At Last ...

Bread. Finally. Following last weekend's bread titanic, I needed a bit of a break from bread. Lisa and I took in a few movies from the sofa, and I started reading an all-consuming book about Columbine (fascinating). I made it back to bread making on Saturday afternoon.

As mentioned in the last post, I decided to focus on a slightly easier recipe for attempt #3, Pain a l'Ancienne, from Peter Reinhart's Bread Maker's Apprentice ('the book'). Last time, the process was a mixed bag of steps from assorted recipes and message boards, and it was tough to know where things went wrong. By using the book, mistakes would be easier to diagnose, and the steps in the book are explained in great detail, which as a rookie baker is helpful.

Pain a l'Ancienne

Bread flour 100%

Salt 2%

Instant yeast .7%

Water (approx.) 79.6%

On Saturday, late afternoon, I carefully measured out all of the ingredients and mixed them in a bowl (n.b. I went with 385g of flour). I then hand-kneaded for a while. It must have been 15-20 minutes. As per the instructions, I continued to sprinkle in flour and kneaded until the dough didn't stick to the sides of the bowl (but still stuck to the bottom) and then set the ball into a different, lightly oiled bowl, covering it with plastic wrap and tucking it into the fridge for the night.

(My dough in its refrigerated chamber)

At 7.15am the next morning, I hopped out of bed, removed the bowl of dough from the fridge, and then removed myself from the land of the conscious, diving face first back into bed [1]. By 10.15am the dough had almost doubled (time was up, we needed to be at my parent's place for brunch by 11.30am), and I moved it to a floured (err, over-floured) countertop for cutting and shaping into baguettes. I went with three thin baguettes thinking they would rise quite a bit more in the oven. I pre-heated the oven, baking stone, and steam pan to 500*F, and moved the strips and baking parchment dusted with cornmeal onto the baking stone. I then added a cup of water to the steam pan (creating copious steam), tossed small amounts of additional water against the sides of the oven twice at 30 second intervals and then changed the temperature to 475*F, baked for 9 minutes, rotated the parchment 180 degrees and then baked for an additional 15 minutes. The baguettes were not a deep brown yet, so I left them in for a few more minutes before taking them out. That's when I noticed that the bottoms of the baguettes were still moist and sticky. I entertained a quiet moment of frustration and unkind thoughts, which thankfully passed quickly. I suspect that baking them on the parchment resulted in their retaining moisture on the bottom (the tops were golden brown), but it could also have been that the baking stone was not hot enough yet. I put the baguettes in for an additional 5 minutes at 425*F, and then flipped them upside down for 3-4 minutes.

By that point we were already pushing 11.20am, so I jumped in the shower and asked Lisa to take them out of the oven after the last 3-4 minutes were up. When I came out, the baguettes were on a cooling rack and looked great. The smell of fresh bread was also pretty awesome.

(2 1/2 baguettes - the smallest is half-eaten - we couldn't wait for it to cool)

(Decent crumb - still a bit doughy towards the bottom, but some air pockets)

(Thick, flavourful crust. A bit of over-zealous flouring on the counter during shaping left it powdery, but much more artisanal looking!)

The baguettes hadn't risen nearly as much as expected in the oven, so they were somewhat emaciated looking. Next time, I'll shape the dough into two larger baguettes instead of three smaller ones, but we finally had bread! And an Easter brunch to get to.

We took two of the three baguettes with us and they were a hit. My 3 1/2-year-old nephew consumed two thirds of the larger of the two baguettes and he normally doesn't eat anything. He wants one for his birthday. Probably not as much as he wants new Playmobil, but if I judge this effort through my unabashedly direct nephew's response it does mean that my third attempt at bread-making was a success [2]. There are a few lessons in the experience, but one is that if your bread ends up more miniature than expected, share it with someone with a small mouth and small hands.

Notes:

[1] At 8.30am I made my way back into the kitchen to check on the dough. The bowl was still somewhat cold and the dough had not risen very much, which was a bit disconcerting given that I needed my dough to rise so I could bake it before brunch! To speed up the process, I turned the nearby gas stove on low, which added a bit of extra heat to the kitchen, and sped up the warming process for the bowl and the dough. Not very scientific, but it seemed to work.

[2] As of 6.30pm this evening, the bread is all gone.