Hi all,

I wanted to draw everyone's attention to an author of excellent bread making books. I have baked for a while but only over the last 7 months has it really become a passion for me. The major inspiration was a book called 'Dough' by Richard Bertinet. He is a professional baker who now lives in Bath in England where he runs a baking school. The author is French and was trained to be a baker in Paris. What sets this book apart for me is the layout, as a beginner certain books were very intimidating to look at... not this one. The book is broken down into 4 sections regarding 4 different types of dough. The really cool thing was the kneading technique that he teaches you (via the book and the included short DVD), this is a technique used in France, I tried it and my bread was so much lighter and airy. This was such an approachable and easy book to use. After 7 months of studying this book I have now bought the sequel "Crust", which goes into more complex breads, such as making sour dough with your own yeast culture. Again this is accompanied by a short DVD, I find this a great help, as written instructions in baking books are not always explicit in the eyes of a beginner.

I bring this book to the attention of the website as I recently moved to the US from England, where I had heard a good deal about the author, however he seems to have slipped under the radar over here. These two books have brought me along leaps and bounds.

Has anyone  else used/enjoyed these books?

Ben

I came across this on the French Wikipedia: a loaf filled with gruyere, bacon lardons, and creme fraiche. I thought a fougasse was the flat bread with holes cut in it, but this is entirely different. It's from Foix, in the Pyrenees. Anyone dare to make it?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Fougasse_de_Foix.jpg

Stewart

Since most break-baking professionals tend to emulate French bakers, I thought it might be instructive to post this picture and present some questions I am unable to answer at this time. 

We recently spend three weeks in France (in Northern Brittany and Paris), which really raised the bar of my bread baking aspirations.  Take the following sour-dough rye loaf I purchased in the "inter-marche" (normal grocery store) in Brittany, France.  Notice the shape of the loaf.  It is triangular.  In France, each bakery has characteristic shapes, sizes, and slashing patterns.  This was the only time I ever saw a shape like this.  The crumb was light and hole-y, but still had the "cake-like" texture characteristic of good rye loaves.  There are a few things I would like to know:

1. How did the baker retain the shape of this loaf while still maintaining hydration?

2. There were no slashes, but the crust was also not broken.  How?  Is that a feature of hydration and extensibility?

3. In France, to be considered rye, they have to have a certain percentage of rye flour to white.  This bread had a crumb that I cannot replicate with the 50:50 rye:white mix I use in my siegle au levain.  How did they make a nice dark rye loaf and keep an airy crumb?

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend a French-style dinner roll recipe?  Something that is crusty (but also relatively easy to tear), has an airy crumb and preferably uses some percentage of whole wheat/rye flour.  I've tried making rolls from my two standard sourdoughs (pain au levain complet et pain au levain from Leader's books) but, while the bread is great, the crust is simply too strong to tear when formed into a 3 oz roll and baked at 400F.  I've not tried substituting pate fermentee for stiff levain but I have thought about it.  At this point, my next attempt will be pain du campain from BBA or one of the liquid levain recipes from Leader's Bread Alone.  Any other thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

I am attempting to read Janedo's baking blog 'Au Levain', having gotten hooked on the automatic translation that kept translating 'baguette' into 'stick' or 'wand'. I always wanted to learn French, and this seemed like a good motivation. What a treat to visit Anis Bouabsa and Patisserie Poilane. Very cool. As part of the exercise, I made a list of some baking terms. I thought I'd share them here, with the hope of getting some free proofreading and editorial comments.

Thanks,
Stewart  (edited with new words and pronunciation hints 9 Dec 08)

Hi Everyone!

I'm Flo Makanai, French "author" of the (in French, sorry...) blog Makanai (http://makanaibio.com/). I love bread baking, especially sourdough baking, and I've been doing it for about 15 years.

As I always have many obligations other than baking bread (who does'nt?!) AND lots of sourdough to use (I hate throwing it away once it has reached maturity), I eventually came to "invent" a formula that works for me in France (Janedo from http://aulevain.fr/, whom you certainly know, has also tested that formula and it works for her too).

Here it is:

I weigh the liquid (100%) mature sourdough I have on my counter. It gives me a weight which I shall call weight 1.

I then multiply "weight 1" by 2 to obtain the quantity of liquid (water, rice milk, milk...) I'll need. So the liquid will weigh twice as much as the sourdough.

Then, I multiply "weight 1" by 3 to obtain the quantity of flour(s) (always organic for me) that I'll need. So the flour(s) will weigh 3 times the sourdough. 

I mix those 3 ingredients, I let the dough rest 30 minutes and then I knead my dough, adding 1.8% to 2% of the flour(s) weight of salt.

So "1" = sourdough weight

"2" = liquid weight, which is "1"x2

and "3" = flour(s) weight, which is "1" x3

Example : with 125g sourdough, I'll bake bread with 250g liquid and 375g flour + 6 to 7g salt

The reason I'm writing today on TFL is that I wonder if that formula works in the States, where flours are so different from the ones we have in France. Is anyone interested in trying and then posting a comment on TFL? That would be interesting.

I posted this formula (in French, but you can use the Google translator, even if the result is quite ... unusual!) on Makanaibio yesterday (here: http://www.makanaibio.com/2008/10/123-pain-au-levain-une-formule-qui.html), if you can read French or if you'd like to see a few pictures of some of my breads.

(And please excuse my english, I certainly made mistakes I'm not even aware of...)

I hope to read you soon!

Flo Makanai

Well I finally went ahead and signed up, I have been a reader for quite some time. I am a professional baker by trade, but love to mess around in my conventional kitchen as well. I needed some old dough for my next adventure, so I decided to make a nice straight yeasted bread. I also noticed that some of the bakers cover the loaves in the oven to simulate injected steam, so I decided to try it!

The formula for the dough is pretty simple and based on Joe Ortiz's Direct-Method Compagnon:

1/4 ounce active dry yeast

1 3/4 cups cold tap water

3 2/3 cups King Arthur Bread Flour

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

I mixed the yeast with a little bit of warm water and then poured the rest of the water into the wet mixture. After adding two cups of the flour, using my Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer, I mixed with the paddle on first speed for two minutes. Then added the salt and the rest of the flour, graduating to the hook. Then I mixed on first speed until the flour was somewhat incorporated, and then 12 - 15 minutes on 2nd speed. The doulgh was velvity and somewhat slack when it came off the mixer.

Next I cut three small pieces out and shaped them into little boules. I set all three boules in the fridge, in glass bowls, coverd with plastic wrap.

About four and a half hours later I grabbed two of the boules from the fridge (the other is my old dough for tomorrow), flattened and reshaped them, and then covered them with a cloth, on a floured board, for about 45 minutes to an hour.

I scored them and put them right on the stone in my oven at 450 degrees, covered by a large cooking pot. I prepped this "cover" by pouring hot water out of it right before I put it in the oven, being careful not to touch the boules with the cover. After 12 minutes I carefully removed the cover and then baked them for another 15-17 minutes.

So here is the result:

I am pretty happy with the look of the crust, the crumb is dense as I expected from such a short proof time. Overall it is dense and chewy but with zero taste:

Well it's been since I first found TheFreshLoaf in 2006 that I posted to my bread blog. Up until recently I hadn't had much time or energy to do much baking. Couple that with my love of crusty breads and whole wheat and my wife likes non-crusty, white breads and all the married folk can understand how this variable can decrease the amount of bread time for Jason.

This is a new recipe I made from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, for a Parisian loaf of

Pain De Provence