Polenta and Pepita Country Bread

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to keep trying with the very-wet category of bread dough. I’ve been open about my inability to bake ciabatta with a fabulous, holey structure. And, it’s not just ciabatta that flummoxes me. The basic country bread from Tartine Bread is also made with a very wet dough, and I’ve yet to create anything with big holes from that recipe either. The baking technique suggested in that book is the covered cast iron pot method. A proofed loaf goes into a hot cast iron pot, the pot is covered with a hot lid, and the moisture from the dough steams inside the pot as the bread begins to bake. I’ve had mixed results with that method in the past. On one occasion, the dough was just too wet, and the resulting baked loaf was a little soggy on the bottom. I made some changes to the dough, tried again, and this time, the cast iron pot baking method worked fine. To hedge my bets since this recipe makes two loaves, I actually baked one loaf in the cast iron pot and one directly on a baking stone. The loaf from the cast iron pot was the better of the two since the pot prevented the loaf from spreading. However, I still didn’t find those lovely, big holes in the crumb. Hence, I vowed my resolution to keep trying. In Tartine Bread, after introducing the basic country bread, there are a few variations including this polenta and pepita option. Soaked, coarse-grained polenta, toasted pepitas, and chopped fresh rosemary are added to the basic dough. It’s a chewy, hearty bread with a crunchy, dark crust.

I mentioned that I made a couple of changes this time. First, one of the suggestions for beginning the basic country loaf is to make a leaven using only a tablespoon of mature starter to prevent the resulting dough from having a too-sour flavor. My mature starter isn’t very sour in flavor, so I ignored that and just fed my starter as usual to use as the leaven for the dough. Next, the dough is suggested to be mixed by hand, but I used a stand mixer with a dough hook because it’s easier. The leaven was combined with water, white flour, and whole wheat flour and left for the autolyse. After about 20 minutes, another 50 grams of water was to have been added. Since my dough seemed extra wet last time, I skipped that additional 50 grams of water. Also after the autolyse, salt was added. Then, the dough was to have been placed in a bowl for the bulk fermentation with turns every half hour. The soaked polenta, toasted pepitas, chopped rosemary, and some corn oil were to have been added after the second turn. I followed those instructions when I made the flax and sunflower seed whole wheat bread, and it was difficult to get the seeds mixed into the dough at that point. So this time, I added the polenta, etc. in the mixing bowl along with the salt right after the autolyse. Then, I transferred the dough to a bowl to ferment for about four hours. It was turned in the bowl every 30 minutes. After four hours, the dough was transferred to a work surface and divided into two pieces. Each piece was shaped into a round, but the wet dough spreads easily so the rounds should be well-spaced apart. The rounds were left to rest for 30 minutes. Final loaf shapes were then formed, and towel-lined baskets were sprinkled with a mixture of rice flour and wheat flour before the loaves were placed in them. I opted for a delayed final rising of the dough by covering the proofing baskets and leaving them in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, I baked one loaf in a heated cast iron pan. After twenty minutes of baking, the lid was removed. I baked the other loaf on parchment, which made the wet dough easier to transfer from the peel, directly on a baking stone. The loaf on the stone spread more and browned more, and the cast iron pot method worked well.

What I’ve learned is that maybe sometimes a wet dough is just too wet. Skipping the additional water seemed to be a good thing with this version. I still haven’t learned how to get those lovely holes throughout a loaf, but hopefully if practice doesn’t make perfect it will eventually make better. Meanwhile, I had two big, round loaves of rustic, homemade bread full of crunchy pumpkin seeds and corn and rosemary flavors to enjoy.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

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Flax and Sunflower Seed Whole Wheat Bread

Of the bread baking books I’ve read, they all tend to stick to techniques and recipes for fermenting, proofing, shaping, and baking bread dough of various types. Each one offers a slightly varied approach or unique tips for these processes. I just recently read my review copy of Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread, and there was something different and kind of ingenious about this bread book. After all the the interesting tips and information about making a wild yeast starter and crafting dough and the different types of breads and how to bake them, there’s a section full of suggestions for using day old bread. Seeing several dishes made with bread made the thought of having a house full of home-baked loaves even more delightful. The various, seasonal kinds of bruschetta, sandwiches, uses of breadcrumbs and croutons, and the delicious photos of all those things give you one reason after the next to bake more bread. So, I just had to decide which bread to make first. The beginning of the book is devoted to describing how to make a basic country loaf, and then all of the other breads are some sort of variation on it. I was distracted at first by the brioche dough and the beignets made from it, but I chose to begin with a whole wheat bread packed with flax and sunflower seeds. If you don’t have a sourdough starter in your possession, Robertson suggests a simple enough way of making one, and he recommends feeding it with half white and half whole wheat bread flours. My starter is always fed with white bread flour, so I began by separating some starter and feeding it with the recommended mix of flours for a day before beginning this bread dough.

There were two key elements to the bread making process in this book. One of those was the baking method which I’ll explain more below, and the other was the goal of achieving a not so sour taste in the bread by only using a scant tablespoon of the mature starter when making the leaven. The night before the dough was to be made, one tablespoon of starter was mixed with warm water and white and whole wheat flours and left at room temperature until the next morning. For whole wheat dough, the leaven was then added to more warm water, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour, and it was mixed and left to rest for about an hour. Robertson explains that a whole wheat dough requires a longer rest after mixing that a white flour dough. After resting, salt was added, the dough was transferred to a clean bowl for the three hour bulk fermentation, and it was left until the turning began. Every 30 minutes, the dough was folded or “turned.” For the flax and sunflower seed bread variation, one cup of sunflower seeds was toasted, and one cup of flax seeds was soaked in boiling water. I would have expected the seeds to be added with the salt before the bulk fermentation began, but instead they were added after the second turn or one hour into it. Now, soaking the flax seeds causes them to become a little sticky and mixing all those little seeds into the dough takes a bit of squeezing and folding and mixing by hand. That seemed like a lot of working of the dough at that point of the bulk fermentation, so I may try adding them earlier next time. The next steps involved dividing the dough in two and giving both pieces a bench rest, and then each piece was shaped into a boule, rolled in one cup of raw sunflower seeds, and placed in bowls lined with towels that had been coated with all-purpose and rice flour for the final rise. I placed mine in the refrigerator for about twelve hours before baking. And, the baking involved that other interesting technique I mentioned. Rather than introducing steam in the oven with a spray bottle of water or by pouring water into a pan placed on the oven floor, a cast iron pan with a lid was used. The pan was heated in the oven with its lid, the dough was placed in the hot pan and carefully slashed, the lid was placed on top, and the bread began baking at 450 degrees F. After 20 minutes, the lid was removed, and the bread finished baking.

Because this was a rather wet dough, the lidded cast iron pan captured all the steam escaping from the dough as the bread baked and resulted in a crackly, crisp crust. My only disappointment was the lack of the open, holey crumb that I saw in other breads in the book. I suspect that was due to the bread being dense with seeds and the working of the dough in getting those seeds into it. Still, it was a nutty, flavorful bread that worked perfectly for sandwiches or simply toasted and slathered with butter. Now, I have more bread to bake so I can turn back to that last chapter of the book with all those ways of using it.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

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Zoë Francois, What Are You Reading?

Having trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Zoe Francois had already enjoyed a successful career as a pastry chef before she began writing cookbooks. She has also taught baking and served as a consultant to restaurants. In 2007, she and Jeff Hertzberg wrote their first book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day which made daily bread baking a doable task. Last year, their second book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, was released, and that applies the same principles from the first book to loaves made with whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. It even includes a chapter on gluten-free breads. They're currently busy working on a third book due out next fall, and that one will be Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day. You can keep up with Zoe and Jeff and find more information about their books and upcoming events by checking their site. I knew Zoe would have some interesting books to mention when I asked what are you reading?

Zoe:

Few places bring me as much joy as sitting at Tartine in San Francisco. Elizabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson have managed to infuse their passion into every aspect of the bakery. The result is exquisitely prepared pastries, breads, and tartines made from Chad’s loaves. Now, from my home in the Midwest, I can visit the bakery through their cookbooks. First I drooled over the pages of Elizabeth’s book on pastries, Tartine, and now I am doing the same with Tartine Bread, Chad’s heroic tome on breads. The book itself is gorgeous and exudes Chad’s love for the craft of bread baking.

The other book at my bedside is The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer. She writes about the seasonal cooking of Tuscany from a time when there was little choice but to cook what was grown locally. It wasn’t hip it was essential. The stories and recipes are old world and hearty. This book inspired me to make Fiori di Zucchini Ripieni (stuffed zucchini flowers) this summer and has me looking forward to roasting chestnuts with white wine. The book is part history lesson, part cookbook, and a glimpse at a Tuscan life.



Thank you for participating, Zoe. Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.

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