Son of Pain au Levain

I've been so busy at SCRATCHbread that I don't think I've made old-fashioned, kneaded, bake-on-a-stone bread in months, at least at home. This week, two samples of Hamelman's Pain au Levain recipe, baked at 440 on my baking stone. The one on the right is exactly the same, except that it was rolled in flaxseeds. The inspiration for this bake was an illicit gift that I passed on over Passover to my cousin Alexander. As we all ate our unleavened bread, I slipped him a jar of contraband sourdough starter under the table. While advising him how to bake with it, it occurred to me how long it had been since my starter made anything but Tartine-style bread.

Alexander, incidentally, has christened his starter "Mattya."

Rye and Raisins

Just a quick shot of some recent rye sourdough with golden raisins and sliced almonds. Very soft and delicate despite the rough-ground local rye flour. 

Wish Fulfillment

One of my favorite commercial sliced breads is a Pepperidge Farm brand called 'Oat-Nut.' Sounds healthy, but it's really a soft squishy sweet bread with bits of nutty things, that I could eat straight from the bag, toppings optional. I've tried a few times to reproduce it in a home version, and I think I've finally gotten pretty close. The following is an adaptation from a recipe for 'Toast Bread' from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread.

I made one loaf in a loaf pan, and one in the baker, and they were pretty much exactly the same in crumb, crust, and consistancy. The difference in texture on the tops of the two loaves was largely because I dusted the pot loaf with wheat germ to keep it from sticking. I could eat it all day, toppings optional.

Formula:
2 lbs flour (about 7 and 1/4 cups) - I used mostly All-Purpose with about 1/4 cup of whole wheat)
2 and 5/8 cups water
2 tsp sugar  (I used maple syrup, bet honey would be good)
1 Tblsp soft butter (or hard butter cut in tiny pieces)
Malt powder or syrup (optional) 3/8 tsp
1 Tblsp salt
1.5 tsp Yeast

Nutty things--flaxseeds, wheat berries, nuts, etc...whatever...

Knead all ingredients, ferment for 2 hours, folding once in the middle, shape, proof for 1 - 1.5 hours, bake at 430 degrees, 30-45 minutes (making allowances for large or small loaves).

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.

Daily Bread: Brooklyn Sourdough

Just look at that crumb. This version of Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough (Brooklyn sourdough now), an  'everyday' bread with white flour and a touch of rye, may have been some of my best loaves ever. The dough was mixed and then retarded overnight in the refrigerator. Because the oven was occupied by some knishes (coming up), I let the loaves proof a little longer than usual, until I could see bubbles under the surface, and the effect was great. Next up, rye sourdough with walnuts and raisins. Obsessed much? Me?

Pain Fendu

To combat my poor shaping karma at the bakery, I've been going out of my way to make my loaves at home extra lovely, slashing very carefully and trying some new shaping methods. One notable success last week was my attempt at oatmeal sunflower seed pain fendu, a shaping method that involves shaping the dough into a round boule, then pressing a rolling pin into the floured top to create a deep trough. The two halves of the trough are then squeezed together like little butt cheeks and proofed in a basket, and the final product comes out as if it had been gently slashed (at least mine did).

Oat-sunflower seed loaf shaped pain fendu style a la Hamelman. Guarded by a few of the battalion of Star Wars figures we just rescued from Matt's parents' basement.

Explosions. The Earth is Moving.

I love making bread at the bakery. I love getting up early and opening the chain gate, turning on the oven and the proofer, and spending hours alone with the giant mixer, and hours chatting with Lily. People seem to be buying and enjoying the bread, too, and I really appreciate that. But I'm having a technical problem that I can't seem to get the better of, one that almost never happens in my home oven.

No matter how well I score them, almost all of my loaves are exploding, some picturesquely, and some much less so. I've tried underproofing, over-proofing, nothing really seems to work. I've baked with and without a baking stone, and it didn't seem to make much difference. The only major difference between the bakery ovens and mine is that the bakery ovens have fans, which make them hotter and move air around better. My new theory is that the fanned air is drying out the score marks before the bread gets to the expansion point, making them useless. Yesterday, I tried re-scoring a loaf partway through the bake, and while it wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing solution, it did seem to work somewhat.

Anyone who knows something about bread, I could use some help here...oven too hot, too cold, ways to deal with the fan (it can't be turned off), improve steam, etc...Any ideas are welcome, it's starting to drive me crazy that I turn out picture perfect loaves at home and can't do the same for paying customers. (I know the taste is outstanding, though, and that keeps me going).

This week, Christmas got in the way of my usual night-before preparations, so I made Hamelman's pain au levain (floured) from scratch yesterday morning (compare to the previous post for some indication of my aesthetic issue), as well as his pate fermentee baguettes, to which I added sunflower seeds. I did half the recipe as country boules (front, with crosses) and half as actual baguettes. They were a bit twisty, but I was actually quite satisfied with them, and plan to try again, although Lily prefers to call them 'breadsticks' in deference to baguette purists.

Cape Cod Cloche

Cape Cod girls, they have no combs
Heave away! Heave away
They comb their hair with codfish bones;
We are bound for Australia


Heave awy me bully bully boys
Heave away! Heave away
Heave away and don't ye make a noise;
We are bound for Australia!


Cape Cod boys, they have no sleds
Heave away! Heave away!
They slide down hills on codfish heads
We are bound for Australia!

Guess where I got to get snowed in last weekend...

A foot and a half of beautiful snow deep in a many-windowed house in Welfleet, generously lent by Judy and Richard, good friends to me from the day I was born. They did themselves one better this time, opening their house to me and three dear friends for a wool-socked, Scattergories-playing sister weekend. The snow was deep, the kitchen was stocked, and we couldn't have asked for much more.

As I mentioned once before, Judy is a potter, and a big fan of the no-knead bread, and now she's experimenting with making clay baking vessels. One such attempt was waiting for us on the counter at the cape house, with the bread recipe etched right into the glaze under the lid. The compact shape and the recipe combined were almost irresistible, and I was glad when Judy encouraged me to try it out, and then to take it home. She doesn't consider it her finest specimen, but that only makes me want to make with it more--no danger of ruining high art, and the shape is just so satisfying--small without being tiny, and perfectly rounded. I made a nice no-knead raisin bread on the Cape, but took no pictures. Many more to come, both kneaded and no. I might even think about baking some beans.

I did take a picture of the bread I made after I got home, Hamelman's pain au levain, which I tested for the bakery. The test was successful, and as I write this there's a batch rising in the proofer for Saturday's crowd. Hamelman says that refrigerating the dough overnight isn't recommended for this variety, so I started from the beginning at about 6 am, and am just nearing the shaping point by 9:30.

Marketing

My first attempt at a little branding.

This is a mixed-flour miche using Hamelman's formula--a little dark and dense, but perfectly shaped. I'm kind of obsessed now and want to stencil everything.

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Going 'Pro'

Exciting news.
The week before last, I saw a sign on the door of Lily & Fig, the bakery down the block.

"Experienced Bread Baker Needed - Part Time"

Hmmm.
I'm a full time student. I work about 3/4 time at various freelance jobs. I'm a member of a theatre company.
But it looked good. Very good. And temptingly close to home. I'm baking all the time anyway, right? Why not learn more and let someone else pay for the ingredients...(All justifications, by the way--I got starry-eyed just thinking about perfecting my pain au levain, opening up the bakery in the dark dawn...I've been fantasizing about these things for years.)

I went in.

It turned out that they were indeed looking for low-volume, part-time bread, and they were willing to take a chance on me.  After one weekend, I hope they think that that chance was justified. I'm still learning, still navigating bulk production, big mixers, convection ovens, customer satisfaction, and consistency. I'll be learning a long time, slowly teaching myself with the help of bakery owner Lily, baker Karen, the books of Leader, Hamelman, et al, and weekly experience.

This is a small good new thing, a lucky chance. If you live nearby, or happen to be visiting, come try some bread--it's Franklin Avenue between Sterling and Park Place. For now, it will be challah on Fridays, and some combination of whole wheat, pain au levain, and other naturally raised breads, along with rustic Italian breads, on Saturdays and Sundays.