Baking Bread from Scratch in France

[bethesdabakers]

Yesterday morning was looking back to normal:



Built it from 1.5 kilos to 4.5. Late afternoon it looked like this:





The two marks on the bucket show the rise - ever read that your starter should triple in volume? More missinformation ...

Mixed three doughs totaling a little under 30K. These went in the fridge overnight.

All night the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled round the mountains (honest). The day of judgement is here. Started scaling and shaping at 6.00 a.m. All the dough is now in couches and baskets. First bake in 15 minutes!

You remember I had a large amount of rye starter ready as a back-up.Yesterday morning I used it to run up a 2 kilo Simple Danish Rye:





I usually bake them in tins but I thought I'd try it freeform. Absolutely delicious for breakfast this morning.

Elsie, hang on in there. I wouldn't feed it until the are definite signs of activity.

[Shelby]

I made sourdough (modified Tartine country dough) flatbread with fresh figs, prosciutto, and fontina for diner last night. As soon as I can get more fontina I will make it again! I have a tree in my yard that is very prolific and have been picking about 4 figs per day for a couple weeks. If I recall, you don't live that far north of me and are a gardener - do you have a tree? 

No, I don't have a tree, but if you can grow one down there, I'm sure I can up here......I wonder why no one does around here????  I must get busy and research.

[bethesdabakers]

Well, that's it - full circle.

Hope you've got something out of having five weeks of sourdough in action in your face.

 

Happy to answer any questions but right now I've got customers to round up and then an aniversary weekend to sort out - a mere  38 years. Plus, say happy birthday to the starter - 15 years old this very day - well sometime about now in 1999, might as well call it today.

 

If you want to learn more, a pdf copy of of my sourdough basics book could be with you within minutes. Details on the blog.

 

Iechyd Da.

 

Mick

[rotuts]

many thanks for this fine thread

 

at some point, should you have the time, Id like to see how you :

 

1 rise the bread

 

2 transfer the final rise from the cloth-linned baskets  ( I spy'd them  I have 6 Ive used rarely )

 

3 to the cooking media.

 

not to worry.  Im not in the bread business and wont tell anybody !

 

but many many thanks for your 'share'

 

 

 

Host's note: a number of members were inspired by this topic to take the plunge and grow their own sourdough starters.  For further discussion about homegrown sourdough starters - how to grow them and how to work with them - please see the topic continuance here:  Establishing and Working with Homegrown Sourdough Starter.

[bethesdabakers]

Some weeks back Rotuts asked:
 

at some point, should you have the time, Id like to see how you :

 

1 rise the bread

 

2 transfer the final rise from the cloth-linned baskets  ( I spy'd them  I have 6 Ive used rarely )

 

3 to the cooking media.

 

 

After mixing, the dough goes in a plastic box that has been rubbed with olive oil for about four hours or overnight in the fridge. If it’s the four hour job it might get an hourly stretch and fold (or it might not). It comes out of the box, gets divided by weight, has an air-fold (loosely shaped as a round by rotating in my hands whilst folding the edges underneath. The pieces get a short rest and then are shaped more tightly. I place them on the bench folds side up, press them gently into flat rounds, fold the edges into the centre and seal firmly with the heel of my hand, turn them over and shape them by rotating the dough, keeping the base on the bench, and pressing the edges underneath with the bottom edges of my hands. Easier to do than explain. Then I give the ball a good slap to flatten it slightly. This goes, seam side up, into a proving basket that has been sprinkled with wholemeal rye. The baskets are covered with tea towels and plastic sheet. The dough is proved for about three and a half hours.

 

I bake in convection ovens on baking sheets – I don’t use stones. I flour the baking sheets with rye. Getting the dough onto the sheet is simply a question of picking your spot, holding the basket in your lead hand and confidently but gently tipping the dough out onto the spot. Your other hand is underneath, not to catch it, but just as a guide (and just in case!). If you need to reposition the dough a bit, just use both hands to give it a little twist.

 

If you use a baking stone, then you need to turn the dough out onto a peel, professional or improvised, and slide it onto the stone. Semolina is usually used on the peel.

 

Hope that’s useful – we get there in the end!

[rotuts]

thank you   I have baskets and might give this a try.  Ive always had trouble w the last rise to get 'high' enough for a more air-y

 

loaf.   I take it you do not 'cut' the tops to get that spread from the 'boost?'

 

many thanks for this fine thread.

[bethesdabakers]

Mon Dieu!!

 

Completely forgot to slash the bread! Yes, I do slash the tops immediately before they go in the oven using either a razor blade or a small serrated tomato knife. I don't, unlike a lot of people, use steam.

[ElsieD]

How do loaves baked with steam differ from those baked without? Thank you.

[bethesdabakers]

Well, the theory is that creating steam in the oven slows down the formation of the crust when your dough goes into the oven allowing it to expand more and ensuring that you end up with a thin, crunchy crust.

 

Professional bakers with deck ovens can do this with the push of a button.

 

It has now become an article of faith that it is impossible for the home baker to make a good loaf without imitating this by using spray bottles, heating cast iron skillets in the bottom of the oven and lobbing in ice cubes, superheating lengths of chain and doing similar.

All I can say is I can't see a difference if I try to create steam or if I don't - so I don't.

[ElsieD]

Thanks. Next loaf I bake - no steam. I did slash my loaf before I put it in. I used a bread knife which is nice and sharp and it did not pull the dough. I have a lame thingy but I never did learn how to use it properly and find my bread knife makes a cleaner cut.

[bethesdabakers]

Well, there's a lesson in itself. Use what works best and not what you're supposed to use.

 

And the crust in you photo looked beautifully thin.

[bethesdabakers]

When I started this two months ago I deliberately opted for a New Topic because I have fundamental disagreements with the approach of some people posting on “The Bread Topic”. I don’t want to get into a fight with them so I have the good manners to start something separate.

 

My aim has been to show that the basics of good bread making are simple and that much of what is now touted as being essential for success can be stripped out.

 

Problem is, egullet is an open forum so, as long as a writer sticks to the topic, they can’t be stopped from ignoring the spirit of the thread and can muddy the waters with “pre-ferments”, not one but two periods of autolysis (can’t even follow the logic of that one) and dutch ovens. Plus I assume this is the start of another endless parade of impeccable photos of impeccable loaves. I’m not sure that that is in any way instructive.

 

Good luck to everyone.