Bread Baker's Apprentice: Poilane-Style Miche

Above is my attempt at Peter Reinhart's recipe for the oft-cited and oft-copied Poilane Miche. Mine doesn't have the characteristic scoring pattern, because I made it in the clay BreadPot. The loaf is almost entirely whole wheat flour, although I did cheat and throw in about 3/4 of a cup of white flour to lighten the taste. In retrospect, the only thing I would change would have been to proof a little longer, for a more open crumb. It's a dense bread by nature though, and the other night it earned its place in kitchen history by participating in the creation of what may be Matt's favorite sandwich of all time, a sandwich so extraordinary he was throwing around Fight Club language with abandon, a no-holds-barred bacon and cheddar grilled cheese that pushed that chewy, strong bread to its highest purpose. The bacon, which came in a chunk from The Meat Hook in Williamsburg, was a salty Tennessee Mountain wonder, whose like we rarely see. Maybe not a life-changer, but definitely a game changer. And this bread got to participate.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: New York Deli Style Rye

John Thorne, writing about one of Reinhart's earlier books, Brother Juniper's Bread Book, noted that Reinhart particularly shines when it comes to specialty breads. After my seriously mediocre experience with his Basic Sourdough, I'm inclined to agree. This Deli Style Rye more than made up for any sourdough disappointments. It was a rye sourdough starter, into which was stirred that staple of Ashkenazi cooking, fried onions. That sat on the counter getting wet and grey for a few hours, then went into the refrigerator for 24 more. At the end of all that, I mixed it in with some more rye flour, some bread flour, and some buttermilk, sugar, caraway, yeast and oil. The resulting dough was hard to knead, heavy and somewhat unpleasant, but it baked beautifully, both in and out of the pot, and tastes perfect. The crumb is a good sandwich size, fine without being dense., and the taste is just made for deli meats (the dairy in it could be a sticking point for some, but not me). This might even beat out my former favorite, Rose Levy Berenbaum's Jewish Rye, which is a little lighter and softer. The onions, while they added their indefinable essence, were undetectable in the finished loaf.

BBA Catch-Up

I'm having some trouble following directions, and I've been baking BBA breads out of order. To catch up a bit, here are some pictures. Reinhart's Pain de Campagne, Pane Siciliano, and Potato Rosemary Bread all use some form of pate fermentee or biga (Italian starter), which can easily be substituted for one another. Because the Pane Siciliano was the first thing I made from the book, and I've made it several times since, I skipped it this week, but here's the link to an earlier post.

With my batch of pate fermentee, I made a half recipe of Pain de Campagne, in the bread baker. It was very good, and surprisingly soft--used to my sourdough, I'd expected a sharp crust and a wide open crumb, but this formula made more of a sandwich bread.

Pizza Napolitana, also made a while ago, was good, though it hasn't become my go to pizza dough. I'm still looking for that.

I made a wonderful Sweet Potato Rosemary Bread, both in and out of the baker. Both loaves tasted wonderful, but the one in the baker was able to retain more of the beautiful sweet potato color. That's it for now, I'm skipping Panettone, and look out for Poolish Baguettes and a return to order shortly.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: Pain a l'Ancienne in a Pot

With all the bread I've been working on, I've actually managed to neglect the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge, meandering off somewhere around Marbled Rye.  I still appreciate Peter Reinhart, but I've become besotted with Jeffrey Hamelman, and it was hard to wrench my attention back. Still, I think that it's worth while to continue through the book, and in order to make it happen, I'm combining the project with another one I'm working on, testing recipes and techniques in the clay bread baker made by Judy.

Judy now has several friends (including my mother, in her first blog appearance) market testing and reporting on variations of the bread bakers, and my plan is to prepare the upcoming Apprentice recipes as much as possible according to the book, and then shape for and bake in the pot, unless that would mutate the recipe entirely too far. This way, I can make the Reinhart recipes, and learn how they are, and at the same time see how a variety of techniques and formulae behave in the baker.

My first foray back was the Pain a l'Ancienne, a wet dough usually used for baguettes, the central feature of which is a long overnight retarding in the refrigerator. I nearly doubled the refrigerator time, to about 24 hours, but otherwise left the recipe alone except for cutting it in half. Like most of Reinhart's recipes, I found it under-hydrated, and added a little extra water, and still could probably have managed more. Once it had woken up out of the refrigerator, I shaped it into a boule and proofed it on a floured napkin, while preheating the oven and the pot to 450. Baked for 23 minutes with the lid on and another 20 or so with it off, the finished product was the best I've done in the baker, better shaped and more attractive than the no-knead variations I've been trying, with a surprisingly soft crumb given that there were no oils, and a very crisp crust with those little cracked patches bakers love so much.

Bread whispers and cracks a lot when it comes out of a hot oven, and this one was chatty.

BBA "French" and "Italian" Breads

Last night I went to a little event at a downtown bookstore that featured Amanda Hesser (NYT Food Writer), Julie Powell (Julie & Julia, and Judith Jones (Editor for Practically Everyone I Can Think Of) speaking about the enduring legacy of Julia Child. Hesser was concise and incisive, Powell voluble and mobile--intensely thoughtful, and Jones warmly patrician, with practiced delivery and a well-developed sense of humor.

I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to these three ladies, to hear the 'real' voices of the literary voices I've read eagerly. I was a little disappointed in the quality and quantity of the questions ("Did you really eat aspic?), but since I didn't ask any myself, can't really complain.

The event did make me confront an issue I've been wrestling a bit with, which is the focus and style of this very blog. I know food blogs are a dime a dozen, but I do enjoy mine (and enjoy my cooking more), and I want to spend some real time working on the quality of the writing here. It's going to take attention, and time. Ideally, each post would be a well-thought-out, honest, mini-essay, with something new to say or instruct, possibly some good links, and connected to an overarching goal or writing persona that is uniquely mine. Writers like John Thorne and Julie Powell have raised the bar in their different ways, daring me to engage with the food I make on a visceral and intellectual level, to examine it from the vantage of appetite and history and my honest understanding of self and family. Perhaps tellingly, neither of these writers use photographs or pictures on a regular basis. They rely on the quality of their prose and the urgency of their interest and passion. I could read John Thorne's work forever, and while he comfortably fills his own niche, he makes me believe there might be a niche for me as well.

This is just to say, look out for some longer musing and hopefully some material more probing than 'I made this! It was good!" though there will be those as well.

By the way, as a part of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I made these French and Italian style breads. They were good. I present the recipes together because they are essentially the same. Both begin with a prefermented dough to simulate the leftover dough that would be used in a similar bakery recipe (Once again I wasn't on top of it enough to just save some of the French Bread dough to make the Italian...go me). The method continues exactly the same (the Italian gets a little sugar and oil enrichment along the way) until the shaping. For the French, I made one baguette, one batard, and one little round loaf. I turned the Italian dough into a pile of picturesque little rolls.

Both formulae produced sturdy, flavorful sandwich breads. Matt's happiness as being able to have a simple turkey sandwich was a firm reminder to make this kind of bread more often. I preferred the Italian style, in as much as there was a difference, but that might just have been my fondness for the little roll shapes.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: Ciabatta

Moving right along with the BBA challenge (my carb-hungry household needs bread), I made ciabatta the other night. I had made ciabatta at least once before, using Daniel Leader's method, with middling results. In the BBA book, there are two versions, poolish and biga. Both are pre-ferments, with different proportions and methods, but according to Reinhardt, create similar results. The poolish fermented for a few hours in the open air, then hung out in the refrigerator for a few days until I was ready to make dough.

Ciabatta is one of those breads that most cookbook writers advise making in a mixer, because it should be as wet as possible, and is hard to handle. My mixer can't even begin to handle bread dough, so that was out. Instead, I used a new method, suggested by Reinhardt, that involved using my hands as if they were a mixer--squeezing with one and rotating the bowl with the other. It was messy, and I feared for my ceramic bowl on my faux-marble countertop, but it was successful.The dough is then stretched and folded up, and left to rest for a while. After that, it is cut, folded again, and put to proof in an improvised couche.
At this point, I slipped the dough into the refrigerator and went to dinner. When I came back, I gave it a little time to warm up, then dimpled and stretched it as advised, and baked.
It came out beautiful, if a little wiggly, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with the inner crumb. Ciabatta is supposed to be almost non-existant inside, full of huge, glossy holes, and mine achieved more the texture of soft flatbread. I think this was due to all the temperature fluctuations, possibly also to my failure to stretch it out enough, and definitely to the lower hydration caused by using a cup of whole wheat flour (although I did add a lot of extra water to balance).

Has anyone else doing the BBA project noticed that they are routinely adding more water than Reinhardt suggests, even after compensating for flour substitutions? I wonder if I just have really dehydrated flour.

When I took this loaf out of the oven, Sophie said, 'Oh, it looks like Batman.'

Bread Baker's Apprentice: Challah

I've skipped ahead one week in the challenge. This week's bread is supposed to be Casatiello, a kind of Italian take on Brioche filled with sausage and cheese, but I couldn't bear to make another brioche variation too soon, and we needed something less rich around the house.
You know you're in trouble when 'something less rich' is a challah. Challah was one of the first breads that I learned how to make, in part because it is easy, and in part because it is, like the Artos, a celebration bread, therefore the baking specialty of one or another of my parents' group of friends. John's (large, fluffy, wheaty) and Nina's (long, braided, seeded) challahs made it obvious that challah making was possible and came with great rewards, and I've never looked back. For Rosh Hashanah, I have occasionally been known to make Martha Stewart's rich, rich yolky challah, but Reinhardt's recipe is a good one for more everyday wear (as is the recipe in The Silver Palate Cookbook, fyi). I subbed in 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour into 4 cups total, and the result was a heartier taste with no change in texture.

Since my one other wedding assignment this summer, in addition to the cupcakes and cake, is a celebratory challah, it's good to flex the challah muscles. Like a very few other recipes, challah always feels so close and familiar to make that it is less like an adult challenge and more like a childhood memory. I like it that way.
Sophie, who has come to live with us for a little while, also likes it, but likes it best when Matt french toasts it, which he did this past Sunday.

French toast is outstanding. I have no manners, and, as with pancakes, tend to think it is best eaten by hand right off the griddle, one by one. Matt is very tolerant and allows such behavior even though he was not raised by wolves. My mother always did express the forlorn hope that I would behave more conventionally outside the house. That's why I never go out for brunch.

BBA: Anthos (Greek Celebration Bread)

Now they're coming thick and fast. The lack of rigid schedule for this BBA challenge is allowing my obsessions to get the better of me, and I'm baking at a too rapid pace. Still, I have guests this weekend, and they'd probably like some bread to eat while they're here.

They can eat Anadama bread. At least half of that loaf is still left, and I'm not sure that the puffy airy Anthos (Greek Celebration Bread), flavored with spices and almond and orange oil, will be lasting until they get here.

This bread is presented by Reinhart as a kind of base recipe for various kinds of Greek holiday breads, including the Easter loaf studded with red eggs, and the New Year's vassilopita. It is soft and sweet and rich, laden with eggs and milk and oil, as well as the aforementioned spices. It's also, thanks to the addition of commercial yeast and sourdough, perfectly light, and disappears very quickly. It's too rich for real every day bread use, but I can't imagine a better loaf for french toast or bread pudding or mushing up and eating with fresh slightly overgelled rhubarb jelly.

Italian Semolina Twists (Pane Siciliano)

I've got a new bread book, from another master of the bread book field, Peter Reinhart. It's called The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and is a fanatically detailed tome that aims to teach the amateur baker enough to help them feel free experimenting. Reinhart, the author of Crust and Crumb and Whole Grain Breads, has a very different voice than Daniel Leader of Bread Alone. Reinhart is a teacher at Johnson & Wales culinary schools, and his writing is a reflection of what must be his teaching style, adapted for the home baker.

The book is structured by formulas, many of which apply to several varieties of bread up until the last dough mix. For instance, the pate fermentee that I mixed for my first trial of the book could have become a French bread, a Pain de Campagne, or the Pane Siciliano that I finally chose (along with a series of variations).

A large amount of pate fermentee is mixed into the final dough, and nearly half of the remaining flour added is fine semolina. Because my semolina is fine but not really a bread grind, I used a little less than the suggested amount.

The bread is sweet and uncomplicated, it's been on your dinner table in hundreds of restaurants (if you're the type to visit hundreds of restaurants), and it's just as good as it looks right here. The characteristic shape is achieved by rolling the dough into a baguette shape and then rolling the log right up to the middle from either end, on opposite sides.