pain au levain

Hi All,

So I was up really late waiting for some Pain au Levain to rise...  Maybe a little too late, which is why I don't feel so hot right now and should be getting to bed early...  Way, way before 2:00am like this morning...  Anyway, just wanted to share with you some Pain au Levain in a pan that I baked very late last night...  They turned out really well, but I should have used smaller loaf pans...  Enjoy!  Recipe and method will follow the pics and the obligatory crumbshot...  Also, this recipe was inspired by one of the Pain au Levain recipes in Le Pain, l'envers du decor by Frédéric Lalos.

Tim

Ingredients:

Final Dough:

1110g AP (KA)

555g Stiff Levain (63% hydration)

700g Water

38g Kosher salt

2400g Total Dough Yield (approx)

Stiff Levain

304g AP

192g Water

60g Sourdough Starter (I used a stiff one)

556g Total Stiff Levain Yield

Method to the Madness

9/12/10

3:50pm - Mix stiff levain, place in covered container, let rest on counter.

430pm - Place stiff levain in refrigerator.

9:13/10

6:50pm - Mix final dough in large bowl using a large rubber spatula, plastic scraper, wet hands.  Knead for 5-10 minutes.  Cover bowl, or place in plastic bag and let rest.

7:30pm - Knead dough for 2-3 minutes in bowl with wet hands.  Do not add any extra flour.  Cover and let rest.

7:45pm - Turn dough, cover and let rest.

8:45pm - Line loaf pans with parchment paper, or grease them if you like.  Divide into 3x800g pieces, and shape into loaves, place into pans, place pans into plastic bag, proof for 4 hours.

9/14/10

12:00am - Place baking stone and steam pan in oven, preheat to 500F with convection.

1:00am - Turn convection off.  Lightly dust loaves and slash as desired, place into oven on stone.  When all pans are in oven, pour 1 cup of water into the steam pan, close door.  Turn oven down to 450F and bake for 45 minutes.  Halfway through bake, remove loaves from pans and return to oven and place directly onto stone.  Turn oven down to 425F for remainder of bake.  At end of baking, check internal temp and weight loss.  Should reach 210F and lose approx 15% weight.  Turn oven off and put loaves back in for another 10 minutes.  Cool completely before cutting and eating...  Also, get some sleep...

Hi All,

I seem to be baking a lot these days...  It's still hot though here in NYC so things are rising fast around here...  Last night I was reading Local Breads by Dan Leader, page 105 which talks about the Poilane bakery loading their breads into the oven every 2 hours...  I wanted to see how quickly I could make a pain au levain, assuming the levain was ripe and ready...  Also, a have recently converted my storage sourdough starter from liquid to very stiff (50% hydration).  Here's what happened:

Stiff Levain Recipe:

400g Stone Ground White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur)

200g Water

80g Stiff Sourdough Starter (50% hydration)

680g Total Stiff Levain

Final Dough Recipe:

1374g AP (King Arthur)

926g Water

32g Kosher Salt

680g Stiff White Whole Wheat Levain (approx 50% hydration)

3012g Total Dough Yield

Method of Madness:

9/6/10

5:30pm - Mix stiff levain, knead into ball, cover and let rest.

5:45pm - Knead stiff a few times until smooth, lightly coat with extra virgin olive oil, place in covered plastic tub, refrigerate at 40F 23-36 hrs.  If you are going to make the dough within 12-16 hours, and it's not too hot, then you can probably leave it out on the kitchen counter...

9/7/10

6:35pm - Come home from work, get settled, take stiff levain out of fridge, measure out all ingredients using a digital scale.

6:55pm - In a large mixing bowl, pour in exact amount of water, then cut up the stiff levain into small golf ball sized pieces and place it into the bowl in the water.  Then add all the flour on top, then the salt.  Start mixing with a large rubber spatula until a shaggy dough forms.  Then using wet hands, squish the dough until the levain is well combined, knead for about 10 minutes.  Do all kneading in the bowl without adding any extra flour.  If your hands get sticky, use a plastic scraper to scrape the dough off your hands, then dip your hands in water and continue kneading.

7:10pm to 7:30pm - cover and let rest for 20 minutes.

7:30pm - Turn dough in bowl, and knead for about 15-20 seconds, cover and let rest.

8:00pm - Turn dough in bowl, and knead for about 15-20 seconds, cover and let rest.

8:30pm - Turn dough, cover and let rest.

9:00pm to 9:10pm - Divide dough into 4 pieces, preshape into boules, place them seam side down on a proofing board with no extra flour.  Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.

9:30pm - Final shape into batards, place them seam side up in a very lighty floured couche, cover with tea towels and plastic bag, proof for approx 1 hr and 30 minutes.

10:20pm - Place 2 baking stones in oven on 2 different levels along with steam pan, preheat to 550F with convection.

11:10pm - Turn off convection.  Turn out loaves onto peel/flipping board, slash as desired, place into oven directly on stone.  When all the loaves are in, place 1 1/2 cups water into steam pan, close door, turn oven down to 450F, bake for 45 minutes rotating batards halfway through the bake between stones.  After 45 minutes, check weight and internal temp.  They should be about 15% lighter than their pre-baked weight, and the internal temp should be between 205F to 210F.  I prefer 210F.  Turn oven off, and place batards back into oven for 5 minutes.  After this, let batards cool completely before cutting...

12:00am - Done...  Time for sleep...  Pics up tomorrow sometime...

8:50am - Upload pics...

Tim

Hi All,

Just wanted to share with you my bake from Monday, 9/5/10...  I had some friends in from San Francisco, who have never had my bread, so I wanted to make them something special to take home with them after brunch...

Here is a pain au levain, that I will call my 5/10/20 pain au levain...  It was inspired by JT's 85x3 bread that Farine blogged about here: http://www.farine-mc.com/2010/04/jts-85x3.html

I did not have any T85 flour, but I could make 3 starters...  This bread is basically 95% AP (king arthur) 5% rye (hodgson mill), approx 66% hydration, 2.4% kosher salt.

Starter 1 (Rye Sour): All of the rye flour (5% of total flour) prefermented at 83% hydration for 24hrs at room temp.  Use 4% sourdough starter.

Starter 2 (Liquid Levain): 10% of total flour (AP) prefermented at 100% hydration for 1 hour at room temp, and 23 hours at 40F.  Use 20% sourdough starter.

Starter 3 (Stiff levain): 20% of total flour (AP) prefermented at 55% hyrdation for 1 hour at room temp, and 23 hrs at 40F.  Use 20% sourdough starter.

I'll continue this if anybody is interested...  The result I think speaks for itself...

This is the walnut raisin pain au levain using the same dough as above but adding buttermilk powder, a little sugar, butter, toasted walnuts and raisins...  I think it turned out really good...  Note to self: Mix this dough separately...  Trying to knead in powdered buttermilk is an excercise in futility.  Some of it combined OK, but the stuff that didn't clumped in the dough, and I had to spend about 15 minutes kneading and picking out the clumps before kneading in the butter, walnuts and raisins...

Cheers!

Tim

It seems to me that if you are trying to gain proficiency in baking bread that it helps to pick a formula and make it over and over again until it starts to seem natural and easy.   I'm not there yet with Hamelman's pain au levain but it ain't for lack of trying.  My biggest difficulty with it so far has been something that should be simple - following the instructions.   When I first started making it I viewed the rise times as something like suggestions.   2 hours seemed like a ridiculously long time to do the final rise, and I would do 1 hour and then wonder why the bottom split.   Last week I did an experiment.   I split the dough into three 1 lb loaves and tried doing a final ferment of 1.5 hours, 2 hours, and 2.5 hours respectively.   The 2.5 hour rise won the looks test, but the 2 hour tasted the best.   And surprise, surprise, the 1.5 hour loaf was a mess.   Today, I followed all of Hamelman's times with 2 hours for the final ferment (the book says 2 to 2.5 hours.)   I still can't get as pretty a loaf as my model in all this (and the post that set me off on this particular quest)   http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17236/agony-defeat-and-thrill-victory.   But that doesn't mean I can't keep trying.   And the great thing about practicing on a bread like this is you get to eat it. 

I continue to bake in my mud oven - in fact I haven't baked any bread at all in my "indoor" oven so far this summer.   It is a steep learning curve.   Since I last posted, I have added a thermometer and a door (essential) a peel (helpful) and have started to use parchment paper to keep things cleaner.   I continue to make my slow progress through Hamelman's Bread.   Today I tried Semolina with a levain.  (page 171)   I split it into three small loaves which are a bit more manageable.    Here they are. 

and the crumb

When I finished baking, I put tonight's dinner (chicken and vegetables) in a dutch oven into the oven and let it cook with the "leftover" heat for several hours.   And served with bread of course.

With a new baking job I've been overwhelmed to the point of hardly having time to enjoy posts on TFL let alone contribute.  But as the 4th has approached I found a day off to recharge my batteries, revisit some breads I love to bake, and try an experiment in dinner rolls involving ciabatta dough.

First, revisiting old friends - in this case Hamelman's mixed starter pain au levain, and, fougasse. 

Over time I've found that the subtle flavors that are imparted by a mixed starter of my everyday levain and rye levain, combined with a small introduction of whole wheat flour to the final dough, make this pain au levain my go-to bread of choice.  There is noticeable sourness in the baked loaf, yet not so overwhelming that it obscures the other flavors imparted by the mixture of grains and starters.

(A little crackly crust for David S here)

.          

Plus, I have to admit, it's just plain fun to be able to use both starters simultaneously in constructing one dough.  Usually I find myself grabbing one or the other starters out of the fridge (now that it's unbearable summer here in D.C.) and staring somewhat ruefully at the one which goes unused.  So Hamelman's mixed starter sourdough not only satisfies my taste buds, but assuages any sense of guilt over favoring one levain over the other.

The fougasse I haven't baked in some time, but I had promised compatriots at my favorite pub that on Saturday I would appear with snacks in hand.  And what better way to share than with a niçoise olive and sea salt fougasse! 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The beautiful leaf shape was shortly admired and much more rapidly dismantled by my fellow pub mates!  I've tried these with a variety of additions - roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and traditional anchovies.  In any incarnation, I find them quickly devoured.  And let's face it, they are a 'fun' bread because of their distinctive shape.

My third bake on Saturday was with a traditional ciabatta dough of 72% hydration.  But instead of creating the usual 1 lb. loaves I decided to cut the dough into 1.5 oz increments and bake dinner rolls with them - ciabattinis as I like to call them. 

The dough makes for a quick and easy dinner roll that can be bagged and frozen once cooled, ready to be pulled out and thawed as needed.  Most of my dinner rolls contain healthy doses of butter, so I find this very simple roll - just flour, water, salt and yeast - to be a nice change and a wonderful sop for any dish that contains oils or juices.

The other eventful recent occurrence was a delightful 2-day workshop at King Arthur Flour in mid-June on wood-fired oven baking, taught by Dan Wing who, with Alan Scott, wrote the 'bible' on wfo's - The Bread Builders.  It was an eye-opener for me in that my conceptions of wfo's as mainly pizza makers were thrown out the window as we not only baked wonderful breads, but cooked equally wonderful meals on them. Those who are interested in reading more about my second 'excellent adventure at KAF' can find my recounting here.

Happy baking and Happy 4th of July to all!

Larry