, I didn’t have good luck with the first two breads I tried. Maybe I chose poorly and should have started with less fussy varieties, but the efforts weren’t completely wasted. I became more familiar with pre-ferments and how chilling them overnight before mixing them into a dough develops flavor. Flavor was definitely not a problem with those first two breads, but I decided to take a break from ciabatta and pugliese and attempt Kaiser rolls. I wanted to jump right in and order a Kaiser roll stamp to make the distinctive cuts in the tops of the rolls, but given my track record with this book, I decided to wait and see how the first batch went before buying a special tool. The stamp makes the pinwheel cuts with one press. There’s also an alternative suggested in the book which involves making a knotted kind of roll that looks similar. I decided to just make multiple cuts in a pinwheel pattern using a lame. The rolls turned out fine, so I’ll have to order the stamp for next time.Once again, a pre-ferment, this time a pate-fermentee, was mixed and chilled in the refrigerator overnight. The pate-fermentee was brought up to room temperature and then mixed into a dough with flour, salt, barley malt syrup, yeast, an egg, vegetable oil, and water. The dough was kneaded and then fermented for two hours. It was divided into eight pieces which were left to relax for ten minutes before shaping each into a Kaiser roll with pinwheel cuts on top. Then, oddly enough, each roll was placed top side down on a semolina-dusted baking sheet. The pretty, swirly cuts were smashed. That just seemed wrong. After 45 minutes, the rolls were flipped cut side up, and I ended up re-cutting the swirls into most of them. They proofed for another 30 minutes while the oven warmed. Then, I had some questions. The rolls pictured in the book have glossy tops that I assumed could only be achieved with an egg wash. However, the instructions for pre-baking were to simply mist with water and sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. I proceeded with just water and sprinkled poppy seeds. That was question one. Question two was why was the oven spritzed with water after loading the rolls? Steam produces a crispy crust and these should have been tender and shiny rather than crisp. So, as suspected, water on the rolls and water spritzed in the oven resulted in crisp surfaced rolls that were perfectly fine and tasty but completely lacking gloss, and next time I will try an egg wash and no water sprayed in the oven.
I’ve been baking from the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book since earlier this year, and at this point, I’ve made a few of the dough recipes more than once. For instance, I’ve practically memorized the bagel recipe I’ve made that one so many times. But, now that I’ve worked with the rustic bread dough a second time, I think it might be my favorite so far. It’s a very wet and sticky dough, and it seems like it’s going to be nothing but a mess until it comes out of the oven with a crisp crust and chewy, open interior full of fresh-baked, sourdough flavor. In the book, Silverton describes what the dough should feel like after it has proofed for two hours: ‘it should feel soft and alive.’ It did feel alive in that the dough was so tender, you could tell it was going to get bubbly, and it seemed full of energy. There are a few recipes in the book that use this dough, and these bread sticks are one of them. Kurt was in need of some kind of bread to take to a company potluck lunch, and I thought that bread sticks might be more fun than dinner rolls. I was also inspired by some parmesan and poppy seed bread twists I saw in Gourmet magazine a few months ago, so I added those toppings to these.
This particular dough is possibly the quickest one to make in the La Brea book. Water, sourdough starter, half of a fresh yeast cake, and bread flour were mixed with a dough hook in a stand mixer and then left to sit for 20 minutes. Then, salt was added and mixed into the dough. Some milk, olive oil, and a little more water were stirred together in a bowl before being slowly added to the dough while the mixer was running on low speed. The dough was very wet and sloshy at this point, and it was necessary to continue mixing slowly until it came together a bit. Finally, it was mixed at higher speed until all the liquid was fully incorporated. At that point, the dough was left in the bowl of the mixer, was covered with plastic wrap, and fermented for two hours. After fermenting, the dough was quickly turned out onto a very well-floured surface, and by quickly turned out, I mean plopped because there really is no shaping to be done with this dough. It just is what it is. I sort of pulled it into a rectangular-ish shape. The dough was sprinkled with more flour, covered with a towel, and was left to proof until it felt ‘alive’ which was an additional two hours. Some bubbles were forming, and the dough was otherwise smooth and lovely. I chose to brush the top with olive oil and then distribute grated parmesan and poppy seeds. Now, the goal was to cut approximately one-inch wide pieces and then stretch them as they were dropped onto a semolina-dusted, parchment-lined baking sheet. Well, this dough being what it was, I cut more or less around an inch-or-so-wide pieces, tried to pick them up and place them on the sheet without turning them into jump ropes, and then dropped them while attempting to twist the dough a little as it fell. They were rustic but no less delicious for it.
The bread sticks baked at 450 F with some water spritzing of the oven during the first five minutes and were golden and crisp after a total of 25 minutes. Kurt was happy to take these for his potluck lunch, and he was even happier that I set a few aside to keep at home. All of the other breads from this book have been great too, but there’s something about this dough that makes it special. I have a feeling I’ll eventually memorize this recipe.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
It had been a month since I’d last used my starter. Is it weird that I’ve gotten to where I worry about it and whether or not it might be getting bored? To make sure it would have a lot of fun for this round of baking, I chose a bread that relies entirely on the starter for its leavening. No additional commercial yeast was added as it sometimes is with the other breads I’ve been baking. Once again from the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book, this seeded sourdough was named for the head baker who developed it. It’s a multigrain bread but isn’t dense or heavy, and it’s crusted on top with a combination of seeds. The use of quinoa, millet, and amaranth is what made me want to try this. It sounded like a delicious and healthy mix of grains, but I began this recipe, as I do all bread recipes, with uncertainty, fear, and hope.
This was a two-day preparation. At the end of day one, the dough was to rest for seven hours, so I planned for that refrigerated resting time to begin just before I went to bed. First, a sponge was made with starter, milk, whole-wheat flour, rye flour, and white bread flour. That was left for three hours. The sponge was then combined with quinoa, millet, amaranth, poppy seeds, and more bread flour. All of that was mixed in a stand mixer with a dough hook, and then sea salt was incorporated. The dough was a little sticky, as it was supposed to be, but it was easy enough to knead it on a floured surface. After kneading for a few minutes, it began its seven hour chilled resting time.
The next morning, the dough was removed from the refrigerator and allowed to come to room temperature. It was then cut into two pieces which were left to rest for 15 minutes. A combination of amaranth, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, anise seeds, and fennel seeds was spread on a baking sheet. Each piece of dough was to have been formed into a football shape. Yes, I know what a football ball is. However, I failed a little at this shaping step, and I’m going to blame this on the fact that I have no interest in the sport of football. Maybe in my mind, the shape of a football is a little longer and thinner than regulation size. The shaped or mis-shaped loaves were then spritzed with water from a water bottle and rolled in the seeds, and I had no problem with with that step. The seeded loaves then sat, top-side down, on a baking sheet topped with a floured cloth with some of the cloth pinched up between the loaves to keep them separated. They were covered with another floured cloth, and then all was slid into a plastic trash bag where they proofed for three to four hours. I really hoped this would be the only time these loaves would see the inside of a trash bag.
The usual oven technique was used again here. It was heated to 500 degrees F, spritzed with water, the loaves were removed from their trash bag shroud and slashed on top, they were slid onto a baking stone with a peel, and the oven was turned down to 450 degrees F. In the next five minutes, the oven was water spritzed two more times, and then the loaves were left to bake for 20 minutes. They had become well-browned on the bottom in that time, so I moved them up to a middle rack for the final 10 minutes of baking.
My finished bread was nicely burnished and well-crusted. As I mentioned, they were longer than a football and therefore not as tall as they might have been. I fretted for a couple of hours, with a complete lack of confidence that the inside would seem right, while they cooled. Then, finally, I picked up my bread knife and with a here goes nothing, I cut into a loaf and was pleasantly surprised. Just as the bread had been described in the recipe’s intro, it was lighter than most multigrains. The inside was moist with a fairly open texture. I tasted a slice and understood right away why Silverton raved about using this bread for a turkey sandwich. The flavor of the grains and the sourdough with the crunchy crust would make this a fantastic sandwich bread. I was so proud of my starter and what it had achieved, and I’m curious what wonders it will produce next.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
