My wife and I took our two children (12 and 10) to Venice and Florence recently. It was our kids' first trip to Europe and they loved it! While in Florence we had some pretty fantastic food. The local Tuscan bread, of course, is unique in that it is baked without salt. It turns out this suits the local cuisine because the people of Tuscany have many very flavorful dips and toppings for their bread.

One of the better things they do with "Pane Toscano" is use it in soups. One of the signature bread soups of Tuscany is Ribollita, a hearty vegetable soup made with white beans, cabbage, kale, and chard. Stale bread is added to the soup and the next day it is re-boiled (ribollita means re-boiled), yielding a soul-warming porridge. The locals drizzle their finest extra virgin olive oil on a bowl of Ribollita and dig in.

When we returned home, inspired by our recent trip I baked some Pane Toscana (Daniel Leader's version) and used it to make a big batch of Ribollita. The recipe was Giuliano Bugialli's from his book "Foods of Tuscany". Well, for a brief moment my family and I were transported back to Mamma Gina's trattoria in Florence!

I'm sorry I have no photos. This "food of poverty" is a great example of how the most humble ingredients can be transformed into something truly extraordinary.

Cat and I decided to go for a hike yesterday on Mount Sutro, the wooded mountain in the middle of San Francisco.  Since we knew we’d be in for some calorie-burning, we stopped on the way at our neighborhood pizzeria, Pizzetta 211, a tiny place that is often rated as the best in the City.  Cat had a bacon and butternut squash pie with chipotle crème fraiche.  I had one with homemade sausage, radicchio and Gruyere.  Sorry, I didn't have my camera along.

Though the toppings on their pizzas are often unusual (e.g., Pancetta, farm-fresh eggs, fingerling potato slices and sage), and always delicious, what makes their pizza so great is the perfect thin crust—tender but firm in the middle and super crispy around the crown.  It’s also a really friendly place, staffed with latter-day hippies who are very serious about their ingredients.

As we were finishing up, and resisting the ginger cake and apple tart, I asked the fellow who was clearing our table what flour they used in the dough.  He told me they used Giusto Baker’s Choice, an all purpose flour, and asked if we had other questions.  Since he seemed to want to chat, and since I’ve always wanted to make pizza like theirs, I told him I’d love to watch their dough-making process some time.  He didn’t invite me to do so, but he launched into a lengthy discussion of their dough-making process.  From the conversation, he gathered that I knew a thing or two—but not three—about making pizza, and his explanations were sophisticated and enlightening.  Turns out he’s the founder of the place and the pizza master. 

I won’t go into all the details here, but—in short—he starts with a sort of poolish, about 90% hydration with cool water, then adds the remaining flour gradually during a 30 minute slow-speed mix.  He didn’t know the hydration; he mixes by feel.  The dough is then refrigerated overnight, punched down and scaled in the morning and put back in the fridge until used; they’re shaped right out of the fridge.  This seems like a pretty novel approach, one he developed over many years of experimentation.

He told me a modified—simpler—recipe is on Sunset.com (http://www.sunset.com/food-wine/techniques/pizza-00400000063254/), but it’s worth it to experiment with different hydrations, different mixing times and different retardation times, until we get it like we like it.

I will start these experiments soon.

As for my own baking, it’s mostly been repeats of favorites lately, after several weeks of pastry and bagel trials.

Last week I made double knot rolls and sandwich buns from the ITJB Honey-Whole Wheat Challah.

And yesterday I made a couple half-kilo boules of Tartine Basic Country Bread, with my usual twists (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24002/my-variations-tartine-basic-country-bread–-more-whole-wheat-smaller-loaves-and-half-retar).  I retarded half the dough and baked two more today.

Happy Baking!

Glenn

I have been working through an abundance of whole rye flour and strong bread flour lately so I’ve dropped anchor in the sourdough rye section of Hamelman’s Bread.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind this week so I picked two.  First was the Whole-Rye and Whole-Wheat Bread, baked pretty much by the book.  Next was the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts.  I turned that one into something a little different.

This is my second try at the whole-rye and whole-wheat bread.  The first one was terrible.  I didn’t take enough care with the fermentation at any stage and paid the price.  At least I learned my lesson.  This time it turned out much, much better.  I made two changes to the book version – I left out the yeast (and so increased the ferment times) and I changed the bake temps, starting hotter at 500ºF and ending cooler at 425ºF.

I was happy with the result, but I don’t think this will be one of my favorites.  The flour proportions (25% rye, 25% ww, 50% bread flour) kind of leave it in no-man’s-land to my taste.  I think I would prefer it if one of the elements would stand out more.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve been baking more rye lately and my taste is leaning in that direction. 

Then came the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts… without walnuts… but with other stuff.  This turned into a big pile of pecans and cranberries (sweetened and dried from the store) wrapped in rye bread.  Oh, yum.  The dough is 50% whole rye as in the book, though I left the yeast out of this one as well.  The pecans are a bit over 20% the weight of the flour and the cranberries about 10%.  Beyond that it pretty much speaks for itself.

Though fairly dense from all the rye and nuts and berries,  there is enough bread flour to keep it soft.  Just add butter and breakfast is served!

Marcus

350 ml of water
3 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch FLOUR
1 tablespoon vinegar (20%)
3 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
800 gram flour
20 grams of yeast

In yeast +
Preparation of yeast, 1-2 days before cooking.
yeast:
140 ml of water
150 grams of flour
1 tablespoon oil
½ teaspoon salt
20 grams of yeast

... and now for something different.

We helped celebrate a good friends birthday last night––the same person who I have recently started baking a weekly sourdough loaf for :)

She asked if I could supply enough bread for the party to cater 30 guests. My first thoughts … ‘that this would be a bake worlds away from whole grains, fresh milled flour and natural levains’. I was given free range of what I could bake, and as much as I would of loved to have left a giant miche in the middle of the table, I knew I had to bake for a wider audience. The party was a barbeque with lots of fresh salads and spit-roasted meat––bread rolls were an essential compliment to the meal. I thought it might be fun to also include some bread which could be torn and used to mop up any remaining sauce left on the plate.

I initially thought ‘white bread rolls’, but after reading through Tartine Bread I became hooked on the idea of using brioche dough as a wonderfully decadent barbeque bun. My go-to brioche formula is from Richard Bertinet’s book, Crust. It is very rich, slightly sweet and uses an overnight rest in the fridge, making scheduling a breeze.

In addition to the brioche, I wanted the ‘other’ bread to be able to mop up the leftovers or be used to build extravagant sandwiches. Ciabatta! My favourite ciabatta formula comes from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking courtesy of Craig Ponsford. It has a wonderful flavour from a biga fermented for 24 hrs prior to mixing. But mixing is hardly the right word. Really the ingredients are brought together with a minimal short mix then strengthened via stretch and folds through the bulk ferment.

Preparing biga

Arteries beware
  

… after breakfast, (24 hrs before bake day) I mixed the biga including freshly milled grains and a tiny amount of yeast.

That night I prepared the brioche dough. I find it’s best not to think too deeply about the amount of eggs and butter you are about to use … artery hardening :) yikes!!

The eggs, sugar and flour were autolysed for 45 mins before adding the yeast and kneading (slap and fold) for 5 mins. I incorporated the salt and kneaded a further 10 mins until the dough window-paned. Then came a further 30 mins of kneading as I incorporated the butter … this is a slow and ponderous task. It literally feels like one step forward and two steps backward with each addition of butter. In the end you are rewarded with the silkiest, smoothest dough imaginable. It was then bulk fermented for two hours with one stretch and fold before being placed in the refrigerator for an overnight rest. Ahhhh …

The next morning the biga was still not at a stage I was happy with (temperature had dropped during the rainy night) so I delayed the start of the ciabatta mix (and started a hybrid sourdough version as an experiment … I will post on this soon). I also removed the brioche dough from the fridge and allowed it an hour at room temperature before dividing and shaping. The brioche dough proved for two and a half hours. It was egg-washed, sprinkled with sesame seeds and set to bake for thirty minutes until the centre buns began to brown sufficiently. 

A sniff of the biga let me know it was ready and I set to work on the ciabatta. At first it seems hard to believe that the wet slops will strengthen with stretch and folds to a cohesive mass that can roughly hold its shape.

After a 2.5 hr bulk ferment the ciabattas were shaped with a quick letter fold before being placed seam side down on a floured teatowel to prove for 45 mins … then flip, slide, dimple and peeled into a very hot oven until well browned.

The breads were well received by all, with the hit of the night being the brioche burger buns. Their rich interiors and fine golden crumb provided more than enough sustenance for the hard working chefs. Heard on the rumor mill during the night - “Nat only wants me for my buns” :)

The ciabatta crumb was creamy and delicate encased in a thin caramel crust with the aroma of the biga in every bite. It was a pleasure to watch it being enjoyed by so many.

All the best,
Phil