MaryinHammondsport and I agreed the other day that each of us would bake BBA's recipe for pain de campagne and then compare our results, since BBA lacks photos of cut slices or a description of the crumb. Well, Mary, once again, I produced a really delicious bread, but the crumb was still tight and the oven spring was minimal. I used rye flour instead of whole wheat. During the risings, my kitchen was about 80 degrees and the fermentations were a little on the quick side, but I followed the instructions to degas lightly if the dough was rising too quickly. As for shaping the bread (two batards), I really can't imagine how I could have degassed less and still have managed to shape loaves. The two loaves were about a foot long, 3 1/2 inches wide, and 2 inches tall. Sorry, no pictures. The battery in my camera seems to have died.

What I produced might just be the bread this recipe produces, because I swear I followed the recipe exactly. I didn't load the dough down with lots of extra flour, I handled the fermented dough with reverent gentleness, and I don't think I let it over-rise. I used an oven stone, the heat was as high as my oven will get, and I threw hot water into a heated cast-iron skillet at the bottom of my oven and sprayed the sides of the oven three times, as directed. I made three diagonal slashes per loaf. It may not have been the world's best scoring, but it was hardly butchery. 

Mary, I'm looking forward to your report.

Abby 

They are GOOD! I had made them before but the cinnamon bun version, however, the sticky buns are much better. I find this dough very nice to work with and the end result well worth the little effort they take. I just wanted to brag about a success after my recent rustic breads failures. LOL Yum! I have more on them on my blog, http://thymeforfood.blogspot.com/2008/05/bun-by-any-other-name.html

June

So, a couple of days ago I posted about my failure with the Brianna's Pugliese recipe in The Bread Bible.  It was just too wet and didn't have enough flour so it flopped. 

Today I'm making the BBA's Poolish Ciabatta recipe and gosh darn it's too dry!  I added a bit more water towards the end of the kneading but didn't make much difference.  I did a search here now and I see I'm not the only one having this problem with this particular recipe.

So, these rustic Italian breads are kicking my butt!  One's too wet, the other's too dry...perhaps the third will be just right? LOL

I will let you know how these ciabattas turn out!

June 

I've decided it's time to jump into breads, and what better way than BBA?  After reading most of the book I decided that this would be a great first bread to try.  I was SO happy with the flavor and the crumb; I've never ever made bread that tasted so good or had such a nice texture.  It really was "creamy and cool" just as it should be.  The crust even crackled as it was cooling!  How fun!!  Not bad for my first shot at "real" bread.

I think I could stand to make a slightly less hydrated dough next time (I think I added too much water, then was adding flour like mad to compensate) and gain some height without giving up the overall quality of the bread.  The bread spread out while shaping, causing me to curl it under a little, which created veins of uncooked flour on the undersides of some of the loaves.  A stiff brush removed most of it, but still, who wants a mouthful of flour?  If I can figure out how to use less flour without the dough sticking like crazy, I'd be set.  The excess flour burned up in the oven and I nearly smoked myself out of my kitchen.  I also need a much larger baking stone, as I could only fit two loaves at a time, which really lengthened the whole process.

I made the dough around 11 pm and took it out of the fridge at 9 am.  I put it in the oven a little after 12 (even though I wasn't sure it had actually doubled yet... I didn't want to overproof it and end up with even flatter dough...)  I tried to score the first two loaves with a lame, but that was hopeless.  I moved on to sharp scissors like the book suggests, and while that worked better, you could hardly see the cuts on the final loaves.  I skipped that step altogether on the last two loaves and it seemed to work out fine.  Maybe if I make the dough a little drier next time the slashing will work out as well.

Overall I'm really, really happy with these, especially since it was my first try.  It was absolutely the best tasting bread I've ever made.  I can't wait for my whole wheat starter to be ready so I can get going on some of the recipes in his Whole Grains book as well!

I got my copy of the BBA about two weeks ago, and it's been really great, I read through it in just two days and have started trying out various recipes and techniques, Here are some pics of the results, I have been very very happy with them all so far, and below are actually shots of my first attempts at each recipe :)

- Here is a Boule and a Tabatiere made with the Pain de Campagne recipe

- Here is an Epi and Fougasse with the same recipe (Same dough too actually)

- Here is the crumb from the Epi, it was crispy and delicious

- and a crumb shot of the Tabatiere, it was soft and very springy, the crust was excellent

- and finally some Pain a l'Ancienne from last week, it was excellent though my oven was being a little wonky at the time, so it's not as good as it could have been, (And will be next week ;) )

Last night and this morning's bread was a foccaccia made from Peter Reinhart's pain a l'Ancienne:

I made the dough last night, replacing about 20% of the four with King Arthur's white white whole wheat (a entirely whole wheat flour that's lighter in color and flavor because of the kind of wheat used). I used King Arthur bread flour for the rest. It's an extremely wet dough; the water weight is fully 80% of the weight of the flour.

I poured the dough into a half-sheet pan and pressed it gently into the corners, spreading it liberally with oregano olive oil. (I had pooled some on the bottom of the pan first, so it's olive oil-y all over). It baked at 450 for about 17 minutes, and came out a lovely golden brown.

It's got fairly large, even holes, an almost chewy texture, and a lot of flavor. I'm going to have to try baguettes from this same some time soon.

I just got Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and intend to make many of his breads over the next few weeks. It's slightly unfortunate timing, since it'll be Passover in a month and then summer in a few more weeks (I'll wait, impatiently, until fall to put up a sourdough starter), but that just means I need to make as much bread as possible each weekend.

My first loaf was the pane siciliano, made with semolina flour. The nine-year-old promptly dubbed it "the best bread I've even tasted;" he'll be getting sandwiches made from the batard loaf this week. I'm going to try adding some whole grain flour to the recipe in the future.

I made a triple batch of his pate fermente on Thursday. One pound went into this bread; the other two are frozen for future use. The bread dough is made with the pre-ferment, high-gluten bread flour, semolina flour -- the nubby kind you make pasta out of -- a little honey and olive oil, salt, yeast and water. I kneaded, fermented, and shaped on Friday. It was an extremely flexible dough, stretching out like a baguette with no springing back at all. It went into the fridge overnight to proof. (I was out of sesame seeds, and the nine year old doesn't like them anyhow.)

I baked it this morning in a very steamy oven. (I preheated the oven to 550 degrees, with a cast iron skillet on the floor. I poured in simmering water and closed the door quickly, twice. The oven was incredibly steamy, despite no additional misting of water). When the bread went in, I turned the heat down to 450. After 15 minutes, I separated the breads, because they were touching; ten minutes later, they were done (205+ on the thermometer.)

Unanimous verdict? Yum.

For next time:

• Try replacing about a third of the flour in the pre-ferment with King Arthur white whole whole wheat.

• The batard loaf is a little small for sadwiches;maybe make one large batard and one spiral next time? It also should probably be slashed; it split some on the side.

• After 15 minutes in the oven, take the bread off the pan entirely and put them directly on the rack. The middle load stayed white and soft on the sides because they didn't get enough direct heat.

I have to start off by saying that this was a very rewarding learning experience and I hope to be able to articulate some of what I learned by making this miche.

I'm a novice baker who makes sandwich-style loaves for the household (and occasionally a free-formed loaf for special occasions), but this is my first challah and braided loaf. I used the Challah recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Hello everyone,

I have never made the French bread in the BBA, so I thought I'd try it. After trying so many unusual or specialty breads, I wanted to go back to a classic. This version uses pate fermentee (sorry, I'm not conversant enough in HTML or whatever it'd take to include the correct French accent marks), risen a bit at room temperature, then put into the fridge overnight. The dough is made the next day. I did three stretch and fold cycles at 30 minute intervals during a 2-hour fermentation. The proof after shaping was about 50 minutes.