to revive not only the starter but the process, and get back to baking.

San Francisco Sourdough

My second attempt at Daniel Leader's San Francisco Sourdough, from Bread Alone. In the 'family of traditional sourdoughs' chapter, the main identifier of the recipe is the long starter ferment (24 hours compared to the usual twelve).

I substituted white whole wheat flour for some of the bread flour, and did most of the first fermentation of the whole dough in the refrigerator while I was at work. I also used my liquid levain instead of Bread Alone's regular sourdough chef, and didn't add all the flour, so my dough was a little wetter than on my first try. Wetter, everyone agrees, is better.

My trusty home team pulled the dough out for me and when I came home a few hours later it was overflowing its bowl and ready to go. It had probably risen a bit too much, so I did the first and second rests quickly and shaped it loosely, as it was pretty sticky.

Being a very hot day, the dough proofed quickly and stuck to the parchment couche, but I eventually got it into a 500 degree oven, turned it down to 450, and got to baking. I was a little worried about oven spring because it had proofed so quickly, but it seemed to do all right. The crumb wasn't quite as open as my ideal, but it was light and not dense.
The crust colored beautifully, a nice rich brown, and I experimented with a new scoring design (more to come soon). The taste is full and lightly sour, more like a sour levain than true San Francisco style, but I'm ok with that as I often find 'real' San Francisco breads to have an unpleasant sock-like smell.

Genzano Country Bread, White

There is something awfully intriguing about the Genzano Country Bread. I just made it again and it was an entirely different animal. First off, I made it with just white high gluten flour (King Arthur bread flour has gone up from $3.49 to $4.99 at Fairway, by the way). I used a tablespoon each of stiff sourdough and liquid levain, along with the yeast. Although I had originally planned to, I didn't decrease this time either because I was worried about the strength of the sourdoughs, which were both a few days out from being refreshed. Due to time constraints, I did some more fast and loose timing maneuvers using the refrigerator. I refrigerated the biga for about 12 hours after a quick six-hour ferment, and then did the two risings in the fridge as well, each for about 10 hours. After that I just shaped it, wrapped it in bran, and proofed for an extra hour before putting it in the oven. I baked it in the preheated dutch oven, which worked really well (no control this time, but I can tell it made a difference). Because it was a big loaf, I took it out into the regular oven for the last five minutes to make sure all the crust got browned.
This might be one of the most handsome loaves I've ever made, and it has the flavor of a sourdough and the squishy ('normal' Libby says') texture of a yeast bread. I think this recipe holds more for me in the near future. Meanwhile we have this enormous loaf to deal with.

Genzano Country Bread/ Pane Casareccio di Genzano

I was intrigued by this recipe in Local Breads, but put off making it for a while because the size of the loaves and the wetness of the dough were a little intimidating. Also, even though I've tackled the Pane di Altamura with dubiously good results, bread with a government stamp (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) comes with a little chip on its shoulder. Dare to make me, it says. And really, what do I have to lose? So started the process, and almost immediately, life got in the way.

Pane di Genzano starts with the creation of a biga naturale, a short-term sourdough starter fueled by a few tablespoons of my existing liquid levain. I got that going on Saturday morning, using the last of the flour in the house, a mix of Wild Hive bread flour and whole wheat pastry. Left it to ferment the recommended 8-12 hours and went out to the library, the farmers market, etc... At 5pm, I took myself off to learn a new tour(Times Square). I thought this training would be a matter of a few hours, but it soon turned out that I was actually leading a second tour in the West Village immediately following. What with one thing and another, ghost tours and upwards of forty Canadian teenagers, I didn't get home until nearly midnight, and wasn't about to start bread then. So I tossed the biga bowl into the refrigerator and hoped for the best. The next morning I had to be in Carroll Gardens by 11 am with a load of pain au chocolat (more on this later), so the biga continued its patient wait.

At 3pm on Sunday, bread production finally began. I mixed the dough, which includes nearly a cup and a half of the starter. It is supposed to be a very wet dough, so much so that Daniel Leader doesn't even give hand-kneading instructions. Mine, while sticky, was manageable, probably because I had used whole wheat flour in the starter, which absorbs much more water. If I was in a fever of authenticity, I probably would have added extra water, but I wasn't about to complain about being able to handle the dough. The recipe also called for a small amount of commercial yeast at this point. I added it, but I think in future I'll reduce the amount.

Mindful of my evening plans, I stuck the dough into two quart yogurt containers to ferment and took them along with me to Paper Beats Rock. As soon as the reading was over, I took them out right there in the bar and punched them down. I am the crazy lady with dough in her bag.

I then walked downtown to meet Matt, and took the alarmingly expanded dough to his house, getting it set up to proof right before the yogurt containers exploded. Miraculously, even after all the abuse and despite the fact that I baked it on metal pans instead of my baking stone, the bread came out beautifully, with a hard dark crust and a sweet soft, slightly irregular crumb.

A beautiful example of another home baker's slightly less interrupted take on Pane di Genzano can be found here.

Buckwheat Bastards, Second Round

A second take on Daniel Leader/Eric Kayser's Buckwheat Batards, from Local Breads. What with Passover and all, the roommates were starting to take note of a lack of bread, so I got it together and made two kinds in a day. This batch of dough was a little dryer than my first attempt, probably because of the whole wheat bread flour. It was, therefore, easier to handle and shape, and I think came out as well or better. After thinking about the great crust on the no-knead breads, I decided to try an experiment and bake a kneaded bread in the dutch oven. The results were encouraging, though not decisive. On the left, the control, bread baked with steam on a stone in the open oven. On the right, the same bread baked in the heated dutch oven. Both look great, but the difference isn't that noticeable. Continued investigations to follow.

Raisin-Walnut Pain de Campagne

Uneventful, delicious. A liquid levain sourdough from Local Breads.

Eric Kayser's Sourdough Mix

I found this on another blog--it's an adaptation of a recipe from an Eric Kayser book. There's an unusually large proportion of liquid levain in the final dough, (more than 1/2 cup), and a bit of yeast as well, so it doesn't ferment for very long at all. In fact, I thought that there had to be a mistake in the recipe, but it worked out well, though it was nothing amazing. I think I might be underbaking, in general, which isn't great for the crust. I'm going to try baking some of these yeast and sourdough breads in my dutch oven, to see what that does for the crust.

Pain de Campagne

A very basic recipe from Local Breads. Daniel Leader claims that most pain de campagne is more or less baguette dough treated differently. This one is white with bits of rye, and whole wheat. The flour from Wild Hive has a subtle graham-y smell. I did have to add a lot more flour than recommended. I felt guilty doing this, because he specifically advises resisting the urge and keeping the dough very wet, but what I added just raised it above the level of batter into the realm of sticky dough. Final texture was excellent.

Buckwheat Bastards

These are Buckwheat Batards from Daniel Leader's new book, Local Breads (pictured with a leftover loaf of plain sourdough). They are made using a 'liquid levain' sourdough, and are very wet and sticky and hard to shape. Buckwheat from Anson Mills turns them that dark color and gives them a great flavor, sour and almost clay-like. The reward for all that stickiness is the texture--soft and open.


The shaping can still use some work. Libby, who misread the name as Buckwheat Bastards (obviously they'll not be known as anything else around here), had a whole loaf fresh out of the oven for second dessert.