The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book Part 4

A toothsome version of the recipe is achieved by using rough stone-ground flour in place of finely ground. When it is made with freshly home-ground flour, the bread has to be one of the best in the world. We call it Country French.

Last, for Peasant French, use rye flour in place of the pastry flour. If your flours are freshly ground, you can close your eyes and just about be transported to northern France. This is a good keeper with remarkable flavor.

Whole Wheat French Bread

Getting down to business, there are a few things to remember when you are making this bread: technique, one might say, has to replace the fat and sugar! Most important of all is the one cardinal rule most often ignored (maybe it is just hard to believe): the dough must be kept cool throughout the whole rising period until it goes into the hot oven. If the temperature of the rising dough goes over 70F, the fermentation changes, and the loaves will simply not have the character, the rise, or the flavor that they should have.

To keep the dough cool, the water used to mix it-except for the yeast-dissolving water-should be quite cold. For hand kneading, cold tap water is usually fine-providing that it is is cold. In the summer, our own tap water is about 65F, and by the time the dough is mixed, it is way too warm. Under these circ.u.mstances, or if you will be kneading by machine, be sure to refrigerate the water beforehand, or ice it. Machine friction heats the dough 20 to 50F! cold. In the summer, our own tap water is about 65F, and by the time the dough is mixed, it is way too warm. Under these circ.u.mstances, or if you will be kneading by machine, be sure to refrigerate the water beforehand, or ice it. Machine friction heats the dough 20 to 50F!

The dough should be kneaded until it is exceptionally silky and elastic. If you use all bread flour, allow longer than usual for the kneading.

Decide before you begin what shapes you will want to make of the risen dough, and how you will bake them. Since this bread is at its best only when it bakes very hot and steamy, check out the steaming methods to see which one suits your equipment and the shape you want. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Stir the flour and salt together. Add the cold water and the yeast and mix together. The dough will be stiff. Add at least half a cup more water by wetting your hands as you knead. Take care to develop the dough very fully; the time that takes will depend on which flours you have used: the high-gluten American version will take at least at least 20 minutes, others somewhat less. The dough should be quite soft when you finish, and silky. 20 minutes, others somewhat less. The dough should be quite soft when you finish, and silky.

Cover the dough and let it rise in a cool place, never over 70F at any time. The cool rise makes the splendid flavor of this bread possible; if it is hurried at all by warming the dough, the bread will be astonishingly uninteresting. The first rising period takes about 2 to 3 hours. If you wish, you may keep the dough cooler, and give it longer, but don't let it go faster. After about 2 hours, poke a wet fingertip into the dough about inch deep; if the mark stays without filling in at all, the dough is ready to deflate. (If it sighs and collapses slightly, it is too warm. Don't worry, all is not lost, but take steps to make the next two risings cooler.) Deflate the dough by turning it out onto a lightly floured board and, with wet hands, pressing out all the acc.u.mulated gas. Try to handle the dough gently to avoid tearing it. Fold it into itself to make a smooth ball and place the ball again in the bowl to rise. Cover and set it again in a cool place, as before, using the same test to determine when the dough is fully risen. The second rise takes about 2 hours; now it is ready to shape. It should be lively, elastic, not at all sticky on the surface, and still very soft. If the dough still seems a trifle sticky, allow a longer resting period in the next step.

- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast ( oz or 7 g) - cup warm water (120 ml) - 5 cups whole wheat flour, a combination of: 4 cups bread flour (600 g) plus 1 cups pastry flour (225 g) - 2 teaspoons salt (14 g) - 1 cups cold water (355 ml) (40 to 50F)* more water for kneading more water for kneading - *If you use a food processor in this recipe, use ice ice water. water.

ROUNDING.

Before shaping the loaves or rolls, you will want to round the dough in loaf-sized pieces; this invigorates the yeast and structures the dough for the best possible rise. If you are making rolls, make one or two rounds. Protect the dough from drafts as you work.

Turn out on floured board and press out gas. Divide and round as shown.

Turn the rounds seam side down and let them rest until they are soft. Use this time to wash the bowl, and to prepare baking pans or whatever other arrangement you will be using to proof the loaves.

Some Possible Shapes When you consider what shape you want for your French breads, one of the first things to think about is your oven and the utensils you have at hand for baking the bread. Please read the pages on steaming, and plan to start with whatever shapes are likely to work best with your equipment, because the crust of the bread depends on good steaming, and the quality of the bread depends quite a lot on how good the crust is. The traditional shapes we a.s.sociate with French loaves maximize crust area, and if your equipment and oven can accommodate them, you will have wonderful bread indeed. It is true that the round loaves have less crust, but we like them very much because there is no need to worry about keeping the oven hot enough, or controlling the steam: it is all there in the ca.s.serole dish. The bread is plenty pretty, too, and makes great sandwiches.

ROUND HEARTH LOAF.

Simple and surefire, and our favorite, is the traditional countryside style round hearth loaf. Round the loaves and let them rest and then, when they get a trifle saggy, round them in the same way a second time a second time and place each one in a deep 2 -quart lidded clay or gla.s.s ca.s.serole, greased and dusted with cornmeal. Alternatively, you can proof them upside down on flour-dusted canvas for later transfer to baking tiles (see and place each one in a deep 2 -quart lidded clay or gla.s.s ca.s.serole, greased and dusted with cornmeal. Alternatively, you can proof them upside down on flour-dusted canvas for later transfer to baking tiles (see this page this page) or place them on a baking sheet dusted with corn-meal for proofing and baking.

CLa.s.sIC FRENCH BATARD.

Shape the rounded loaves into long loaves as shown. Two will fit nicely on a 12 18 baking sheet. The sheet can be dusted with cornmeal and the loaves placed on them, proofed, and baked on the sheet; or, proof the loaves upside down on canvas and transfer them to tiles (see 18 baking sheet. The sheet can be dusted with cornmeal and the loaves placed on them, proofed, and baked on the sheet; or, proof the loaves upside down on canvas and transfer them to tiles (see this page this page). (If you choose this option, be sure to make your "peel" a little longer than the loaves will be when they are fully risen.)

Let the rounded loaf rest until it is soft and puffy once again.

Press to 1 thick. Make an oblong about two-thirds as long as you want the loaf to be.

Fold the sides into the middle and press or roll again to 1 thick.

Fold lengthwise and seal the edge. Turn the loaf seam-downwards.

Roll back and forth under your palms until it is nearly as long as you want the loaf to be.

This shape is so popular that there are several kinds of rounded pans and long clayware boulanger ca.s.seroles especially made for baking it. If you have one of them, follow the instructions for greasing that come with the pan. It may be that your whole wheat dough will rise somewhat less than the white dough the manufacturer expects. If you want your bread to be as big as the pan will accommodate, you can include a little more dough than the pan's instructions suggest. In that case, you will need to increase the baking time, too.

The object of the long thin shape, and of the even thinner versions that follow, is lots of crust. The flavor of any bread derives largely from magical happenings in the complex chemistry of the crust as it bakes. More crust means more flavor, and the crust of French bread properly baked with steam properly baked with steam is among the best. is among the best.

BAGUETTE.

These slim long loaves are splendid for picnics, served with soft smelly cheeses-and nothing could be better alongside a hearty soup on a winter evening. Again, it takes a good hot steamy bake to provide the best crust possible. Use either a flat baking sheet or the dippy long baton pans that are sold in every kitchen shop. Shape the loaves like the batards, but use only half as much dough in each one; make each of them as long as your pan, and very skinny.

ROLLS.

You can make them small, for dinner rolls, or larger, for lunches. The traditional shapes are like a batard loaf, only smaller, or round like a tiny hearth loaf. Make six to twelve from half the dough, and treat as you would the loaves except that the smaller the bread, the crustier it will be, and the shorter the time it will take to bake.

About Grease & Cornmeal When French or other lean breads are to be baked as hearth loaves on a baking sheet, the sheet can be dusted generously with cornmeal and not greased: the loaf will not stick. Note that a really thick layer of cornmeal, say an eighth of an inch, can provide such effective insulation that the oven heat won't reach the bread and its bottom will not bake. A too-thin layer, with much of the pan showing through, of course, can't keep the bread from sticking.

If the bread will touch the sides of the utensil, then that part at least will have to be greased because the cornmeal won't protect it. When grease is used, a dusting of cornmeal is optional, but it does add a nice touch to the finished loaf, and has the virtue of absorbing excess grease in the places the dough doesn't cover, which saves you from having to scrub off burnt grease.

If you don't have cornmeal, other low-protein flours or meals can be used, but corn is best.

Proofing SIMPLE PROOFING.

Whatever the shape, the bread will be ready to bake after about an hour at 70F. Leave your loaves exposed to the air, but protected from drafts. If necessary, cover them loosely with a big cardboard box, but don't seal the loaves off in a plastic bag. French is the one bread that does not not want humidity when it is proofing! Be sure that you preheat the oven thoroughly well in advance of the baking so it is plenty hot by the time the bread is ready to go in. When it is ready for the oven, the dough will be spongy and saggy, with a delicate crusty surface. want humidity when it is proofing! Be sure that you preheat the oven thoroughly well in advance of the baking so it is plenty hot by the time the bread is ready to go in. When it is ready for the oven, the dough will be spongy and saggy, with a delicate crusty surface.

FANCY PROOFING FOR BAKING ON OVEN TILES.

A professional baker gives his loaves their final rise, or proof, upside down in a cool nonhumid place. Later, when the bread is ready for the oven, it is placed gently on a long-handled wooden paddle, or peel peel, and at that time each loaf is turned over to sit on the firm crust that the air has put on its top-now-bottom. The baker slashes the loaf, and then with a deft push-pull it is made to fly off the peel precisely into its place on the floor of the hot brick oven.

This sounds tricky, but it isn't difficult and home bakers can easily adapt the technique for baking their own French bread on oven tiles or a baking stone. The big advantage is that the top of the loaf (the bottom while it was rising upside down) stays soft, and so continues to rise nicely in the oven.

To proof the loaves upside down, shape them and invert them on a baking sheet or tray lined with heavy cloth and dusted with flour. When the time comes to put them in the hot oven, you will need a rough equivalent of a baker's peel, of a size and shape to suit your loaves and oven. To improvise a peel, try a piece of eight-inch masonite (like a clipboard) or heavy cardboard covered with contact paper, or quarter-inch finished plywood sanded down on one edge. (For round loaves, a thick magazine would work, for that matter.) Your peel should be a little bigger than one loaf and stiff enough to support the loaf if you hold the peel with one hand.

Slashing French Breads Slash the loaves just before putting them into the oven so that they will have the characteristic open-leaf pattern on their crusty surface. We find that we have the best results of all using our bread-slicing knife for slashing: a long, thin, sharp, wavy-edged blade. For tiny rolls, it is easier to use a very small, extremely sharp, thin-bladed paring knife, or you can snip them with wet scissors-easy and pretty, too. Some gourmet bread books suggest using a razor blade, and it does work, but as we have said elsewhere, for heaven's sake be careful! Razor blades are out of context in the kitchen, easy to forget, and potentially hazardous.

Slash as deep as an inch if the dough seems lively, less if you aren't too sure about it; small rolls take about inch. The slash patterns sketched here give pretty baked results. For the long loaves, make a cut at each end, almost lengthwise, and almost to the middle of the bread. The third long diagonal is in the center. Slash round loaves to suit your fancy-rolls, too. The prettiest slashes are made by holding the knife so that the blade cuts sideways, almost as if it were peeling the crust, rather than cutting downward into the loaf. Done so, the slashes open upward as the loaf rises during its spectacular spring in the oven. If the cuts are directly downward, the loaf will open out and lie prostrate, not only less beautiful but less tall than it should be.

Bake the bread using one of the steaming methods that follow. When the crust begins to color, remove the source of steam and immediately lower the oven heat, because high heat without steam will burn the bread very quickly. When it is golden-brown and beautiful, and hollow-sounding if you thump its bottom with your fingertips, the bread is done. How long that takes depends on the size of the loaves or rolls, and the vagaries of your oven. Generally speaking, this bread bakes in less time than the ones we have described thus far. Giant round loaves, however, can take 45 minutes or more; small thin loaves or rolls may bake in as little as 10 minutes.

Some Methods for Steaming Bread If French Bread were baked like a normal loaf of bread, its crust would be thick, tough, and pale because bread without added milk protein or sweetener can't brown at moderate oven temperatures. Baked in the traditional way in a brick oven, very hot and steamy, though, the crust becomes beautifully rosy brown, thin and crispy-chewy, and the flavor of the bread is at its best, too. Most of us don't have brick ovens in our kitchens, but a pretty good approximation of their effects can be had with simple everyday equipment-and without endangering life and limb. There are many ways to steam bread but we've found these effective and less hazardous than some other methods.

WETTING THE LOAF.

Preheat the oven to 450F. Spray or paint the proofed bread with warm water, slash it, and put it in the oven quickly so that as little heat escapes as possible. Repeat the painting or spraying every 3 to 5 minutes until the crust begins to brown nicely-this should take about three or four treatments, depending on your oven and your dough. Reduce oven heat to 350F and bake until the bread is done, as suggested in the recipe.

Advantages of this method: it is very simple and requires no unusual equipment. It can be used with any shape or size of bread. Unfortunately it is effective only in ovens that can recover very quickly the heat lost when the door is open.

STEAMING THE OVEN.

Place a small heavy skillet or other pan in the bottom of the oven when you preheat. When you put in the bread, pour one cup of boiling water into the pan, shutting the oven quickly. You can, if you like, use this technique in conjunction with the previous method.

This method is easy, but it works only with a very well-insulated oven-which, unfortunately, most latter-day ovens are not. It can be pretty stressful to the pan you use, too: make sure it is all metal, and one that you don't mind getting warped or rusty.

OVEN TILES.

These two methods will be enhanced if you line your oven with quarry tiles. More about this.

Instead of tiles you can use a flat baking stone. Either proof the bread directly on the stone and then put them together into the hot oven, or let the bread rise on floured canvas while the stone preheats along with the oven and them transfer the proofed bread to the stone. With the addition of steam, the home oven comes very close to the traditional brick oven for baking. (Still and all, after many experiments, we find nothing works better than a covered ca.s.serole.) COVERED Ca.s.sEROLE.

Give the bread its final rise in a covered ca.s.serole dish-gla.s.s or pottery-which has a tightly fitting domed lid. It should be big enough to allow the dough to do all the rising it wants to, including a good spring in the hot oven: depending on the dough, triple the original size of the dough would not be too much.

Ordinary Pyrex covered gla.s.s ovenware in the deep 2 -quart size works perfectly for one regular-size (round) loaf. Some of the clay ca.s.seroles that can be soaked in water are splendid. The snug domed lid is the crucial thing in whatever you use. Some Corningware lids don't fit tightly enough to hold the steam in, but the ca.s.seroles are a good size; if you have one and want to use it, seal around the lid with foil where there are big gaps. Corningware tends to stick, so be sure to grease the dish extra well, and dust it generously with cornmeal.

If you have a heavy metal baking pan, you can bake the bread (on grease and cornmeal) in that, covering it with another similar pan inverted over it. Seal with foil-or just cover it with foil! (Be sure to leave plenty of rising room by ballooning the foil.) We have had splendid French loaves from this method, unorthodox (and easy) as it is.

Let the dough rise in the ca.s.serole or pan according to the directions in the recipe. Preheat the oven in plenty of time so that the temperature is at 450F when the dough has risen. If the ca.s.serole is thick clay, there will be a delay while the dish heats up, so put it in the oven a little earlier than you would normally.

Just before you put the bread in the oven, pour 2 to 4 tablespoons of warm water over the loaf. Use the smaller amount with lighter breads, more with the substantial types. This is all absorbed into the top crust, so don't mind that the bread seems to swim at first. Slash, cover, and bake. When the crust is nicely browned, after 20 minutes or so, reduce the oven temperature and finish baking as suggested in the recipe.

Whatever method you use for steaming, please be careful. The temperatures are high and the presence of steam makes the heat intense. Plan ahead, so that you have the oven racks in place before heating the oven, and so that you know where you are going to put each pan or dish when the time comes.

This simple, safe, and effective method is our favorite by far. Its only limitation is the shape and size of the pans you can figure out how to cover.

Flemish Desem Bread Those of us who enjoy it daily think that this is the very best of breads. Its subtle, sophisticated flavor never bores or wearies, but rather draws ever more enthusiastic appreciation; the bread keeps well and digests comfortably. Composed of just a few ingredients-wheat, water, salt-the loaves are light and delicious without sweetener, milk, fat or yeast. Nothing makes better toast, sandwiches or crumbs. To us, this is the perfect Staff of Life.

Making the bread, once you get set up, is easy; getting set up can be fairly challenging. It isn't so much that the procedure is difficult (it isn't), but that the desem, the starter, is a natural (maybe I should say an old-timey old-timey) creature, who favors rhythms that are slower, ingredients necessarily purer, than we twentieth-century breadbakers are accustomed to provide. The challenge is more to your credulity than to your ingenuity, though both of them may well be tested.

This set of instructions certainly can't be called a recipe in any normal sense, and if you follow it through, you will create much more than a loaf of bread. For us, the desem is a living partner in the twice-weekly adventure of its baking; our affection for it, and our respect, do not easily fall into any normal category; some others who have made desem are less reverent, and refer to their starter as a favorite pet that needs care and attention-but one that has a good deal to give, too. Whatever it means to you, once you succeed in establishing a desem starter, and begin baking the bread, your life will change in a small way: however mundane it may be, something rather wonderful will be yours. This is not a project you would try just once to see how you like it, but it is perfect for serious bread eaters who can bake regularly and who want the best possible bread: simple, flavorful, healthful, satisfying.

Baldwin Hill Bakery We first learned about desem bread in a tantalizing article in a copy of the Sat.u.r.day Evening Post Sat.u.r.day Evening Post (January/February 1979), lent to us by a friend who had heard we were setting out to write this book. We had just started working on sourdoughs, and this one sounded really special, but the recipe given in the magazine was disappointingly ordinary. In an adventurous mood, we dialed the Boston information operator, and before long found ourselves talking to baker Hy Lerner himself. He was awfully nice and very generous and patient with help and advice, but more than a little skeptical about our being able to get a real desem starter going. (January/February 1979), lent to us by a friend who had heard we were setting out to write this book. We had just started working on sourdoughs, and this one sounded really special, but the recipe given in the magazine was disappointingly ordinary. In an adventurous mood, we dialed the Boston information operator, and before long found ourselves talking to baker Hy Lerner himself. He was awfully nice and very generous and patient with help and advice, but more than a little skeptical about our being able to get a real desem starter going.

Hy is a medical doctor with a deep and long-standing interest in the importance of nutrition-not just the "feed 'em and weigh 'em" kind of nutrition, but a respectful understanding of the relevance of people's att.i.tudes toward food and nourishment to their health in the largest sense. He has worked with such diverse lights in the field as Jeremiah Stamler and Michio Kushi, and his pioneering is far from over. The bread is one chapter in the story, and one he gladly shares.

The loaves that come out of the oven at Baldwin Hill Bakery represent the happy culmination of a long odyssey that began over a decade ago when Hy and his wife, Lora, tasted their first slices of a loaf brought to them by a friend. This was real bread, not the health food sort at all, but healthful nonetheless, as well as delicious, and satisfying-the kind of nourishment that ought to be available to everyone. When they could not duplicate the bread in their own kitchens however they tried, Hy and his friend, architect Paul Petrofsky, pooled their savings and went like pilgrims to the Lima Bakery in Belgium, the source of that original marvelous loaf. The Lima Bakery is reputed to be a fortress of closely guarded secrets, but the young Americans were welcomed and housed and taught, and came home determined to produce a similarly perfect product on this side of the Atlantic.

They established the Baldwin Hill Bakery in a beautiful woodland outside Boston where there is plenty of pure water and hard wood to fire the big brick ovens. Now, a decade later, they bake nearly 10,000 loaves a week, distributing them in the area around Boston. Here on the Pacific Coast we have, we think, perfected a home-style version; but we cherish the hope that someday every community will have a Baldwin Hill Bakery so that all those who are unable to bake this bread in their own homes will be able to partake of it.

The Desem The secret of the chewy-light texture, the full, mellow, tangy flavor, and the extraordinary keeping quality of this bread lie with the desem desem, its unique starter dough. (Desem (day'-zum) is Flemish for "starter.") Microscopic organisms live in the desem, and they leaven and flavor the bread. We would call the bread a sourdough, but in Europe it is called a leavened bread-leavened as opposed to yeasted. The flavor is not all that sour when the bread is properly made: it is much more sophisticated and universal than any rustic sourdough.

Hy speculates that the desem organisms live on organic wheat in the same way that organisms that make wine live naturally on grapes. By providing them with conditions that favor their growth, you can help them to prevail and prosper: that is the object of the method outlined in the following pages.

We have tried many other sourdough starters, but none can hold a candle to either the flavor or leavening power of the desem. The instructions we give here work work. Following them, we have made many successful desems using different flours and wheats; and friends have proved the formula for us, too. Problems come only when the simple requirements of the desem organisms are neglected through using flour contaminated with pesticide residues or with mold from a dirty mill, or using chlorinated water, or-the easiest pitfall to tumble into (or avoid!)-somewhere along the line, letting the temperatures get too warm or too cold. The desem is there there: if you follow these instructions it will serve you indefinitely.

What's Going On Here?

Sometimes people (and cookbooks) can make the simplest things seem the most complicated. Surely that is true with Desem Bread-our longest "recipe," and our simplest bread! In a nutsh.e.l.l, here is what the following pages describe.

The bread's unique character and its rise come from the starter-the spirit or soul if you will, that gives life to the dough. The desem looks looks like a little wad of dough-but oh my. like a little wad of dough-but oh my.

It takes about two weeks to get a desem starter going. The first five days-the desem's infancy, if you like-is spent in a special sort of incubator: a big bag of flour. On the sixth day the desem is moved to the covered crock or jar. You feed it flour and water every day this week and keep it carefully cool.

After two weeks the desem is nearly mature, but not quite. It still needs watching and nurturing until it achieves full vigor.

Once you have a functioning desem you will want to bake with it every week and also to feed it twice a week.

That's the whole idea. The directions that follow are only to explain each part of this process.