The other day I stopped into a Whole Foods store in the hope that I could find some white rye.   I couldn't, in fact the person I spoke to had no idea what white rye was.  But there on the shelf were bags of King Arthur Italian Flour.   Wow!   No shipping.   But what to make?   I decided on Ciabatta.   Specifically Hamelman's Ciabatta with Poolish (p. 107 of Bread).   Only after I had mixed everything up did I remember that the Italian Flour bag had a note recommending less water for this flour than others - and I had even accidentally put in around an extra ounce of water.   So it was wet.   I just decided to go with it instead of adding more flour.   It was too wet to take out of the bowl to stretch and fold, so I used the in the bowl method.   Then I decided it was too wet to move it around too much so after the first rise, I poured it (yes poured) into a dutch oven and let it do the second rise there.   Then  baked with the top on for 30 minutes, and the top off for 25.   What did I get?    Well it looks a bit like a three pound muffin.  

with an extremely blistery top:

and the lightest feathery texture I've ever managed to produce.

Yum!  

I made a batch of tagliatelle today. I use Marcella Hazan's recipe which calls for 2 large eggs and 1 1/2 cups of AP flour. However, I have been curious how it would be made with Italian doppio 0 flour. I used Caputo red label. To my surprise, it was much thirstier than KAF AP, and I had to add a couple tablespoons of water to the dough for it to come together. Even with the added water, the dough was drier than usual. I was surprised because Marcella says the recipe usually used in Northern Italy is 1 cup of flour to one egg. I wonder if Italian eggs are usually larger than our "large" eggs, or if there is another explanation. Maybe one of our Italian members has an explanation.

I don't have enough experience comparing American AP with Italian tipo 00 flours in terms of water absorption and am curious about this.

In any event, the pasta, made with an Atlas crank pasta machine, sure seems lovely. I'll see how it tastes at dinner tomorrow, with a sauce of home made ground turkey Italian sausage and kale.

Thanks in advance for any insights you can share.

David

Hi all

I am new to the forum. Just found last week when my poolish feel and I was looking for advice on recovering from that. I've been lurking aorund reading blogs ever since! :)

I saw the link to the Italian site with the fancy rolls that are rolled up and then slit to explode open. They look great so I thought I would try them. I translated the site (love the internet!) and am almost ready to proceed. I have the 00 flour from King Arthur and I was planning to use their bread flour for the Manotiba. I have malt syrup which is what I assume they mean by "malt". Here is the best I could come up for the formula. Anyone see any major issues? I noticed there was no yeast in the main dough, ONLY in the biga, which struck me as odd. You think 1g of yeast is enough? seems too little to mean. Then again the fermenting/proofing times seem very long! Thoughts/advice anyone?

this is the original link http://www.cookaround.com/yabbse1/blog.php?b=37406

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For the biga (gioiella it says that it is a poolish)

250g of flour manitoba
200g of water
1g of I leaven

(the temperature is in diminizione….therefore council to increase 2g I leaven)

for the paste

400g of flour 00
100g of manitoba
the biga
a teaspoon of malt or honey
1 spoon of lard or 40g of olive oil
150 (perhaps more) than water
3 teaspoons of salt knows them (the next time them)

I put my turned out timetables that son those which to me have given more.

To prepare the biga pasting water I leaven and flour….fastly with a fork.
let sit for up to 20 hours - no mention of temp... i would try 12 hours and check it

mix flours, salt , malt and biga

Add 150g of water .. lard/oil and still water (be careful ... not to put too much ... other than to 50g) to finish the sale.

The dough is not sticky and hard ...due three beaten on the table and is ready for lievitazine

put the dough in a bowl where it will proof for 10-12 hours!

turn out onto floured surface and cut into 70/80 gram pieces

pull the strips as I explain in this post and to raise a couple of hours ... covered with foil and cloth.

(post referred to is http://66.196.80.202/babelfish/translate_url_content?.intl=us&lp=it_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.cookaround.com%2fyabbse1%2fshowthread.php%3ft%3d46867)

After about two hours of rising, cut and bake in hot oven, the greatest power on hot griddle or refractory. Just beginning to swell, (2-3 minutes), open the oven and quickly make another cut (the cut Marcy ).... this will make them "explode".