The Essential Book of Fermentation (41 page)

The bread should bake at 500ºF for 15 minutes. Then turn the oven temperature down to 350ºF for another 30 minutes. At that time, your bread should be done. Slide the peel under each loaf and remove it from the oven. Turn it upside down and thump the bottom. It should sound hollow. Set the breads right side up to cool on racks. Round wire-mesh pizza baking screens are ideal, as they let cool air surround the loaves and let them cool evenly. Set the pizza screens atop bowls so air can circulate freely.

Allow the loaves to cool completely before placing them in plastic bags to freeze. When you want to use them, thaw them out at room temperature in their plastic bags.

You may find that you have room for only 1 round or 2 long loaves on your stone. If so, do consecutive bakes. Bake 1 round loaf or 2 narrow loaves as above, allowing the remaining dough to rest in its basket or in the couche. When the first bake is done, turn the oven back up to 500ºF and wait 15 minutes before beginning the second bake, which is done just like the first.

You’ll find these loaves have a beautiful crust and an internal structure full of holes, with a slightly translucent, stretchy, deliciously chewy texture. The whole wheat, rye, and oats give real flavor to plain white flour. You’ll also notice with pleasure that this bread will last for days and days without getting stale.

Many variations are possible. Using more whole wheat will give a denser and more nutritious loaf. More rye flour gives you a heavier rye bread (and stickier dough to work with). Black walnut meats, if freshly shelled and full of aromatics, are wonderful in bread. Hickory nutmeats are even better. Oil-cured olives, pitted and roughly chopped, may be added for little flavor bursts. Garlic cloves can be roughly chopped and added. Fennel seeds, caraway seeds for the rye, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and other seeds will give a chewier texture and varying flavor layers. But before you start experimenting with additions, perfect your basic bread as given in the recipe above.

Easy Homemade Bread

This recipe was devised by Jim Lahey at Sullivan St Bakery in Manhattan. It produces great bread for very little work. You will need a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven with a cast-iron lid to make it, though. Don’t forget to supercharge your starter for bread baking starting three days before baking day (see instructions
here
). Make this dough before going to bed and it will be ready for subsequent steps and baking when you get home from work the next day.

Makes one 24-ounce loaf

3 cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon active dry yeast or ½ cup of
your own starter

1½ teaspoons sea salt

Cornmeal as needed

1.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, yeast or starter, and salt together. Add 1
⁵⁄
₈cups of water, and if you are using the starter that you’ve supercharged for bread baking, you can omit the yeast or use just a sprinkle. Stir until it makes a shaggy, sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside on the kitchen counter at about 70ºF for about 18 hours. The dough will be ready when it’s dotted with bubbles.

2.
Lightly flour a board or work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Sprinkle the dough lightly with flour, then fold it over on itself once or twice, leaving it seam side down. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes.

3.
Place a clean cotton or linen dish towel on the work surface and put a generous amount of cornmeal on it where the dough will sit and rise. Flour your hands, or wet them, and quickly shape the dough into a ball and place it seam side down on the cornmeal. Dust the top of the dough with a little more cornmeal and cover it with another clean dish towel. Let it rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

4.
Make sure the oven rack is placed so there’s enough room to accommodate the Dutch oven with its lid on. Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Place the empty covered Dutch oven on the rack while the oven heats.

5.
When the dough has risen sufficiently and the pot is thoroughly hot in the oven, pull out the rack and remove the pot lid. Slide your hand under the dish towel and turn the dough upside down into your other hand, quickly brushing off some of the loose cornmeal, then place the dough in the pot seam side up. Immediately cover it with the lid and slide the pot back into the oven on its rack, closing the oven door.

6.
Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 15 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is browned to your liking. Using two spatulas, lift the finished bread from the pot and set it on a rack to cool.

For Rye Bread

Substitute ½ cup of rye flour for ½ cup of the all-purpose flour.

Rustic Whole Wheat Bread

Some people say that whole wheat bread won’t yield that chewy, rustic look because the bran edges slice the gluten into small fragments and you lose that stretchy texture. This recipe, inspired by Amy Scherber’s golden loaves at Amy’s Bread in New York City, turns that notion on its head and adds more bran to the dough. It’s a slack dough and wonderfully tasty. Since it takes about five or more hours with several rises, this bread is best made when you plan to be home for most of the day.

Makes 2 loaves

1 teaspoon dry yeast or ½ cup of
your own starter

2½ cups whole wheat flour

1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup wheat bran

1 tablespoon sea salt

Olive oil or nonstick vegetable spray

Cornmeal as needed

1.
Place the yeast or starter in a small bowl and add ½ cup lukewarm water. Stir until dissolved. If using starter, make sure it’s been supercharged (see directions
here
) for bread baking.

2.
In a medium bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, bran, and salt. Add the starter or dissolved yeast and 2 cups of cool filtered water or spring water. Use a flexible plastic spatula to mix these ingredients into a homogenous loose mass. Wet your hands and knead the mass in the bowl for about 2 minutes, adding another tablespoon or two of cool water as needed. The dough will be powerfully sticky so you might want to remove your rings before kneading.

3.
Coat the inside of a large bowl with olive oil or nonstick vegetable spray and set the bowl aside. Very lightly flour a board and turn the dough onto it. Knead for 3 to 4 minutes, until the dough is smooth, using as little flour as possible. A pastry scraper helps get all the sticky dough off the board when you’re turning it, but you can use a regular metal spatula, too. Place the kneaded dough back into the medium bowl and cover loosely with oiled or sprayed plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes.

4.
Return the dough to the lightly floured board and knead for 6 to 7 minutes. The dough should be silky soft and loose. Placed the dough into the large oiled bowl, cover the top loosely with oiled plastic wrap, and set aside in the warm kitchen for 1 hour.

5.
At the end of the hour, punch down the dough and bring the ends together. Turn it upside down so the seam is down and let rise another hour, covered loosely with oiled plastic wrap.

6.
At the end of this second hour, punch it down again and repeat the folding and turning. Cover with plastic wrap as before. Let it rise for about 90 minutes, then poke the dough gently with a finger. It’s fully risen when the indentation doesn’t spring back.

7.
If you have a baking stone, place it on a middle rack in the oven. Place a small cast-iron skillet or cornbread mold on the lowest rack. No need to heat just yet. Sprinkle cornmeal onto a large baker’s peel, or if you don’t have one, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Shape them with your hands into slightly flattened balls and set them on the peel or baking sheet at least 4 or 5 inches apart. Cover with oiled plastic wrap, as before, and allow them to rise for another 90 minutes. At the 60-minute mark during this last rise, preheat the oven to 450ºF.

8.
Using a razor blade, very sharp knife, or lame, quickly slice a shallow 3-slice star pattern in the top of each loaf.

9.
Have 8 ice cubes ready. Open the oven door and place the ice cubes in the skillet or a cube in each of the 8 sections of the cornbread mold. Slide the loaves onto the stone or place the baking sheet with the unbaked loaves on the rack. Quickly close the door. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 375ºF. Bake another 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown and the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Loaves baked on the baking sheet will take a few minutes longer than loaves baked on the hot baking stone. Cool on a wire rack.

A Kefir Starter for a Sour Loaf

Once you have your kefir grains, you have a daily supply of kefir, and when breadmaking time comes around, you can use kefir as a starter. It’s extra nutritious and gives the bread a new layer of tempting aroma—as if bread needed any. Substitute 1 cup of rolled oats and 1 cup of rye flour for 2 cups of the all-purpose flour for richer-tasting loaves. You can try this starter exactly like a starter made from wild microbes from the air, or as you would use yeast from a packet. This recipe yields enough starter for 3 or 4 loaves made from 8 cups of all-purpose flour. Prepare this starter in the evening before the day when you’ll be making bread.