Pain L’ancienne experiments
Pain L’Ancienne has been one of the most successful bread formulas to come out of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It is really simple — mix in the machine at night, rest in the fridge overnight, then bake in the morning after bringing up to room temperature. Even the shaping and working with the dough is easier than expected given the high hydration of the dough. Despite the ease, the flavor is rich and complex in my judgement.
With that said, there is a small drawback: The bread is soooooooooo close to being absurdly easy that I want to take it all the way in that direction. Specifically, I want to be able to eliminate the part I glossed over above — the “bringing up to room temperature.” That part takes 2-3 hours, and is the only thing that prevents it from being a recipe I can throw together at night and bake when I wake up. The easy part of the solution is to ferment the dough on the counter overnight instead of in the fridge, thus removing the need to bring to room temperature. Then I can just shape and final proof while the oven preheats, bake, and eat. The difficult part is this: How to get the same amount of rise when I change the temperature variable so severely. The refrigeration has the effect of retarding the yeast. So to compensate I’ll need to slow it in some other way. One option is to increase the salt, but that has the possibility of changing the flavor too much. Instead I decided to reduce the amount of yeast.
But how much yeast to use? That is where the scientific part comes in. I tried an experiment, attempting during the daytime so that I can monitor (rather than my ultimate use case of letting the bread ferment overnight). I followed the recipe as usual (halved from the book), but approximately quartered the amount of yeast from about 1tsp yeast to 1/4 tsp yeast (unfortunately such small quantities are hard to measure precisely by weight). I still used ice cold water during the mix. Fermentation started at around 9:30 AM, with a rather warm kitchen temperature of 72.9 degrees F. Since the dough is so wet, the first 2 hours there actually seemed to be an inverse rise as the dough flattened in the bowl. I went out for a while, and came back around 2:45 PM, at which point the dough had risen about double the size. I proceeded to bake as instructed in the book. Total rise time of approximately 5 hours by quartering the yeast amount.
The bread turned out very nicely again (see pictures below). I would say that this time the flavor was less complex and satisfying though still very good. This is possibly from the time difference — usually it is in the fridge for at least 8 hours, and then would have another 2-3 hours at room temperature. If I can slow the fermentation yet more I may be able to get the flavor development I’m looking for. On the plus side, after one experience, the baking was easier and I think I had a little better intuition about when it was done. In addition, this time the oven spring was incredible. Since it didn’t have the extended sit out time before baking I was afraid it wouldn’t rise enough, but it shot right up in the oven.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Struan
I have been making many “rustic” or “artisan” breads that are honestly a bit exotic for me. They are great fun, and usually turn out pretty well, but they are less practical and usually need to be eaten immediately. I still end up buying bread at the grocery store, since I need some normal sliced bread for breakfast, so I figured I would try a recipe that would give me some normal sliced bread. This one is also from Bread Baker’s Apprentice and is called “Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire” or “Struan.” While preparation is not particularly difficult, there are a lot more ingredients than the typical rustic breads which only need flour, water, yeast, and salt. Specifically, this recipe also calls for rolled oats, bran flakes, cornmeal, honey, brown sugar, bread flour, yeast, water, and milk. Most of those I had around, but I did need to buy the bran flakes and milk. It turned out really well, though it rose very quickly and very intensely. I was afraid this was going to leave me with a loaf filled with caverns but that was not the case. It has a mildly sweet taste with a smooth inner texture and a somewhat chewy outer crust. Excellent toasting bread.
-
- The instructions call for an overnight soaking of the multi-grains in water. This supposedly brings out flavor as well as improving digestibility.
-
- After stirring together the ingredients by hand.
-
- After 10 minutes of mixing with the stand mixer. The dough was originally very sticky, and it is only supposed to be “tacky,” so I needed to add a good deal of flour during the mix to de-sticky it.
-
- After shaping the loaf.
-
- It was supposed to rise in 90 minutes to be an inch above the loaf pan. Instead, it took about 45 minutes to get 2 inches above.
-
- Color and shape after baking.
-
- Inner structure.
-
- Makes great toast!
-
- As served.
Filed under: bread, food | 1 Comment
Tags: bba, bread
Pain L’ancienne
This weekend I tried a “rustic” bread from Bread Baker’s Apprentice called “Pain L’ancienne.” Pain is French for bread, and L’ancienne sounds like ancient, which would be ironic for a recipe which relies on a refrigerator. The recipe is fairly quick to execute — a few minutes of mixing in the evening, followed by a night of refrigeration, then some almost effortless shaping and then baking in the morning. Of all the breads I’ve tried to make, this is the one that I think looks the most like artisan bread. We used it for a French dinner, with wine and cheese, and added in an Italian flavor as well with some herbed olive oil for dipping.
-
- While mixing.
-
- Very wet dough, almost a thick batter.
-
- After a night of refrigeration it had barely risen, as desired. It rose quite a bit as it came to room temperature.
-
- After baking.
-
- How the crumb looks. In actuality the holes in the bread do not seem as big as they look in the picture, as these are mini-baguettes, so they are pretty small.
-
- Sliced and plated.
-
- With accoutrements.
Filed under: bread, food | 2 Comments
Tags: bread bba
Pizza success
Lately my pizza has been turning out much better. Specifically, the spring in the outer ring of the crust has been improved to where I always wanted it — the whole point of using the broiler method. So this is the part where I tell you that there are no shortcuts, that you need to just make a bunch of pizzas and get a feel for it before you can get it to turn out mostly right? Well, actually, I just wasn’t using the right yeast. I switched from active dry yeast to instant yeast (as the recipe I was using called for), and that vastly improved the quality of the crust. Doing all the previous pizzas did teach me the right way to do the rest of the variables — particularly how to trade off crust cooking time with cheese cooking time. That problem I consider solved, using the stone in the broiler method on top of a wire rack, and slicing fresh mozzarella pretty thick so that it takes a little longer to melt (and burn) under the intense heat of the broiler. Here are some recent results.
With practice the crust spring will improve yet, mainly by becoming even around the whole pizza and becoming consistent across pizzas, but for the most part I consider the big problems of the crust solved. Future work will consider the following open problems:
- Good sauce – Right now I’m doing the best I can with fake San Marzano tomatoes but nothing mind blowing
- Flour on crust – Getting the pizza onto the stone is still an area of difficulty. I’ve started using massive amounts of flour on the peel and the dough, with improved sliding. However, this sometimes leads too much flour on the bottom of the crust that doesn’t burn off during cooking
- Bottom crust cooking – Sometimes the bottom of the crust cooks slower than the top. This is probably because of the raw heat of the broiler. Even with the intense 500 degree heat of the stone the proximity of the broiler ensures the top is cooked before the bottom has a chance. One solution is to turn off the broiler after the top cooks and keep the pizza on the stone for a few more minutes to firm up the bottom.
Filed under: crust, pizza | 1 Comment
Tags: food, pizza
Focaccia Attempt
This weekend I attempted the “Poolish Focaccia” recipe from Reinhart’s “Bread Bakers Apprentice.” The results are delicious and truly decadent. After the first few bites I thought, “This doesn’t even need the herb oil!” But then I tried the herb oil. Pictures in the white bowl in the gallery, it is olive oil warmed to 100 degrees, then filled with minced garlic, fresh chopped basil, salt, pepper, and onion powder. Amazing.
-
- The poolish after mixing.
-
- The poolish after sitting for 4 hours — bubbly and slightly foamy.
-
- After the stretch and fold.
-
- Delicious, delicious herb oil.
-
- You “dimple” the dough into the pan with your fingertips rather than stretching it with flat hands.
-
- Didn’t use enough flour!
-
- After 1 hour in the pan.
-
- Just about ready to go in the oven.
-
- Close up!
-
- The finished product.
Filed under: bread, food | 1 Comment
Tags: bread, focaccia, food
Two more pizzas
I’ve settled on a cooking method which properly balances crust cooking time and cheese cooking time. The method is to use the stone in broiler, on top of a wire rack from an old broken stone. This puts it about one inch of the broiler floor. The other trick is to use pretty thick slices of mozzarella. If it is shredded it will melt and burn before the crust is done. The thick slices, on the other hand, hold up to the heat of the broiler for a bit before they give way. When I say thick, I mean about as thin (yes, thin) as you can reasonably slice fresh mozzarella with a slicer. The results below used this technique, with pretty promising results (though still issues with sticking to the peel).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Ciabiatta Attempt
I tried out the recipe for 50% whole wheat rustic ciabatta in my book Artisan Breads Every Day. Turned out pretty well! Jey had one bite and said it was the best wheat bread she’d ever tried 
. I used it to throw together some bruschetta using mozzarella and tomatoes that needed to get used up.
Filed under: bread | 1 Comment
Tags: baking, bread, food
Reconnaissance
cheese with basil and fresh garlic
I visited New York this weekend and tried out the famous Grimaldi’s pizzeria under the Brooklyn Bridge. It was delicious, especially when you include the cannoli we had for dessert. That said, it is a fairly long wait, and given the sheer number of pizzerias in NYC, it would seem mathematically impossible if there weren’t better pizzerias in terms of quality per wait length. And if I really think about it, I wouldn’t choose it over my favorite GBC pizza, Frank and Pat’s. And if Grimaldis wouldn’t even be the best pizzeria in Green Bay I doubt it holds that title in New York. All in all very satisfying but
when I get back to NYC I’ll surely do more exploring.
Filed under: pizza | Leave a Comment
Two more pies
Here are a few more attempts using the stone-in-broiler method. The first uses a smaller flatter rise, but ran into some issues with sticking to the peel (thus the weird shape). For the second I used the same recipe but dropped the stone down a bit, from being on top of a cast iron pan (~3 inches above the drawer surface) to being on top of a wire rack (~2 inches above). I still have issues with the crust and cheese cooking too fast and the bottom and middle too slow (and being a bit gummy on top of the dough) so next time I’m going to try just putting the stone right on the bottom of the drawer and letting it cook for a few more minutes. Failing that, I may have to resort to the cast iron pan after the broiler method.
Filed under: pizza | Leave a Comment
Recent Entries
Categories
- basketball (3)
- bread (4)
- crust (2)
- food (5)
- pizza (8)
- Uncategorized (3)
