Recipes

A Note about the Recipes

The recipes that follow specify measurements in grams. If you have to ask why, you skipped week 14 (“Metric Madness”). Go ahead, read it now; I’ll wait . . . I suppose I could buckle under to convention and provide (shudder) imperial volume equivalents, but trust me, you’re far better off investing in a twenty-five-dollar digital kitchen scale. While you’re at it, pick up a pizza stone, and you’ll be ready to make the best bread you’ve ever tasted. Bon appétit!

Building aLevain

To paraphrase the baker and author Daniel Leader: if I could convince you of one thing, it’s to bake with a levain. Further-more, if you want to use any of the following recipes, you’ll have no choice. Here’s how I made mine. Other methods can be found in several of the bread cookbooks listed in the bibliography.

Prepare the apple water:

1. Let 1 quart of tap water sit out overnight to remove any chlorine.

2. Look for a hazy apple, preferably from a farm stand (the haze is wild yeast). Cut the apple into 1-inch chunks and place, along with the peel of a second apple, into a container with 1 cup of the water. (Cover and reserve the remaining water for later.)

3. Let the apple and water sit covered, at room temperature, for 3 days, stirring daily. The mixture should be foaming a bit and should smell somewhat like cider by the third day.

Build the levain:

DAY 1

4. Combine 50 grams of whole wheat flour with 350 grams un-bleached all-purpose or bread flour (the additional protein in bread flour may be beneficial for the early starter).

5. Measure out 150 grams of the apple water through a fine strainer and add 150 grams of the flour mixture (you’ll use the rest of the flour later). Whip vigorously with a whisk, scrape down the sides, and cover with a screen (a frying pan spatter screen is ideal) or cheesecloth.

6. Leave the levain at room temperature, whipping every few hours to incorporate air. It is important to keep the starter aerated during the first few days.

DAY 2

Add 75 grams of the reserved tap water and 75 grams of the flour mixture, whip, and leave at room temperature, covered as before, for another 24 hours, again whisking occasionally. You should see bubbles starting to form and the mixture increasing in bulk.

DAY 3

7. Transfer the levain to a clean 2-quart container. Avoid transferring any of the dried bits from the sides of the old container.

8. Add 75 grams each of the reserved flour and tap water, whip, and cover as before.

9. If at any point in this process the levain starts to smell a bit funky, discard half, replace with equal parts (by weight) flour and water, and whip more frequently. If the levain seems limpid (not rising and bubbling), increase the frequency of feedings.

DAY 4

10. Feed the levian once again with the remaining 100 grams of flour and 100 grams water and let it sit at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, and your levain should be ready for use, although it will continue to develop flavor over the next few weeks. Follow the care and feeding directions below.

Care and feeding of your levain:

11. Store the levain in a covered container in the refrigerator.

12. For the first few weeks, feed twice a week as described in the next step; afterward a weekly feeding is sufficient.

13. To feed, stir thoroughly and discard about 250 grams of le-vain. Replace with 125 grams water (straight from the tap is fine if your water isn’t too chlorinated) and 125 grams flour (either unbleached bread or all-purpose) and stir well. Leave the lid ajar (so gases can escape) at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours before tightly covering the levain and returning it to the refrigerator.

14. If you bake regularly, feeding is simply part of preparing the levain for the bread, and no other feeding is necessary. You should always feed the levain several hours or the night before making bread, so replenish with the amount of levain the recipe calls for and you will maintain a constant supply of fresh levain with no effort.

15. Occasionally clean out your container with hot water (never soap) to remove the crud that forms on the sides.

16. If you want a stronger levain, leave it out overnight once in a while and feed with smaller “meals.”

17. You may see a puddle of liquid forming on top, a product of fermentation. It can simply be stirred back in, but when it accumulates too much, I like to pour it off. Weigh your levain beforehand and replace the discarded liquid with the same amount of water and flour (in a ratio of about 3 parts water to 1 part flour). Then feed as usual.

Peasant Bread
(Pain de Campagne)

1. At least 2 hours before beginning (you can do this the night before), feed the levain as follows: Remove from the refrigerator and add equal parts flour and room-temperature water (I use about 130 grams each, which replenishes what I’ll be using in the bread). Stir well, incorporating oxygen, and leave on the countertop with the cover slightly ajar. The starter should be bubbling and lively when you begin your bread.

2. Place a large mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and add each ingredient in turn, using the Tare button to zero out the scale between additions. Mix thoroughly with a wet hand until the dough is homogenous. Cover and leave the dough to autolyse for about 25 minutes.

3. Remove the dough to an unfloured countertop and knead by hand for 7 to 9 minutes (or if you insist, you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook for 2 to 3 minutes) until the dough is elastic and smooth. During the first minutes of kneading, a metal bench scraper is useful to scoop up the wet dough that clings to the countertop.

4. Clean out the bowl (no soap, please), mist with oil spray, and replace the dough, topping with a piece of oiled plastic wrap. Ferment at room temperature (68–72°F is ideal) for 4 to 5 hours.

5. Remove the dough, which should have risen by about half, to a lightly floured countertop and gently press into a disk about 1 inch high. Form a boule by gathering the sides into the center, creating surface tension, then place seam side up in a colander covered with a well-floured linen napkin. Return the plastic wrap atop the dough and set aside to proof. Meanwhile, place a pizza stone in the lower third of the oven and an old cast iron skillet or pan on the bottom shelf. Preheat the oven to at least 500°F.

6. After 1½ to 2 hours, carefully turn the loaf onto a baker’s peel that has been liberally sprinkled with rice flour or cornmeal. Sprinkle the top of the loaf with rye or rice flour (not white flour, which turns brown) to get that country “dusted” look.

7. Make several symmetrical slashes (grignes) with your lame or a single-edged razor.

8. Immediately slide the loaf onto the stone and add 1 cup water to the skillet (wear an oven mitt), minimizing the time the oven door is open. Reduce oven temperature to 480°F.

9. After 20 to 25 minutes, or when the loaf has turned dark brown, reduce oven temperature to 425°F.

10. Continue baking until the loaf registers 210°F in the center (about 50 to 60 minutes total) with an instant-read thermometer, or until a rap on the bottom of the loaf produces a hollow, drumlike sound. Return the bread to the oven, with the oven off, for about 15 minutes. Allow the bread to cool on a rack at least 2 hours before serving.

Pain au Levain Miche

This is a large (about three-pound) miche leavened only with the wild yeast levain that makes for a nice, yeasty loaf with plenty of character and chew.

Follow the recipe for Peasant Bread (pages 330–332) with the following differences:

1. Don’t be alarmed when this wet (70% hydration) dough flattens out on the peel; that’s the classic miche shape we want for this bread.

2. This is a very forgiving loaf. I usually use a 4-hour fermentation followed by a 2-hour proof, but when it fits my schedule better, a 2-hour fermentation followed by a 4-hour proof (or 3 and 3) seems to works equally well.

3. Follow steps 5–10 of the Peasant Bread instructions for baking, except extend the cooking time to 60 minutes or more, until the center of the loaf registers 210°F.

Baguette à l’Ancienne

In France, this bread would be known as a baguette à l’ancienne, a designation that refers loosely to an artisan baguette, often made with levain and/or a delayed fermentation, although less scrupulous bakers (yes, they are still around) have been known to dust a little flour on ordinary baguettes and pass them off as à l’ancienne. The recipe calls for fermenting the dough overnight in the refrigerator, but I’ve made these the same day using a four-hour refrigerated fermentation with little difference.

Makes 4 minibaguettes

1. Feed the levain the night before or at least 2 hours ahead.

2. Set a large bowl on a kitchen scale and add each ingredient in turn, using the Tare button to zero out the scale between additions. Mix thoroughly, cover, and autolyse for about 25 minutes.

3. Remove the dough to an unfloured countertop and knead by hand for 7 to 9 minutes.

4. Clean out the bowl (no soap), mist with oil spray, replace the dough, and cover with oil-misted plastic wrap. If you are doing an overnight fermentation, place the dough immediately in the refrigerator. For same-day baking, ferment the dough at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours, then ferment it in the refrigerator for an additional 4 hours.

5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and wait for the dough to reach room temperature, about 2 hours.

6. Place an old cast iron skillet on the bottom shelf of your oven and a pizza stone near the middle rack.

7. Preheat the oven to 500°F.

8. On a floured countertop, divide the dough into 4 equal parts of about 212 grams each (don’t go crazy trying to make them all exactly the same), gently shape into balls, and allow to rest, covered, for 15 minutes. (I sometimes omit this step if I’m in a hurry, but it does help to relax the dough for the next step.)

9. Press each ball into an approximately 3[H11003]5-inch rectangle, with the short side facing you. Fold the top third of the dough down toward you, press the edge to seal, flip the dough around 180 degrees to reverse the top and bottom, and fold the new top third down toward you, again sealing tightly, not unlike folding a letter for an envelope.

10. Fold once more, this time in half, in the same direction as before, as follows: Starting at one end of the loaf, make a deep indentation in the center of the dough with the side of your hand, using a tomahawk motion, while pulling the two sides up to meet, pinching them together, creating some surface tension. Continue moving down the loaf in this same manner, folding it in half, forming a nice, straight seam running the length of the dough. Pinch closed any gaps.

11. Now, starting with your hands together in the middle, start rolling the loaf back and forth, using a light touch, moving your hands outward as you roll. You should have nice little blisters or bubbles of gas in the dough—leave them!

12. Proof in a floured couche or between folds of parchment paper for 45 to 60 minutes.

13. With four baguettes to place into your oven, it’s sometimes easier to use a wide baking sheet rather than your peel. Sprinkle the sheet liberally with cornmeal or rice flour (or cover with parchment paper), transfer the baguettes to it (I use a narrow piece of ¼-inch plywood as a flipping board, but you can transfer them by hand as well), and make several overlapping diagonal slashes on each baguette with your lame or a single-edged razor.

14. Transfer the baguettes to the stone with a clean jerk back of the baking sheet. Quickly add 1 cup water to the skillet and reduce the oven temperature to 480°F.

15. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is a rich brown and the center registers 210°F.

16. Cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before serving.

Pain de l’Abbaye Saint-Wandrille

This is the recipe I improvised at the abbey to fit baking into the monks’ day of prayer, contemplation, and study. As I write this, two years later, the abbey fournil continues to turn out pain de l’abbaye three times a week.

Makes 6 bâtards

The night before baking, prepare the poolish:

1. Mix all the flours well, then make a poolish using:

1 kilogram of the flour mixture

1,300 grams water

30 grams of cake yeast (or 10 grams instant yeast)

2. Mix well and refrigerate, covered, overnight.

3. Feed the levain well, keeping in mind you will need half a kilo of it for the bread.

The next day, make the bread:

4. Remove the poolish and the levain from the refrigerator 2–3 hours before beginning.

5. Combine the rest of the flour mixture with the poolish, the levain, 1,030 grams water, 40 grams fresh yeast (or 13 grams instant yeast), and the salt.

6. After a 25-minute autolyse, knead until the dough is supple and elastic, then cover and ferment 2–3 hours.

7. Divide the dough into six approximately 1,100-gram portions and form bâtards using the method described for making baguette à l’ancienne (steps 8–11), but making them stubbier, about 12 inches long. Preheat the over to 500°F.

8. Proof the loaves in a floured couche for 1–2 hours and follow the instructions for baguettes (steps 13–16), baking at 480°F for about 35 minutes, until the loaves are a deep golden brown and 210°F at the center.