Evelyne, Thomas' mom, has been experimenting with the no-knead bread for almost as long as the craze started. She went through a period during which she was using my starter and then decided to simplify and use dry yeast. Lately she has been making baguettes by dividing her dough in half and cooking the loaves for only 30 minutes (note that she always makes a very dry dough, that can be shaped not the usual spongy/wet dough). Without the benefit of the dutch oven she had great results with the "mie" (the center of the bread) but could not form a crispy crust. It got me thinking... Pre-no-knead bread I used to bake recipes from two beautiful books: Baking with Julia written by Dorie Greenspan and The Bread Baker's Apprentice By Peter Reinhart. In at least one of those two volumes they recommend placing a cast iron pan in the bottom of the oven as it warms up and pouring a cup of water in the pan as soon as you add the bread to the oven. I did just that today, leaving the water to boil and steam until about 2 minutes before removing the loaves. My dough has been getting drier and drier too, maybe it's the high altitude but it seems to improve the taste and texture of the bread every time. I do not follow a strict recipe but always seem to add about 1/3 of a cup of starter 1.5 cups of water about 1 tablespoon of coarse salt ( maybe more) and 3.5 to 4 cups of flour depending on how wet the dough looks after mixing. I use a two third to three quarter ratio of white flour to all wheat, using the 3/4 for the baguettes. The convection oven set at 450 might be a tad high for 30 minutes. I need to adjust the baking time or temperature. I ended up taking the loaves out early.
Regardless of the time spent in the oven, the baguettes may have been the best we ever had, a perfect replica of what the French call "baguette tradition". I attempted an "épi" version (the zig zag you see above) but it did not turn out quite right. I need to go back to the books and see how to slice the dough. When done correctly you can just pull pieces of bread off with your hands from what looks like grains of wheat. Another batch is planned for tomorrow, a second chance at getting the shape right for a testing by another French bread baker friend of mine... the pressure's on!
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