bba pain de campagne

I enjoy reading here at TFL. So much information, like all experts around the world is here. I finally decide to post today because I am so excited about my new customized kneading board and have to share my happiness!
My kitchen has two commercial grade huge sinks installed. Usually I bake at the island area which has one of the sinks. However, I often feel that the space is not enough on the island b/c the sink has taken up so much. So I figured that the only thing I can do is to cover the sink area (which is >50 inches wide and 20 inches long) with a kneading board while baking and put it away when I am done. However, there is no prebuilt kneading board that can fit my needs on the market. I tried several customizing sites and their price is sky high for me. Finally, I found a site and got a great deal! The guy did a wonderful job! The material is not too heavy but super sturdy. Two lips under the board stabilized it right on top of my sink. He chose a different color for the lips which adds elegancy to the board. I can slide it to right if I need to use the faucet. The surface of the board is just right for kneading dough. Not like my granite countertop, too slippery after I dust with flour. Once I am done baking, simply scrape everything into the sink and put the board away! Heaven!
This is the island area. It's double sinks with a draining area on the right which has a slight angle so water will run into sink.
Because of the bases of faucet, soap dispensers, and the button for disposer, there is only 1" of space left for the kneading board to rest.   Since someone asked about the sinks, it's this1 and this2.

The lips of the board uses a different kind of wood which adds 'spices' to it.

I can put the board on the left of the sink.

Or to the right if I need to use the faucet.

Tones of space for my baguettes dough

See the height of the board is close to the handle of the faucet.
In case you are curious, that little 'cylinder' is used to estimate how much the dough has risen. I put a tiny piece
of dough from the baguette dough into it and ferment at the same condition. Works like a charm!That flour wand is also very helpful. Never too much flour again! 

Ok, back to my baguettes. I am picky about baguettes that have thin crust, chewy but still soft and moist crumb, beautiful ears (from scoring the dough), and a little sourness. Who doesn't? Unfortunately, I don't have a steam oven. So I use lava stones to create steam. So far so good. Very good steam! The crust is pretty thin. But I need to work on my scoring.
Poolish (or I use my SD starter 600g):French Flour 300gwater 300ginsant yeast 1g Ferment at R.T until bubbling. Usually takes 6-8 hours for me. Then refrigerated overnight.Final dough:All poolishFrench Flour 700gWater 450ginstant yeast 1 tspsalt 21gdiastatic malt powder 1tspI use mixer gentally mixed everything into a wet ball. lowest speed maybe for a minute or so. Then ferment at R.T. (about 65F here). 30min S/F 2x30min S/F/2x30min S/F/1x1hour S/F/1x..........continue to S/F every 1 hour until my small cylender (see picture below) becomes 3 fold (grow from 10 to 30)sometimes when it's 2 fold, I put it into refrigerator until next evening then continue below.split to 4 equal dough, preshape, relax for 30minshape into baguettes, rise for 1 hourpreheat oven with stone and lava rock to 290C (500F)bake for 20min at 240C, 10 min with steam.I have used several kinds of flour from King Arthur. But as you can guess, the best texture comes using their

'French style' flour. But that flour is SOOOOOO expensive!

This is BBA's Pain de Campagne. I mixed in some pumpernickel flour so it's color gets tiny dark.

 

Hope you like my first post on TFL !!!

 

This bread ended up being somewhat abused, but it still turned out very tasty and nice looking! I had planned out the day and while I had a meeting at school, that I was expecting to take quite a bit of time, things still ended up funky. My best estimate for when I would get home left the dough for this bread with about 2 to 3 hours left on the bulk ferment. As it turned out, I had to have my mom give the dough a quick stretch and fold for me and stick it in the fridge. But of course then things started moving fast, so it never should have gone in the fridge...

Why don't we go back to the start... The recipe for Pain de Campagne in the Bread Baker's Apprentice calls for a pate fermente, however, as I am wont to do, decided to make it as a sourdough (my first time making this recipe too, I always tell people not to do that). So I started the recipe out with a sourdough adaptation of the pate fermente, added some of my starter and subtracted an equivalent amount of water and flour from the recipe. I keep a stiff starter these days, I've found it easier to keep, work with, and get the flavor I want than a liquid starter like I used to have. Usually I put the starter in the water for the recipe and mix it fairly thoroughly to get a milky looking fluid with small bits of dough still in it.

Well, the next step is obviously to mix those ingredients together! I gave them a quick mix with my dough whisk, scraped the dough down into the bowl and left it to rest for 10-20 minutes. Not quite an autolyse since the dough has salt and wild yeast, but I find it still helps to make the dough more evenly hydrated and develop the gluten.

After the rest, time to turn it out and give it a quick kneading to make sure everything is well incorporated, and it was!

I forgot to take a picture of this step, shame on me, but I left the pate fermente to rise until about doubled, degassed it, and stuck it into the fridge to wait for making the final dough the next day. I purposely removed it from the fridge right before making the dough as I wanted the bulk ferment of the dough to proceed rather slowly. The recipe calls for bread flour, with a small portion of either whole wheat or rye, my starter already has some whole wheat flour in it so I decided to use rye flour in the final dough.

As with the pate fermente, I mixed the dough loosely and let it rest for a while to incorporate.

After kneading I wasn't sure if the dough was going to get bigger than the container it was in or not, so I stuck that container without lid in another larger bowl.

Around that picture is where I left from school, and well, I wasn't there for the stretch and fold so no pictures of that. And I was rushing too much for most of the rest of the baking process (I was also making prebaked pizza crusts for my dad), and sending good rise vibes to the dough. What helped a little bit was putting some hot water in the larger bowl the dough bucket was sitting in, sort of a little dough sauna.

Looking through the book, I opted for 3 different loaf shapes. Auvergnat, Tabatière, and Fougasse.

So, for dough that really got abused with the attempted retardation, then right back out of the fridge shortly thereafter, and baking after midnight when I needed to get up early, I was really happy with how this turned out! The flavor was really amazing, the second day after it was baked it was starting to get a bit more sour than what I generally prefer, but it was still really good.

And again, submitted to YeastSpotting this is becoming quite addicting!

Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge

 

 

This is my second bread from BBA.  I decided to stick with boules even though Reinhart says this is the perfect dough for all kinds of fancy shapes.  Everything went really well until the slashing.  I bought a lame from a local kitchen store and it just was not slashing the dough.  At all!  I tried wetting it, oiling it, using the other side of the blade... nada.  Finally I touched it with the tip of my finger and realized that it's fairly dull.  Sad!

I grabbed a semi-sharp serrated tomato knife to do the slashing instead.  While that actually cut into the dough, it did so with a fair amount of drag, so I didn't get the cleanest slashes.  Ah well.  Time to go to the hardware store to buy a package of razor blades, I guess. 

 

The recipe said it made three loaves.  They turned out to be rather small loaves, so next time I think I'll split it into two if I'm going to do the same shape.  But there is something nice about these little boules, though.

 

The crumb on this is decent.  The taste is good, but I think I like the taste of the pain de l'ancienne better.  My husband liked the taste of this, but halfway through a big slice said there was an "aftertaste."  I don't know if he's tasting the whole wheat component (hard red winter wheat berries I ground in my vitamix) or what.  I don't think I let the bread overproof, and he said it wasn't an alcohol flavor, so I'm not sure what he's tasting.

Overall a fairly successful bake.  It was my first time using a pate fermente.  I even considered making two loaves and keeping the other third of the dough for a loaf tomorrow, but I haven't baked with a poolish yet so that might be my next project.