I'm new to this and have only done around 7 breads so far (each one progressively better than the last for the most part)  However, since my first attempt at a pain rustique didn't fair well, I decided to give it another shot today.  I mixed my poolish last night (100% hydration) but ended up having to t'fer it to a larger bowl very early this morning (put it in one that was way too small for some reason).  I have to say, the wonderful fragrance that leaps from the bowl when you first remove the plastic wrap from this stuff is just incredible!  Here's what it looked like after 13 hours:

Here's the formula that I calculated based on Hamelman's pain rustique.  I simply typed in my figures into a  "design worksheet" pdf along with my notes.  I guess I got it right considering the end result :)

I proofed 900g of dough in a 8" X 10" X 3" homemade banneton (cost me all of $2).  After 20 min I inverted it onto a peel.   I had trouble scoring (as usual).  The dough, while manageable after the stretch and folds, was still pretty sticky so the knife tugged on the surface of the dough.  Maybe this will be easier after I get my lame this week.  After my pitiful scoring, the dough somewhat deflated...

However, after just  10 minutes (at 465F on a stone), it seemed to perk up a bit.  I did pour a cup of hot water into a pan on the bottom of the oven for steam as well as sprayed the top of the loaf and the oven walls (twice).

I continued baking while keeping an eye on the color... at 40 minutes, I decided to take it out.  The internal temperature was 205.  Overall, this one looked the best to me.  No "singing" was heard but there was a lot of nice crackling going on.   (The oval shape somehow got a little distorted getting it from the proofing basket to the peel)

The crumb came out better than any of my other breads.  It smells and tastes great but I'm wondering just what the "bite" of the crumb should be like?  This has some resiliance to it; chewy but not tough and it does dissolve in the mouth nicely.  Is it that I'm tasting good bread for the first time or did I screw this up and simply produce bad bread?  :) )

Here's a cross-section of an end piece.  The larger air pocket has a bit of a sheen to it.  I've read somewhere this is a good sign?

 One would think that making bread would be relatively easy but I'm learning that's not necessarily the case :) Well, that's about it :)  Thanks in advance for any advice or comments.

Po Jo 

Late last week my wife and I were invited to my step-son and fiance's new home for a 'get acquainted' Sunday dinner with her parents and grandparents, so I thought it might be a good idea to bring a loaf of something or other to contribute to the meal. We've met them all previously but not knowing their tastes I decided to go with a bread using poolish rather than a sour levain style bread, settling on Hamelman's Pain Rustique which uses 50% prefermented flour in the formula. The poolish was made on Saturday night and sat for almost 12 hours before being mixed with the other ingredients after a 30 minute autolyse, producing a very slack dough similar to Ciabatta. After 40 minutes of bulk ferment it needed some stretch and folds in the bowl before being able to develop it on the counter using the slap and fold technique. The dough had two stretch and folds over the course of the next hour with a small addition of flour to tighten it up to a point where it could hold a loose shape, then divided into 2 unmolded rectangular shaped loaves, placed seam side up on floured linen for a final rise of 30 minutes. I had a bit of difficulty flipping the first on to the peel and it deflated slightly, but the second loaf held it's shape during the transfer. The loaves were given a single slash and baked at 460F for 35-40 minutes with a spray or two of water during the first 5 minutes. It's been a while since I've baked an all wheat dough and I'd almost forgotten how wonderful it can smell while it's baking, especially when it has a good percentage of poolish in the mix. The first loaf came out the way I expected it would, looking worse for the poor handling during transfer, but the second made a nice loaf with a bit of an ear along the slash. Everybody seemed to enjoyed it for it's open airy crumb, chewy crust, and that it paired so well with the delicious saucy braised short ribs our future daughter in-law had made for the main course of the meal. I've been eating sour rye bread of one type or another since the beginning of the year so this was a welcome change for it's fresh wheaty flavour and light porous crumb, and one that I'll be making again in the months to come.

I'm afraid the crumb shots are a bit too yellow due to light conditions and the flash on my phone camera. The actual colour was a creamy off white.

Best Wishes,

Franko

Dear all,

This weekend I received my copy of Hamelman's "Bread" and it's fantastic. I made a boule from his poolish baguette recipe and his pain rustique.

I was completely surprised by the difference in taste between the two breads. Both were terrific, but the pain rustique tasted like no yeast bread I have ever tasted. I was blown away.

In bakers percentages, the poolish baguette (66% hydration) uses 99% poolish compared to the added flour in the final dough (I used 216 grams of poolish at 219 grams of flour). The pain rustique (69% hydration) uses 200% (!) poolish compared to added flour (233 grams of poolish at 117 grams of flour).

My question is, does this taste come from the amount of poolish used in the recipe? And if it does, what stops me from adapting this recipe to using even a higher percentage of poolish? Would it be possible to only add enough flour to get to a reasonable hydration, without any added water?

How does the amount of poolish affect the fermentation?

Thank you in advance...

One of my favorite breads from Hamelman's Bread is Pain Rustique (comes right before "Country Bread" and "Rustic Bread").  The bread is unshaped like a ciabatta, although it only has 69% hydration, and is scored before baking.  When I get it right (as opposed to, say, forgetting the salt and yeast following the autolyse, as I did the first time I tried the formula), it produces a toothsome crust and a flavorful, moderately open crumb.  As a bonus, the time from first mix to pulling the breads out of the oven is under 3 hours (not counting preferment time).

Anyway, the last week I was talking with my mom about the sourdough starter I brought her on our crazy baking day , and the subject of converting pre-fermented, commercially leavened formulas to sourdough came up, as did the Pain Rustique.  This got me thinking--why not try Pain Rustique as a sourdough?  And the more I thought, the more I had to try it.

Pain Rustique as written by Hamelman has 50% of the flour in a poolish, so I simply replaced this with a liquid levain.  I usually scale Hamelman's "Home" quantities by 2/3 since I can only fit 2 loaves on my stone at a time.   Here's what I did:

Levain*

• 100g ripe starter at 100% hydration. 
• 250g King Aurther All-Purpose Flour
• 250g water

*Note: I needed 600g of ripe levain, didn't get around to mixing it until 10:30 the night before, and needed to start the bread be 7 the next day.  For a longer sitting time, I'd do less starter and more flour and water.

Final Dough

• 300g flour
• 120g water
• 600g levain (all) 
• 12g salt

Steps:

1. The night before, mix the levain, cover and let sit overnight for 9 hours (but see note).
2. Mix flour, water and levain by hand until all the flour is hydrated.  Autolyze for 25 minutes.
3. Add salt, mix in the stand mixer at speed 2 for 2 minutes.
4. Do 30 stretch and folds in the bowl with a rubber spatula, rotating the bowl with each fold.
5. Ferment for 150 minutes, giving the dough a stretch and fold on the bench at 50 and 100 minutes.
6. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured work surface.  Divide in half to make 2 510g (18oz) pieces, placing any scraps on the rough side of the dough. Then place each piece on a floured couche, smooth side down.
7. Start pre-heating the oven with a baking stone and any steaming apparatus. Proof the loaves for 40-50 minutes.
8. Flip the loaves onto a sheet of parchment on the back of a sheet pan.  This can be done by hand, but I've taken to pulling a bit of the couch over the edge of the pan, then flipping the loaf couche and all onto the parchment.  This avoids the problem of finger-shaped indents on top of the loaves, which fill in while baking, but make scoring difficult.
9. Score longways, load into the oven, and bake for 35 minutes, with steam for the first 15 (I've been using the popular "towel method", placing rolled up towels soaked in hot water in two loaf pans below the baking stone.  After 15 minutes, the pans are removed).
10. Turn off oven, open door and loaves in for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

The results looked very much like my previous attempts at Pain Rustique (and why not?  It's still an unshaped, 69% hydration dough).

Exterior

 Crumb:

The flavor, however, was surprisingly different.  A nice, mild sour flavor in the crumb, with a stronger sourness in the crust.  Crust was more sourdough-y than the poolish version, and the mouthfeel of the crumb was subtly different, but I don't know how to describe it.  The flavor evolved a little over time--on the first night the tiny amount of whole wheat from my starter (which is fed 25% whole wheat, 75% white) was detectable, but by the next day (and with the second loaf, pulled from the freezer a couple days later) that had mellowed and the sourness had increased.

A very, very tasty bread, all told.  I'd say better than the poolish version, although as I've noted the two are quite different in flavor.  I'll definitely make this again!

We are having homemade soup tonight for dinner. Since we've been eating a lot of sourdough lately I decided to make Hamelman's Pain Rustique. A unique bread, attributed to the legendary French baker. educator and author, Raymond Calvel, its poolish preferment comprises more than half of the entire dough weight.

Two pounds of poolish, for three-and-a-half pounds of dough!

One gets an interesting shape when the a loaf hangs off the edge of one's too-small-for-three-loaves baking stone.

The crumb: open, firm chewiness.

David G

I don't have much experience with wet doughs, but I just pulled three loaves of Hamelman's Pain Rustique out of the oven and I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out. (Haven't done a taste-test yet ...)

You can check out a photo and see the recipe, if you like, over at Flour Girl.

Have a great weekend ... Happy baking,

Flour Girl

In 1904, Sir William Osler, one of the greatest physicians of his time, was asked to address the graduating class of The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on the topic, “What is the most important personal attribute for a physician to cultivate in himself?” Sir William's address was entitled “Aequanimitas,” which roughly translates into modern American English as “Chill, dude!” I have always tried to follow Sir William's wise advice.

This afternoon, I made a batch of baguettes, according to Anis Bouabsa's formula. I thought they were the most perfectly shaped and scored baguettes I've every made. As I was loading the three baguettes into my pre-heated and humidified oven, one fell off the back of the baking stone. As I tried to grab it, the other two baguettes fell off the peel onto the oven door. What a mess!

Uttering a few words which my wife has asked I not speak in the presence of our grandchildren, I scooped up the twisted heaps of formerly gorgeous baguette dough. Should I scrap the bake as a lost cause or attempt a salvage operation? What could I lose by trying?

Aequanimitas, aequanimitas, aequanimitas ... 

I was able to separate the three pitiful pieces from each other. I reshaped them quickly – one folded as one might fold a ciabatta, one coiled and one formed into a figure 8 knotted “roll.” I immediately loaded them onto the stone and baked for 10 minutes with steam at 460F and 8 more minutes dry.

Anis Bouabsa Not Baguettes

Anis Bouabsa Not Baguettes - Crumb

Delicious! 

I hope you all have a great week and that all your "disasters" are really "opportunities," when you look back at them.

David

Not sure this is the right place to post about a recipe tried, but if it's not I will delete it and post it somewhere else.

Today I made Hamelman's Pain Rustique (page 111 of "Bread" )   - I made half the recipe, ending with two small loaves, will be perfect for lunch/dinner today.

The recipe is extremely easy - dough is a pleasure to work with. An overnight poolish goes in the final dough, that rises for only 70 minutes with two folds at 25 and 50 min.  Final rise is less than half an hour - bread is not shaped, just separated in rectangles of the right size, and slashed.

I will post two photos. We loved the flavor and crumb texture, by the way

Gosselin Pain a l'Ancienne

Gosselin baguettes

Gosselin baguette Crumb

Gosselin Pain Rustique

Gosselin Pain Rustique Crumb

Both Peter Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" (BBA) and Daniel Leader's "Local Breads" contain formulas for "Pain à l'Ancienne," based on the explorations during the 1990's by several Parisian bakers of lengthening bulk fermentation to achieve improved flavor. Of course, these techniques could not have been used in the "old days" that the name of the bread implies. Bakers devoted to this new technique use modern refrigeration which was not available to their ancestors.

Reinhart based his version of pain à l'ancienne on that of Philippe Gosselin. In BBA, Reinhart describes Gosselin's method in very general terms and then says the formula he provides is modified to make it easier for home bakers. In January, 2003 Reinhart sent a message to an internet mailing list which contained a detailed enough account of what Gosselin told him to write a formula. For me, the original formula did not seem more difficult than the one Reinhart published. This is because I almost always bake on weekends when I can accommodate my activities to the original formula. So, I thought I would give it a try. My interpretation of Reinhart's interpretation is as follows:

Pain à l'Ancienne of Philippe Gosselin, as described by Peter Reinhart

Flour.......................500 gms

Water......................375 gms

Salt.........................8.75 gms-

Instant yeast...............5 gms

Mix the flour with 325 gms of ice cold water and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove mixture from refrigerator. Add yeast, salt and another 25-50 gms of cold water and mix thoroughly for 4-6 minutes.

Ferment at room temperature until doubled in bulk (up to 6 hours).

One hour before baking, preheat oven to 460F.

Divide into 4 equal piece and gently pre-shape into torpedos.

Rest dough 10 minutes.

Shape into baguettes by stretching to 12-14 inches, score and bake immediately with steam at 460F.

The breads I made today used the following modification and extrapolations:

1. I used 50 gms of Guisto's rye flour and 450 gms of KAF Bread Flour.

2. After the long "autolyse," I mixed the flour and water with 30 gms of additional water, the yeast and the salt. The autolysed dough had moderate gluten development already and didn't want to take in the additional water with hand stirring, so I did the best I could with a scraper, then mixed in my KitchenAid with the paddle for about 3 minutes, then the dough hook for another 3 minutes. I then transferred the dough to a 2 quart glass pitcher and used Hamelman's in-the-bowl stretch and fold technique - 20 folds, 3 times at 20 minute intervals over the first hour. I then let the dough rest, covered, until doubled.

3. Gosselin's instructions to Reinhart indicated the dough would take 6 hours to double. In my (warm) kitchen today, it doubled in 4 hours.

4. I emptied the dough onto a flour-dusted board and dusted the top. I divided the dough into 3 parts. I pre-shaped the two smaller ones into rectangles and folded each long side to the middle and sealed the seams. Those, I rested with the seams down for about 10 minutes then stretched into "baguettes" and placed them on floured parchment paper. The larger piece was just cut in half to make pain rustique, rested and similarly placed on parchment.

5. I baked at 460F with steam on a pizza stone. After 7 minutes, I removed the loaf pan and skillet and continued to bake for a total of 20 minutes. I then turned the oven off, cracked it open, and left the loaves on the stone for an additional 5 minutes.

Comments

These breads had a nice, crunchy crust and an open, tender, somewhat chewy crumb. The taste was classic sweet baguette - as good as I have ever made. My wife liked it, but said she preferred the taste of the Anis baguettes with sourdough added. No surprise, as we are both partial to sourdough breads.

I was concerned that the pre-shaping of the baguettes, which Reinhart does not call for in his adaptation of Gosselin's formula, would decrease the openness of the crumb too much. It was more open than I expected. I guess I have learned to handle dough gently enough. On the other hand, it would be worthwhile to try making baguettes with this method but just cutting the dough and stretching it, without any other shaping, to see if the crumb would be even more open.

If your baking schedule allows for Gosselin's method, I would certainly recommend you give it a try. In my hands, it makes very fine baguettes.

The pains rustique require no forming, and are essentially like ciabattas. Reinhart says this dough can also be stretched into a circle or rectangle and used for pizza. I have not tried that and would be interested in hearing from anyone who does so.

David

PAIN RUSTIQUE: PAIN RUSTIQUE: Today I made Hamelman's Pain Rustique and I'm very happy with it. It is creamy and delicious. Thanks TTonka and Susan.