Ciabatta

Another casualty of the shrinking of my home population has been a decrease in our consumption of bread. Even when we were five, I often found it hard to convince the roommates to use up any bread that was older than just out of the oven fresh. Part of this may have been the packaging--things in old plastic bags are hard to find and sometimes harder to find appetizing. We do a lot of toast.

Still, now that there are just the two of us, the problem has magnified. I've taken to keeping bread in the refrigerator, wrapped up in the same old plastic bags. I make bread less often, and I make a lot of garlic toast. It works out. Sometimes I get so excited about the stale bread recipes (mmm, pappa al pomodoro) that I actually run out of bread, and then it's finally time to make more. After a little refrigerator-emptying early stuffing experiment, it was that time.

(I should mention that my family Thanksgivings are structured in such a way that I have no part in cooking or serving them, I just occasionally make a dessert. So my early and late stuffing experiments are completely gratuitous, I don't have some fancy occasion to cook for, I just like stuffing. Come back later this week, though, because I do have an impressive cake planned, which I'll blog about as I move through the stages.)

I made two breads. The first was a fairly uneventful ricotta bread, a fortified yeast bread from Local Breads. The second, inspired by this post, was the ciabatta recipe from the same book. I think Local Breads is a great book, and I've had a lot of success with his recipes, but one thing I don't appreciate about the book is that he simply refuses to give hand-kneading instructions for many of the wetter doughs, saying that they are better in a mixer and that is that.

That leaves me...nowhere. Of course, I understand that mixers help out a wet dough...they reduce the sticky hands and minimize the urge to add more flour. However, I don't have a mixer, and people have been making breads with wet dough since before mixers were around. I usually just wing it, and if my crumb is sometimes a little tighter (more water, more open crumb), I deal. I try very very hard to avoid using more flour, I wet or oil my hands, and I just get pretty sticky. Sometimes it works better than others. I expected trouble from this ciabatta, but it was a dream. Sticky, yes, but it had a lot of body, and right from the beginning it was like kneading a real entity, rather than a shapeless misery.

Everything went perfectly. I sliced the dough into irregular roll sizes with a pizza cutter, baked, and then we ate a lot. Very few leftovers of these. I'd like to keep experimenting with this recipe. The post referenced above, the one that inspired the ciabatta-fest, is from the blog of baking guru Rose Levy Berenbaum. In another example of internet democracy in action, my comment on the post received an almost immediate reply from Ms. Berenbaum, and the subsequent responses received several more thoughtful insights. I have actual real friends who don't respond this quickly, let alone international cookbook writing stars. I really do appreciate it, Ms. Berenbaum. Scroll down to the comments section of her post to read the discussion with me and other contributors.

Son of Pane Genzanese

Last night, we threw a very special bachelorette party at our house. When Libby and Jill put together the menu, they took daring leaps into new recipes, but decided to cater to my strengths. I was assigned to make bread and dumplings.

A few days before the event, I began work on yet another batch of the Pane Genzanese (Jeffrey Steingarten's recipe again). I went through it step by step, from the stiff poolish build to the biga to the dough, blending in the pre-ferments in small pieces, and finally came to baking. In a hurry (this big a loaf bakes for a while), I proofed the loaf as directed under a baking sheet, spread it out, and slammed it into the oven. About fifteen minutes later, I glanced casually at the oven in passing, and did a double-take, turned back, and gaped. I squawked and called Libby and Rob into the room.

My more or less innocent lump of dough had bloomed into a full-fledged monster, an enormous pillow of bread that took up nearly the entire baking stone. I had left plenty of bubbles in, and indeed the finished loaf has not only uneven holes in the crumb but a few very large open spaces. That, however, is only a partial explanation for the phenomenal size of this gargantuan loaf (pictured here with Rob's head (of average size)as a scale indicator. All descriptions of Pane Genzanese touch on its mighty size, but until now none of my loaves have achieved remarkable dimensions. As I eventually realized, nearly a quarter of the dough from the last batch had gone into a little pizza, so this was my first encounter with this beast of Frankenbread in its true form.
Good thing it is delicious and long-lasting, because after throwing a party and having my parents to visit, we still have a half loaf larger than most regular loaves. Bread pudding, anyone?

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.