When I lived in Rome, my mornings began with a stop at the local panificio, the bakery, where I could gather the latest gossip, gaze upon the Caravaggio countenances of my neighbour’s children, and flirt wantonly with the handsome bakers, their beautiful faces dusted with flour and looking like medieval actors on a fragrant stage. The six-foot-long pizza bianca (page 85) would first be placed on a wooden paddle, carefully pleated, like a piece of fabric, liberally brushed with olive oil and then quickly pulled to its full length over the stone floor of the oven. The owner would hack off great chunks of pane casereccio for the housewives’ lunches, and children would inevitably be munching on fresh little anise-flavoured biscotti or pieces of just-baked pizza bianca, a morning favourite of every Italian, young and old.
How different from shopping at our supermarkets, where the shelves are lined with packaged breads, soft, cottony, and most inedible (except for the whole-grain speciality breads that every now and then make a good piece of toast). We have been known for years as the country of wonder bread, Twinkies, and doughnuts, and it is no wonder that there are national rampages against the presence of some of our junk-food restaurants in countries such as France and Italy. Our culture has never been one to embrace artisan bread. Not, at least, until now.
In existence for only a mere 250 or so years, we have the daunting but exciting task of creating our own food history, and we are fast catching up in the realm of daily breads. We have marvellous bakers who can hold their own among the world’s masters, while ironically the French, after hundreds of years, lament the loss of their crusty, dense and flavourful baguettes, the backbone of any French meal. The French baguette is probably the most influential bread in modern bread-making. Everyone wants to make a baguette like the lovely crisp artisan ones found nowadays only in small, village bakeries in France, and occasionally in select city bakeries. And if the rustic country breads of Italy were more prevalent here, I am sure that they, too, would be the breads we would emulate more often; it is these breads that I want to eat on a daily basis. It is a formidable challenge, however, to encourage education about bread to a country of people who grew up with sliced, white, tasteless loaves. Now, when you watch someone bite into your own handmade Rosemary Focaccia or Olive Filoncino, you will, I believe, find a willing convert and student.
Education begins, of course, with children. For heaven’s sake, give children a great-tasting bread in their lunch boxes instead of calorie-rich, sugar-filled snacks or sliced commercial breads. I often do demonstrations in supermarkets or at events to acquaint the public with breads from Buona Forchetta, and I am struck by one thing that happens over and over again: mothers with children are very open to having their babies taste new flavours, but it is the children themselves who surprise me. They take a piece of rosemary focaccia or olive bread and almost always ask for more, proving themselves to be much more adventuresome than many adults. Some will come back to my table time after time (in fact, sometimes I’m not sure their mothers know they are there!), grab a handful of samples (I pretend to be not looking) and run.
Daily breads, for me, are those which you can eat with all foods or which become the meal itself. A simple, well-baked loaf is far more satisfying to me than all the honey-wheat-berry-walnut-raisin-and-garlic breads in the world, although I have my favourites with flavours, such as the Hazelnut-Sage Filoncino in this chapter or the spiced African bread in “Special Breads”. But what I want to eat daily is a very chewy, tasty, and simple loaf such as the Pane Trattoria or the Pane Osso we make at the bakery: no fat, no sugar, no nonsense, just bread with a great flavour and substantial texture, or a simple focaccia with olive oil, fresh rosemary and salt.
A perfect example of how I created one of my own daily breads is the evolution of Fougasse de Collioure, a wondrous chewy ladder-shaped bread which I first tasted in the south of France near the Spanish border. When I returned home, my heart had unfortunately stayed behind, and I began work on a recipe for my beloved fougasse so as not to die from nostalgia. Just as the air, water, and flour of Italy are different from ours in Los Angeles, so are they in France, but one of our clients is a chef from Perpignan, near Collioure and he has put his stamp of approval on our fougasse. It is much chewier, with a rich, nutty, almost buttery taste from the fermented dough. Other fougasses contain herbs or olives, which you can always add to the basic recipe, and sometimes, for parties, I lay salted anchovies on the fougasse before baking, but the thing itself, without enhancement, is one of our best sellers.
Upon returning to Collioure after several summers away, we found that the fougasse was not the same, or that our tastes had changed; the crusty, rich fougasse we were making had spoiled us for others, probably because our flour is substantially different from theirs or perhaps because we begin with a different sponge and develop a little more flavour. I also discovered that the only baker who could make the original fougasse had sold out and left the area; his bakery was for sale and the whole town was in turmoil over the loss of its beloved bread. My husband had to tie me down to keep me from becoming an ex-patriot, fougasse-baking, American-interloper in Collioure. The beaches aren’t bad, either.
Fortunately, I can now bake my own ladder bread at home, and so can you, along with many other delightful breads that have taken shape in my kitchen after years of travel and tasting.
Having daily bread on the table does not mean meticulous, precise measurements, days and days of ripening starters, temperature-controlled environments and closets of equipment, all of which have their place, but not particularly in your home kitchen. A more than memorable loaf may be yours in one and a half hours, start to finish without effort. Of course you may choose to have a longer rising time or simply put your dough on hold overnight until you are ready to bake and yes, you will get a more complex and richer taste, but let me say to all cooks who feel intimidated by lengthy processes, complicated instructions and the seemingly arcane language of the baking world: plunge in! Have no fear! Making bread is a piece of cake. With the recipes that follow, making your own simple, daily bread will be as much a part of your day as making the morning coffee.
Basic Dough For Loaves Or Flatbreads
This user-friendly dough is about as basic as you can get. It was the dough that inspired me to start my bakery in Los Angeles and was the dough that everyone seems to like. One morning at the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica, when I was setting up my bread concession, I dropped a focaccetta (sandwich sized) in the street and watched with horror (as did several customers) as a pickup truck, Mercedes, and large van rolled over the just-baked bun. We could actually see its shape spring back, resilient and just as fresh as ever, much like the Samsonite luggage which, dropped from 30 stories, bounces back without a scratch! This is very hardy dough.
With it you can make loaves of bread, flatbreads, crisp breads, little rolls (focaccette), the French ladder bread fougasse, exotic hamburger buns, breadsticks, and more. You can also forget it in the refrigerator or leave it to rise a little too long and it will bounce back very easily even after the Mack truck is gone. Like a good sailboat in a storm, it is very forgiving, and I have witnesses to prove it.
For loaves: 1 large or small loaves
For focaccia: 1 large or 2 small focacce
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
520 g/4 cups unbleached bread flour
10-15 ml/2-3 teaspoons salt
10-15 ml/2-3 teaspoons olive oil
30 ml/2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in 300 g/2 cups of the flour and the salt and stir briskly until smooth, about 2 minutes. With a strong wooden spoon or one of those rare mixing spoons with a big hole in the middle, stir in the remaining 260 g/2 cups of flour for about 2 minutes longer, just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and the flour is incorporated. The dough will be fairly wet and tacky (sticky), but when it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a loose ball, you’ll know the dough has been stirred sufficiently. If necessary, stir in an additional 30-65 g/¼-½ cup of flour.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Oil 1 seasoned non-stick, oven-proof 23 cm/9-inch tin or two 13 cm/5-inch tins.
Pour the dough into the large tin or divide it between the smaller tins by loosening the dough with a spatula and then carefully scraping it from the sides of the bowl, keeping the dough as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the edge of the bowl as it falls into the tin. The shape that the dough takes on as it falls into the tin is fine. Brush the tops of loaves with olive oil, sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt and set aside to rise until doubled, about 15 to 20 minutes.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the bread in the preheated oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until nicely browned and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped with your finger. Remove loaf from tin and cool on a rack.
TO SHAPE INTO FOCACCIA: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Oil 1 or 2 non-stick 33 x 46 cm/13 x 18-inch baking sheets.
Pour the dough onto the sheet(s), carefully scraping it from the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Brush the dough with 10 ml/2 teaspoons of olive oil. To make the traditional focaccia with indentations, dip your fingers into cold water and insert them straight down into the dough. Make holes in the dough by pulling it to the sides about 2.5 cm/1 inch at a time. Pull the holes at random to form little craters all over with the tin showing through where you have put your fingers. As you work, stretch the dough into a 2.5cm/1-inch thick oval. (If you are using just 1 baking sheet, the focaccia will cover almost the entire sheet.) Brush the loaf with another teaspoon of olive oil and sprinkle with the rosemary and sea salt. Focaccia does not need to rise, but if you forget it for a few minutes, don’t worry. It will bake beautifully despite a little neglect.
TO SHAPE INTO DINNER ROLLS: This is the easiest way to make rolls with any dough. Follow the instructions for the Overnight Method. Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Spray a French bread tin with non-stick spray or rub with olive oil. A 3-section tin will yield 9 or 12 rolls, depending on the size you choose to cut off.
Take a good handful of the chilled dough and gently stretch it out into a rectangle approximately 5 cm/2 inches wide and 20 cm/8 inches long. Snip off 5 cm/2-inch pieces of dough and drop them into the grooves in the tin, using 3 to a groove. You may shape them after cutting if you like, but I prefer the free-form look of the unshaped rolls. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with fresh rosemary. Let rise until doubled in volume. (If you wish to make rolls from room-temperature dough, pour the dough into the grooves of the tin, cutting off the dough with a scraper after a 7.5 cm/3-inch piece of dough has “fallen” into the groove. Proceed again down the groove, letting the dough fall into its roll shape (see illustration). Rolls made like this need only to rise for about 15 minutes before baking. They will have a good spring and be very tender with crisp crust.
TO BAKE THE FOCACCIA AND ROLLS: Place the tin(s) in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the focaccia has a nice, golden brown colour mixed with a little darker brown around the indented area. Bake the rolls for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Cool on a wire rack. Cut focaccia into wedges or rectangles and serve warm.
BAKER’S NOTE: For a breakfast focaccia, mix 5 ml/1 teaspoon cinnamon with 225 g/1 cup coarse brown sugar and sprinkle over the focaccia in place of rosemary.
FOUGASSE DE COLLIOURE
This is a moist, chewy ladder bread which I discovered and enjoyed for the several summers I spent in the little French medieval town of Collioure, near the Spanish border. There, in an apartment looking out over not one but three beaches, I grilled local sardines and made thick ratatouille with luscious red peppers, sweet onions and rich black aubergine of the Rousillon region and then piled the food onto fresh split fougasse from the local baker (when he was still there!).
The Fauves (in French, fauve means wild animal), so named because of their wild and sensual colours and shapes, painted the magical evening light in Collioure as it illuminated the red, blue and yellow Latine-rigged boats that rested in the harbour. I imagine that they might have munched on fougasse during breaks from the canvas. The exquisite food of the region incorporated lovely vegetables and fish, and the daily bread was always fougasse, as well as the usual baguettes. For eight years, I did not go back, and then in July of 1997, I returned with children and grandchildren and found that every one of our friends was still there on the beach, in practically the same place where I had bid them au revoir, with their children and grandchildren, and still enjoying the warm fougasses and bunyettes (little round, flat sugar breads) from the local boulangerie. My fougasse has a little more body and texture than the French one, because our flour is made from a harder wheat with more elasticity than the flour milled in France. Since this is a bread that is mostly crust, it does not keep as long as larger loaves do, but the flavour is incomparable. My husband calls its unusual shape a “figure 12”, a figure eight with a circle added. Stud it with anchovies before baking for an unusual appetizer.
Follow the recipe for Focaccia throughout the first rise. Punch down the dough and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough overnight so it can rise again.
TO SHAPE THE FOUGASSE: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and, using a scraper, carefully scoop the dough out onto a clean surface. Cut it into 3 pieces. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Rub another baking sheet with olive oil.
With your hands, grasp one of the pieces in each hand and stretch it to form a fairly flat 30 cm x 15 cm/12 x 6-inch oblong or rectangle. Pull it gently so as not to break it. Lay this on the oiled baking sheet. With kitchen shears, cut the dough into 3 equal lengths, approximately 5 cm/2 inches wide and 30 cm/12 inches long. Make 3 vertical slashes with scissors along each piece of dough (see illustration). With your fingers, stretch the slashes open to form a kind of ladder shape (a figure 12). Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
TO BAKE THE FOUGASSE: Brush the loaf with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
BAKING NOTES: Watch that the fougasse does not brown too quickly. Fougasse needs high heat because there is so much crust and so little crumb. If it does not brown in 20 minutes, increase the oven temperature to 260°C/500°F/gas 10 and check that it browns quickly without burning.
There is nothing like the fragrance of rosemary. Rosemary is one of the few herbs used in cooking to which I am addicted! It calms and soothes me – and just a whiff can take you on a little private vacation to Italy, where the smell of rosemarino, as it is called, permeates the air near almost any trattoria. You can imagine yourself watching the cook turning quail or little flattened chickens on the grill or tossing new potatoes in rosemary and olive oil, ready for the roasting tin along with sea bass called bronzino.
I use it in many foods: breads, chicken, lamb, veal, and even in sorbet. I make a fragrant rinse for my hair (great for brunettes) from crushed rosemary leaves. When breads are brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh, chopped rosemary, the rich flavour is often mistaken for that of sweet butter.
This baguette is made from the same dough as the focaccia, but because the taste of a bread changes when its shape changes, you will find that this long, cylindrical loaf has a bit more crumb, a slightly more buttery taste, and is useful for slicing into small rounds for canapés or little toasts. This bread also makes a great long sandwich, bruschetta, or breakfast tartine split lengthwise, toasted, and served with jam.
Makes: 2 loaves
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
520 g/4 cups unbleached bread flour
10-15 ml/2-3 teaspoons salt
45 ml/3 tablespoons rosemary oil
10 ml/2 teaspoons olive oil
60 ml/4 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in 260 g/2 cups of the flour and the salt and stir briskly until smooth, about 2 minutes. Stir in the rosemary oil. With a wooden or plastic spoon, stir in the remaining 300 g/2 cups of flour for about 2 minutes longer, just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and the flour is incorporated. The dough will be fairly wet and tacky (sticky), but as it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a loose ball, the dough has been stirred sufficiently. If the dough feels too wet, stir in an additional 30-65 g/¼-½ cup of flour.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO FILONCINO: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Spray a 3-loaf baguette tin with non-stick spray or rub with olive oil.
With your left hand (or right hand if you are left-handed), hold the bowl and tip it over the opening of a groove and pour the dough along and into the groove by loosening the dough with a spatula. Carefully move along the groove as the dough pours, keeping it as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the rim of the bowl as it falls into the groove (see illustration). The dough should form a nice, rounded cylinder that fills the groove and stands about 1 cm/½ inch above the rim of the tin. Fill the other 2 grooves. Brush the tops of loaves with the olive oil, sprinkle with rosemary and salt and let rise about 15 to 20 minutes or until cylinders of dough are nicely rounded and puffed.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the bread in the preheated oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the filoncini are nicely browned. Tap the baguette tin on a flat surface to loosen the loaves and cool them on a rack.
ROSEMARY OIL
ROSEMARY OIL: Strip 6 long branches of fresh rosemary when the leaves are very green. Chop the leaves fine. Very gently, heat 240 ml/1 cup of extra-virgin olive oil, just until warm. Off the heat, stir the rosemary leaves into the oil and let sit for 2 to 3 hours. Strain the oil and use. Store in a lidded glass jar or bottle. Makes 240 ml/1 cup.
(Slipper Bread)
This loaf is called ciabatta because its shape resembles a comfortable old slipper. Perhaps you should make a pair. (Wait until they cool to try them on.) This name probably is not an accident. I imagine that some flustered baker in a hurry one morning threw his dough out flat on the table, made a few swift folds at the ends to give it shape and into the oven it went. While the bread was baking, he hoisted his slippered feet up on the table and then 20 minutes later, after contemplating his old houseshoes, he pulled the bread from the oven and he gave it its charming name.
Ciabatta originated in the north around Lago di Como, but has become popular in other parts of Italy. It seems to be just short of a mad craze in America and the UK because it is a lovely chewy bread, made from a very soft dough that gives it its wonderful texture, full of holes like the pane casereccio. It takes more time to make than most bread, but most of that time is spent waiting, not working. Ciabatta has a nutty, yeasty seductive flavour that will make you want to eat it every day. Brush a slice with olive oil, grill it and experience nirvana.
A good ciabatta dough should be very soft and resilient with a silky, elastic feel. In order to get the best ciabatta, let the dough rise once, fold it over on itself two or three times, let it rise again, and then refrigerate it overnight to rise a third time (following the directions for Overnight Method). It is an extremely wet dough so when working with it, coat it with a little flour for easy handling. Three rises enhance the flavour of the bread, but one will do if you have no time; the result will be slightly less tasty. The dough is mixed with a biga, which must be made the night before to be ready for the ciabatta the next day.
Makes: 1 large loaf, or a pair of “smaller old slippers”
Biga:
5 ml/1 teaspoon active dry yeast
240 ml/1 cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
260 g/2 cups unbleached bread flour
TO MAKE THE BIGA: Mix the yeast with the water and stir well. In a glass bowl, mix the flour with the yeast mixture, stirring well to aerate the mixture and form a wet dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let ferment overnight at room temperature. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.
TO MAKE THE CIABATTA: Measure the water into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in the biga. Add the flour and dissolved salt, and stir until the flour is thoroughly incorporated and the dough is smooth with the consistency of very thick biscuit batter. It will be a rather sticky, soft dough. Cover the dough and let it stand in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
With a scraper or spatula, fold the dough by gently lifting it up from underneath and turning or folding it over on itself 2 or 3 times. Folding the dough gives the gluten a rest and stimulates the little yeast babies so that they moisten the dough as they convert sugar (from the flour) into gas and water. Cover and let rise a second time for 40 to 45 minutes until doubled in volume (the second rise takes less time as the yeasts are very active at this point) or cover and refrigerate until time to bake. At least 2 hours before forming, remove the dough from the refrigerator. During this time it will rise again. It is then ready to shape and bake. The dough should be very soft and silky.
Ciabatta:
360 ml/1½ cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
520 g/4 cups unbleached bread flour
10 ml/2 teaspoons salt dissolved in 15 ml/1 tablespoon water
65 g/½ cup flour, for the baking sheet and top of ciabatta
TO SHAPE THE CIABATTA: Flour a baking sheet with a nice thin layer.
Carefully turn the dough out onto the baking sheet in one long glop, being very careful to keep it as inflated as possible. The dough should be about 7.5 cm/3 inches thick at the highest point. Flour your hands, throw a little flour over the dough to give it a light coat, and lift each end of the dough, gently stretching it into an oblong about 10 cm/4 inches wide and 33-38 cm/13-15 inches long. Or cut it in half and form 2 ciabiatte. Flour two 33 cm x 46 cm/13 x 18- inch baking sheets and place each ciabatta on each one. The dough should be about 4 cm/1½ inches thick in the middle. (Some of the classic ciabatte are stretched to make the outer ends of the rectangle thinner and then folded toward the middle, making the toe and heel of an old slipper [see illustration], but I leave mine alone. The resulting baked shape is rough and casual looking, like an old beat-up shoe). Let the slippers rise until doubled in volume, about ½ hour.
Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Just before putting them in the oven, slip your hands under each end of the ciabatta and push it a little toward the middle, flipping them over softly onto their other side. This will enable them to rise evenly in the oven. Dust thoroughly with flour and bake.
TO BAKE THE CIABATTA: Place in the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Bake for 15 minutes longer or until nicely browned. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely before cutting. The texture of the crumb and crust should be moist and chewy, with the crumb shiny and inviting, just waiting to be put on the grill, rubbed with garlic and topped with tomatoes and basil.
KALAMATA OLIVE FILONCINO
I had originally made Kalamata Olive Filoncino as a focaccia, but each time I looked at it, its circular shape seemed a little homely, much too flat and full of dark indeterminate spots. Because of the surface area and internal volume, flat bread, such as focaccia, bakes differently from a round loaf with more crumb and a change in shape can make a great difference to its taste and appearance.
When the olive dough was formed into a baguette, the olives in the dough popped out slightly as it rose, so that when it baked, the olives became crisp, almost crunchy, like an olive chip. The outside was lovely and shiny (the baguettes baked all together threw off large quantities of moisture), glittering with sea salt. Our olive bread had finally found its true personality. Because the olives were so good when toasted, we subsequently made the olive baguettes into yet another product, little thin-sliced melba toasts called bruschettine. We did the same with our Hazelnut-Sage Bread.
There are olives and there are Kalamata olives. Kalamata Olive Bread is one of the most popular at Buona Forchetta, and I feel it is the quality and taste of the olives we use. Not every olive reacts well with flour and yeast, not to mention being baked! There is a sweetness to a good brine-cured olive, in contrast to the acrid, often bitter taste of some oil-cured olives used by many bakers. The bread is stained with the rich dark juice of the olives, released during baking. Use other kinds of olives if kalamatas are not available and the result will be different. But don’t worry, you will most likely come up with a delicious, new bread! Even martini olives work at a pinch. Use the olives, drink the martini.
Makes: 3 baguette loaves
300 ml/1¼ cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
585 g/4½ cups unbleached bread flour
5 ml/1 teaspoon salt
110 g/¾ cup chopped Kalamata olives (or leave some whole, if you like)
30 ml/2 tablespoons olive paste (see Notes)
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over water and stir to dissolve. Stir in 270 g/2¼ cups of the flour, salt, olives, and paste and stir until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining 270 g/2¼ cups flour and the brine and stir. The dough will be fairly wet and sticky, the consistency of a very thick batter. If the dough seems too wet, add an additional 35-75 g/¼-½ cup of flour.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 45 minutes.
With a scraper or spatula, fold the dough by gently lifting it up from underneath and turning or folding it over on itself 3 or 4 times. Let the dough rise a second time in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 45 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the dough and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough from the refrigerator 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
180 ml/¾ cup Kalamata olive brine (see Notes)
10 ml/2 teaspoons olive oil
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher salt
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Spray a 3-loaf baguette tin with non-stick spray or rub with olive oil.
With your left hand (or right hand if you are left-handed), hold the bowl and tip it over the opening of a groove and pour the dough along and into the groove by loosening the dough with a spatula. Carefully move along the groove as the dough pours, keeping it as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the rim of the bowl as it falls into the groove. The dough should form a nice, rounded cylinder that fills the groove and stands about 1 cm/½ inch above the rim of the tin. Fill the other 2 grooves. Brush the tops of loaves with the olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the tin in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is browned and the loaves sound hollow when tapped. Remove baguettes from the tin and cool on wire racks.
NOTES: If you prefer loaves with crisper undersides, remove the loaves from the tin and return them to the oven, placing them directly on the oven rack, for about 5 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
Make olive paste by putting 300 g/2 cups pitted olives in a blender and puréeing it until smooth but still a little textured. Excess may be used for tapenade or on a pizza or in sandwiches.
The olive brine is used to pack the olives. If the brine with the olives you buy does not measure 180 ml/¾ cup, add water to measure the full 180 ml/¾ cup and add ¼ teaspoon salt.
My Hazelnut-Sage Filoncino was born out of pure, unadulterated laziness. The prospect of stuffing a 12-pound goose at Thanksgiving and no time at all to plan for several guests had me in a frenzy. I found myself longing for that other leisurely life, before I ran a business, when I made holiday wreaths from the garden, hand-painted the Christmas stockings, and attempted to prepare for holidays in the manner of Martha Stewart. Well, sort of like Martha Stewart. How simple it would be, I mused, to simply stick the hazelnuts and sage in the bread dough, bake it and then use that for stuffing. And any leftover bread would certainly liven up my breadbasket.
I am fortunate to have a backyard full of wild sage and so I plucked a good cupful, toasted it in a little olive oil and threw it in the dough to create a new recipe. The resulting bread is one of our most popular, especially at Thanksgiving and in winter when it can be used to stuff all manner of birds, pork chops, or what have you. It also makes exotic croutons for salads, breadcrumbs for scaloppine or chicken breasts, or for adding a crunch to sautéed vegetables.
Try it for French toast or simply toasted, plain, with a little marmalade. The hazelnuts toast along with the bread and lend such a rich taste to the bread that no butter is needed. Any bread made with sage, rosemary, or thyme will bring out the taste of a tart fruit jam or jelly. I particularly love the marriage of bitter orange marmalade and the round sweet taste of sage and nuts. A bruschetta of hazelnut-sage and goat cheese is another delicious way to serve this bread.
Makes: 3 baguettes
180 g/1½ cups roasted hazelnuts
15 ml/1 tablespoon crushed, dried sage leaves (I dry sage leaves in a slow oven)
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
260 g/2 cups unbleached bread flour
10-15 ml/2-3 teaspoons salt
In the food processor, chop the nuts with the dried sage for 5 to 6 seconds, until the nuts are the size of small peas. Remove half the mixture to a dish, and then pulverize the remaining nuts and sage until fairly smooth.
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over water and stir until dissolved. Stir in 270 g/2¼ cups of the flour, salt, the nut mixtures, and the hazelnut oil, if using, and mix until smooth. Add the remaining 270 g/2¼ cups flour and mix just until the flour is incorporated. If necessary, stir in an additional 35-75 g/¼-½ cup of flour.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the dough and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough from the refrigerator 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
30 ml/2 tablespoons hazelnut oil (found in supermarkets or delicatessens), optional
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
10 ml/2 teaspoons olive oil
15 ml/1 tablespoon crushed hazelnuts, optional
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Spray a 3-loaf baguette tin with non-stick spray or rub with olive oil.
With your left hand (or right hand if you are left-handed), hold the bowl and tip it over the opening of a groove and pour the dough along by loosening the dough with a spatula. Carefully move along the groove as the dough pours, keeping it as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the rim of the bowl as it falls into the groove. The dough should form a nice, rounded cylinder that fills the groove and stands about 1 cm/½ inch above the rim of the tin. Fill the other 2 grooves. Brush the tops of loaves with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and crushed hazelnuts, if using.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the tin in the oven and reduce oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is browned and the loaves sound hollow when tapped. Remove baguettes from the tin and cool on wire racks.
Sourdough was the rage in the 60s when I lived in Berkeley and San Francisco. There was nothing more exotic and sexy than a picnic on the beach with cracked Dungeness crab, just out of the steamer pot on Fisherman’s Wharf, and a round of the famous sourdough that put San Francisco bread on the map. A little cold split of Chablis didn’t hurt either. The bacillus sanfrancisco, as I mentioned before, is famous the world over because of the particular taste it imparts to San Francisco’s breads. Perhaps it’s the ocean moisture or the placement of the city on its particular coastal soil, but no one seems to be able to duplicate it, even though there are many imposters.
Many beautiful-looking sourdough breads, slashed just so and shining with a patina of egg wash will not necessarily have good flavour, just as a breathtakingly beautiful body may house a vapid soul. For example, many, many commercial producers of sourdough bread try to emulate the original large crusty San Francisco sourdough loaves, and, in fact, they often come up with a pretty good facsimile. On the outside. The inside is a whole other ball game. (My husband actually makes little compact soccer balls out of most sourdough breads at restaurants and shoots them around the table, making goals between wineglasses. As you see, we are very sophisticated diners….)
Perhaps I am the only bread maker in the world less than enthusiastic about sourdough breads, but there are so many replicas of the original that I find other breads more interesting. The sourdough flavour can often be overwhelming; there is no other taste in the bread except sour or tart. The fermentation upstages the many levels on which a bread can be savoured.
My recipe for sourdough whole-wheat uses a mild starter which produces a chewy, moist loaf with a very subtle taste. It’s pleasingly lemony and nutty at the same time. I am partial to this bread, even though it is made with a semi-sourdough starter, because I know that the final product will taste completely different from what you know as sourdough bread and will not overpower the flavours of the whole-wheat flour and your own kitchen yeast.
Makes: 3 baguettes
Biga:
65 g/½ cup whole-wheat flour
50 g/½ cup rye flour
5 ml/1 teaspoon active dry yeast
240 ml/1 cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
TO MAKE THE BIGA: Mix the flours, yeast, and water, stirring until very smooth. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let sit overnight at room temperature. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.
TO MAKE THE BREAD: Measure the water into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in the biga. Add 375 g/2½ cups of the bread flour and the salt and stir until smooth, about 2 minutes. (At this point, add any whole grains or other additives, see Notes.) Add the remaining 225 g/1½ cups of bread flour and the whole-wheat flour and stir until smooth and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled in volume, 30 to 45 minutes.
Filoncino:
300 ml/1¼ cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
10 ml/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
240 ml/1 cup biga
520 g/4 cups unbleached bread flour
100 g/¾ cup whole-wheat flour
10 ml/2 teaspoons salt
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
With a scraper or spatula, fold the dough by gently lifting it up from underneath and turning or folding it over on itself 2 or 3 times. Folding the dough gives the gluten a rest and stimulates the little yeast babies so that they moisten the dough as they convert sugar (from the flour) into gas and water. Cover and let rise a second time for 40 to 45 minutes until doubled in volume.
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Spray a 3-loaf baguette tin with non-stick spray or rub with olive oil.
With your left hand (or right hand if you are left-handed), hold the bowl and tip it over the opening of a groove and pour the dough along the groove by loosening the dough with a spatula. Carefully move along the groove as the dough pours, keeping it as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the rim of the bowl as it falls into the groove. The dough should form a nice, rounded cylinder that fills the groove and stands about 1 cm/½ inch above the rim of the tin. Fill the other 2 grooves. Brush the tops with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and let rise for 15 to 20 minutes or until the cylinders of dough are nicely rounded and puffed.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the tin in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 220°C/425°F/gas 7. Bake for 20 minutes, until the top is browned. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
NOTES: Add any of the following to enhance the loaves:
• |
75 g/½ cup cracked wheat, rye, bulgur, soaked in water for 2 hours and drained, or wheat bran |
• |
75 g/¾ cup walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts, roasted or chopped medium fine |
• |
20 g/¼ cup nut meal |
FOR A BREAKFAST BREAD: 160 ml/⅔ cup roasted grapes (page 111)
If you add weight to this bread by adding ingredients, you will add 5 ml/1 more teaspoon of yeast to the basic dough in order to give the dough help during the last rise.
My mother, who was told not to eat wheat because of migraines, had various rye breads, rye crisps, and crackers in the house so as not to aggravate her allergies (and to further compensate for her sacrifice, she always kept a bottle of rye whisky for the cocktail hour). Of course, she ate wheat anyway, but this introduction to rye products at any early age inspired me to make this light bread, intensified and made better with molasses and a little bitter chocolate. This rye bread is very different from my Czech grandmother’s heavy German-style rye breads, scented with caraway, and from the famous New York Jewish ryes, which I happily discovered in college. My rye bread crust is chewy, not hard, and the crumb not too fine but still welcoming enough to a warm slice of corned beef, some mustard and a good dill pickle. When making rye bread, you can control the strength of the caraway, add raisins, or even cut the rye for a more pleasing texture. In any event, you should feel satisfied that you have conquered one of the most difficult breads to make. Rye flour does not contain much gluten, and so you must use some white or wheat flour with it to get a rise out of it or be satisfied with a really dense bread. One of my tester’s grandchildren appropriately christened this bread “The Chocolate Bread”.
Makes: 1 round loaf or 2 small baguettes
Biga:
360 ml/1½ cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
5 ml/1 teaspoon active dry yeast
195 g/1½ cups unbleached bread flour
50 g/½ cup rye flour
TO MAKE THE BIGA: Mix the yeast with the water and stir well. In a glass bowl, mix the bread flour and rye flour with the yeast mixture, stirring well to aerate the mixture and form a wet dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let ferment overnight at room temperature. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.
TO MAKE THE BREAD: Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Add the biga, flour, molasses, cocoa powder, caraway seeds, and salt, stirring until all the flour is incorporated and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Rub a little olive oil on your hands, and press the dough once or twice with the heel of your hand to incorporate the flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice to form a smooth ball.
120 ml/½ cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
22 ml/1½ tablespoons active dry yeast
260 g/2 cups unbleached bread flour
120 g/1 scant cup wholewheat flour
50 g/½ cup rye flour
30 ml/2 tablespoons dark molasses
10 ml/2 teaspoons unsweetened alkalized (Dutch-processed) cocoa powder, such as Droste
5 tablespoons/⅓ cup caraway seeds, toasted, plus 15 ml/1 tablespoon for crusts
15 ml/1 tablespoon olive oil
5 ml/1 teaspoon sea salt
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 40 to 60 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire a mild, sour-rye taste from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Brush a frying pan, baking sheet or baguette tin with olive oil. Using a spatula to loosen the dough from the sides of the bowl, pour the dough into the frying pan or grooves of the tin, using the bowl and gravity to allow the dough to fall into the grooves as you move the bowl along it. Divide the dough equally among the 3 grooves. You may lift the dough and stretch it if needed. The dough is very easy to handle and shape. Keep the dough as inflated as possible.
Brush the dough with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and the remaining 15 ml/1 tablespoon caraway seeds. Let rise for 40 minutes.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Place the tin in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is browned. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
My Czech grandmother, Bigmama, made the best dill pickles in the world using only crisp, summer cucumbers, salt, garlic, hot peppers, vinegar and water. This caused my Prussian grandmother, Mommie, great envy. Having appropriated Bigmama’s recipe and claimed it as her own, Mommie would serve her own great country bread and the plagiarized Czech pickles, declaring, in her very southern-belle accent that “Theah is nuthin’ in the world bettah than bread and buttah and mah pickles on a nahss slahsse of frai-esh rye brai-ed.” I feel I have to toss in the pickle recipe to give you the full impact of this wonderful marriage.
Makes: Two one litre/2 pint jars
1.8 kg/4 pounds pickling cucumbers (see Note).
2 cloves garlic, halved
2 small hot red peppers
1 large or 2 small bunches fresh dill
110 g/½ cup salt (you may use a scant cup for less salty pickles)
240 ml/1 cup cider vinegar
about 1.7litres/7 cups water
Scrub cucumbers well, wipe them dry, and refrigerate overnight.
Divide the cucumbers between 2 sterilized litre jars, standing the cucumbers upright in 1 layer and then upright in a second layer on top of the first. Pack tightly without breaking the cucumbers. Drop 2 garlic halves and 1 pepper into each jar. Put a handful of dill in each jar over the top of the vegetables.
In a large saucepan, mix the salt, vinegar and water and bring to a rolling boil over medium high heat. Simmer for 5 minutes and then pour the boiling water over the cucumbers until it reaches the top and spills over. Screw the lids on the jars and allow them to cool. Refrigerate for 2 weeks before serving. The pickles will be crisp and flavourful, never soft and mushy.
NOTE: Use tiny cucumbers for cornichons or medium-sized kirby cucumbers. Large cucumbers do not work as well. Rest the jars in the sink when adding the water.
(Housewife’s Bread )
In almost every trattoria in Italy, the first thing brought to the table is bread. This usually is fairly good bread, but if you ask, there is probably another kind of bread lurking in the kitchen, the pane caserec-cio, “bread of the home” – enormous round loaves of artisan bread that are most likely baked nearby in wood ovens. If you can find a wizened old winemaker who can bring you bundles of cuttings from his vineyard in Frascati, and if by chance you have a 600-year-old stone oven in your backyard and sweet water coming from the nearby mountains, running down through Roman aqueducts, then no doubt you’ll be more successful than I was at duplicating the wondrous breads of Genzano, which inspired me to create this recipe. Barring the perfect setting, and ingredients, this will do very nicely.
When this bread is rounded and oblong, it is called a pagnotta, but in my bakery, the loaves come out looking like bones so we call them Pane Osso (as in osso buco).
Makes: 2 loaves
Biga:
5 ml/1 teaspoon active dry yeast
240 ml/1 cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
65 g/½ cup whole-wheat flour
130 g/1 cup unbleached bread flour
45 ml/3 tablespoons rye flour
Bread:
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
625 g/5 cups unbleached white flour
10 ml/2 teaspoons salt
25 g/½ cup wheat bran, for baking sheet and tops of loaves
TO MAKE THE BIGA: Mix the yeast with the water and stir well. In a glass bowl, mix the whole-wheat flour, bread flour, and rye flour with the yeast mixture, stirring well to aerate the mixture and form a wet dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let ferment overnight at room temperature. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.
TO MAKE THE BREAD: Measure the water into a large bowl. Add the biga, flour, and salt, stirring until all the flour is incorporated and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Rub a little olive oil on your hands and fold the dough over on itself two or three times to form a smooth ball.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until double, about 30 to 40 minutes. Fold the dough over on itself again a few times to trap air in the loaf and let the dough rise again until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. The dough should be shiny and contain nice big bubbles. Let rise a third time for 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Continue with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO A PAGNOTTA: Preheat oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Dust a baking sheet well with about half of the wheat bran or 30 ml/2 tablespoons flour.
Pour the dough onto the tin by loosening the dough with a spatula and then carefully letting the dough fall onto the surface of the tin, keeping the dough as inflated as possible. You will have a rounded shape on the tin that should be fairly risen from the last rise. Cut the dough in half with a pair of scissors and shape each piece of dough into a long oblong by lifting and pulling it gently. Let the two loaves rise for about 30 minutes or until double. Very carefully, loosen the loaves with a thin spatula. Slide your fingers under the ends of the loaf and quickly turn it over in place. Some air will escape, but do not worry, the bread will rise beautifully in the oven. Spritz with water and dust the tops of the loaves well with the remaining wheat bran.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place bread in the oven, and then lower oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the pagnotta is nicely browned. Turn off the oven, open the oven door and let the bread sit in the oven for 10 minutes longer if you wish a thicker crust. Cool on a wire rack.
WHOLE-WHEAT BREAD
This is a bread I developed years ago when I was just beginning to make breads. It is a straight dough method, which produces a softer crumb than breads made with starters – the kind of bread ideal for tuna fish sandwiches or BLTs. But this will not taste like just any whole-wheat bread because of the coffee, which imparts a lovely, rich toasty flavour to it. One rise will produce a soft, sandwich bread. You may also use the covered bread tin method (see My Mother’s Cream Bread or Pain de Mie) to keep the shape perfectly square for party bread. I happen to like the little rounded top on sandwich bread, however, because it shows that a human being, not a machine, actually formed the loaf.
When I first made whole-wheat bread, I put all sorts of wild things into the dough, such as nuts, seeds, herbs, raisins, and other dried fruit. You are free to do so, but I found that it is best made plain and simple, great for a grilled cheese sandwich or any cold filling. Additions already mentioned or any whole grains will turn this into a lovely breakfast loaf. From 75-150 g/½-1 cup of raisins or nuts – toasted nuts, of course – or 75 g/½ cup of grains can be worked into this dough after the first rise. It’s up to you to experiment.
Makes: 1 large or 2 small loaves
240 ml/1 cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
30 ml/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
360 ml/1½ cups warm milk
30 ml/2 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
30 ml/2 tablespoons honey or molasses
15 ml/1 tablespoon very strong espresso (syrupy is best)
450-520 g/3½-4 cups unbleached bread flour
15 ml/1 tablespoon salt
130 g/1 cup whole-wheat flour
50 g/½ cup rye flour
5 ml/1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. In another bowl, combine the milk, olive oil, honey and espresso. Add the yeast mixture and about 260 g/2 cups of bread flour and the salt and stir briskly until smooth. Stir in the remaining bread flour, whole-wheat flour, and the rye flour for about 2 minutes longer, just until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and the flour is incorporated.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO LOAVES: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Oil 1 seasoned non-stick, oven-proof loaf tin, one 24 cm/9-inch seasoned tin or two 13 cm/5-inch tins. Pour the dough into the large tin or divide it between the smaller tins by loosening the dough with a spatula and then carefully scraping it from the bowl, keeping the dough as inflated as possible. With the spatula, cut the dough off at the edge of the bowl as it falls into the tin. The shape that the dough takes on as it falls into the tin is fine. Brush the tops of loaves with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and let rise until doubled, 15 to 20 minutes.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place bread in the preheated oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until nicely browned and the bread sounds hollow when tapped with your finger. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
In the early days of the bakery, this bread was a very large-holed rustic, oblong loaf. Unfortunately, I lost the original loaf over some months as new bakers came to us from other bakeries and, accustomed to other techniques, beat the hell out of the dough. We went round and round for several weeks about our lost rustico, and finally what emerged was, for me, a compromise – a great sandwich loaf (which we wanted anyway) with a fine texture and a beautiful brown crust showing in the slashes. All in all, I am pleased with this bastard child because it makes wonderful nutty-tasting French toast, bruschette, and extraordinary grilled sandwiches, and I am thrilled that the original rich taste of the crumb itself was not lost in translation.
Makes: 2 loaves
Biga:
5 ml/1 teaspoon active dry yeast
240 ml/1 cup lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
100 g/¾ cup unbleached bread flour
60 ml/4 tablespoons rye flour
Bread:
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
700 g/5½ cups unbleached bread flour
10 ml/2 teaspoons salt
30 g/¼ cup flour, for baking sheet and tops of loaves
TO MAKE THE BIGA: Mix the yeast with the water and stir well. In a glass bowl, mix the bread flour, and rye flour with the yeast mixture, stirring well to aerate the mixture and form a wet dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let ferment overnight at room temperature. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.
TO MAKE THE BREAD: Measure the water into a large bowl. Add the biga, flour, and salt, stirring until all the flour is incorporated and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Rub a little olive oil on your hands and fold the dough once or twice with the heel of your hand to incorporate the flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice to form a smooth ball.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Fold the dough over on itself again a few times to trap air in the loaf and let the dough rise again until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. The dough should be shiny and contain nice big bubbles. Let it rise a third time for 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO A PAGNOTTA: Preheat the oven to 260°C/500°F/gas 10. Dust a baking sheet with 30 ml/2 tablespoons of the flour.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface, keeping the dough as inflated as possible. Cut the dough in half with a pair of scissors and shape each piece of dough into a rectangle. Fold the top third of rectangle over the middle third and the bottom third over that, like a book, pressing out the air bubbles. Seal the dough using the palm of your hand. Place the loaves on the floured baking sheet and dust the loaves with the remaining flour. Let the two loaves rise for about 40 minutes, or until doubled. With a very sharp paring knife, make three diagonal slashes across the tops of each loaf, cutting at a 45- degree angle about 5 mm/¼ inch deep.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the bread in the oven, and then lower the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the tops are nicely browned. Cool on a wire rack.
The baguettes you may have eaten in Paris some years ago have become more and more difficult to find all over France! Fortunately, many bakers are reviving the recipes of the past in an effort to restore order to French life. Good baguettes may be found at Poujauran bakery in Paris and in small, country bakeries such as Boulangerie Artisanale des Maures in Cannet-des-Maures and our Fauxbourg bakery in Collioure.
My father introduced me to Europe when I was 18, and I can still remember the café where I was served a glass of 1959 Burgundy with a perfect omelette and an even more perfect salad, a hint of mustard in the dressing. I also remember biting through a sandy crunch into what seemed to me to be glorified white bread, made extraordinary by its creamy taste and of course, the exciting street life of Paris swirling around me. When I want real French bread, I want only that French bread. This recipe comes very close except that alas, our Los Angeles bakery does not front the Boulevard St. Germain. The secret is to use everyday flour you can find in any supermarket and let the dough have three rises to develop flavour.
Makes: 2 loaves or 3 ficelles (smaller baguettes)
480 ml/2 cups lukewarm water (30-35°C/85-95°F)
30 ml/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
625 g/5 cups plain (all-purpose) flour or 650 g/5 cups unbleached bread flour
10-15 ml/2-3 teaspoons salt
Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in 300 g/2 cups of the flour and stir briskly until smooth, about 2 minutes. With a wooden or plastic spoon, add the remaining 450 g/3 cups of flour, stirring for about 5 minutes longer, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl in strands and the flour is completely incorporated. If the dough feels too wet, stir in an additional 30-65 g/¼-½ cup of flour. The dough should be smooth and shiny.
SAME DAY METHOD: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Fold the dough over on itself two or three times and let the dough rise a second time until doubled in volume, about 30 to 40 minutes. Repeat this process one more time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
OVERNIGHT METHOD: Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrigerator and acquire flavour from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered, in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
TO SHAPE INTO BAGUETTES: Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Spray a 2- or 3-loaf baguette tin or baking sheet with non-stick spray.
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 pieces to fit the baguette tin. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes. With the palms of your hands, begin rolling each piece into a long cylinder the length of the baguette tin, as you would roll soft clay. Place each cylinder in the baguette tin or on a baking sheet. Let the dough rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. With a sharp paring knife, cut 3 long slashes down the length of each loaf, beginning at one end and making sure that the next slash slightly overlaps the first and so on. Spritz with water.
TO BAKE LOAVES: Place the bread in the preheated oven and reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the baguettes are nicely browned. Tap the baguette tin on a flat surface to loosen the loaves and cool them on a wire rack.