The Fresh Loaf

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Italian bread

hmcinorganic's picture
hmcinorganic

Italian bread

this is the Italian bread from Bread Bakers Apprentice, made with my Uncle's home grown olive oil.  These loaves were too long for my peel and I had a devil of a time getting them in the oven.  I had to cook them diagonally one at a time.  The 2nd one was dusted with flour before scoring because the first one almost completely deflated when scoring.  This dough was very hard to move around;  it may have over proofed but I had to run some errands.  I try to schedule bread in between all my other activities but sometimes it just doesn't work.  

They cooked up well, and I forgot to turn the oven down on the 2nd loaf from 500 to 450 (as usual) so it cooked in only 20 minutes.  The first took 25 or 30.  Not much oven spring (because of overproofing?)

my shaping is getting better, but I still can't reproduce my breads at all.  They all taste fine, but they are different every time (and no, not only when I make different kinds :) )

 

Comments

nicodvb's picture
nicodvb

that your bread comes out different every time. It's normal, too.

What kind of bread did you do? the title you chose is quite generic, there are literally hundreds of bread types in italy.

Is yours a filone, a ciabatta or what? The leftmost one looks good.

mrfrost's picture
mrfrost

 "...Italian bread from Bread Bakers Apprentice..."

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi  hmcinorganic

Nice bread they both look pretty good to me, longer loaves  are a little more difficult to handle but id say you have done a pretty fair job with those.

regards Yozza 

flyboy912's picture
flyboy912

Looks good to me. Your experiences are similar to mine, always come out different, always taste good.

Broc's picture
Broc

Howdy!  FWIW --

You might want to get one or more "Italian shaped" Sassafras cloches.  I pre-heat mine to 450F, put the dough in -- cover -- and bake for about 14 minutes.  Then, remove the lid and bake for another 14 minutes @ 400F or until the internal temp is 195F

They come out predictably even time-after-time.  I can easily put two in my oven at once... so that's how many I bake at a time.

BTW -- I proof on parchment paper.  Simply pick up the parchment, loaf and all, and place it in the cloche, quicky cut away the excess parchmant paper, score... lid on... to the oven.

I can easily do that in about 30 seconds.

Happy Baking!

~ B