The Fresh Loaf

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My attempt at Pane casareccio di Genzano

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

My attempt at Pane casareccio di Genzano

After finding out that this was the official bread used for bruschetta in Rome, I had been wanting to try it for some time.  I went ahead and gave it a go this weekend using Local Breads as my guide.  Overall, it went pretty well.  I didn't use the bran coating simply because I didn't have any, and aside the some of the rise times, stuck to the recipe exactly.  

Here's what I got:

Flavor was good with a hint of sour, but the large open crumb near the crust is something I'd like to learn to fix.  My rise times were quite a bit faster than Leader gave and I chocked that up to it being a warm day.  Also, upon doing the first stretch and fold, oddly enough, the dough didn't deflate very much.  

Can someone suggest what I might have done wrong here?

prof_fr's picture
prof_fr

May I have the recipe, please 

Thsnks

Chris 

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Hi Chris,

It's the recipe straight out of Dan Leader's book Local Breads.

Stuart Borken's picture
Stuart Borken

How did you get it to come out of the banneton without deflating???????  

Your oven spring or rise must have been fantastic.  Any greater oven spring and the bread would have pushed open the oven door and the bread jumped out and run around the kitchen.

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Ha!  Thank you for the kind words.  I won't lie, I was very happy with the oven spring.  The dough did seem to deflate a bit when I turned it out, or maybe it just oozed out more and thus looked to be deflating, I'm not sure.  What I typically do is put a piece of parchment on top of the banneton, lay the peel on top of that, and then turn the whole thing over together and gently lift the banneton off.  Works really well in cases like this where the dough completely filled the banneton.  

I was legitimately getting worried about the dough reaching the top of the oven when I saw how much oven spring there was.  That's not bragging, but for anyone who hasn't made this before, it's a BIG loaf of bread.

My wife and mother-in-law told me to stop being so critical, but...I still would like to get the crumb more even.  One of the main reasons I wanted to make this was for bruschetta, and some of those holes near the crust are so big as to allow the oil or toppings to just fall through.  At the same time, in the center, it's a little bit dense.  Overall, I'm very happy with it, but I'd love to get those few last details ironed out.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

if you had gotten rid of the large air bubbles when doing the folds.  Not doing so will allow the large holes at the top especially when doing the final shaping if the scoring is deep enough.  Plus it looks like it was over proofed because of the lack of bloom or the scoring was weak or both.  I think that once you get the shaping down and get it proofed to 90% max all will be well with the crumb.  It really pulled itself off the baking surface with huge spring though so I'm guessing it is mainly a shaping and scoring issue and nothing more.  Easy enough to fix.

David Snyder and zolablue did posts on this bread  decade ago or so

Vhttp://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8441/pane-di-genzano

It sounds like a wet Forkish white bread:-)

Happy baking 

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Thank you for the feedback.  I think you might be right about not getting rid of the large bubbles during the stretch and folds.  As for scoring, it wasn't scored (recipe didn't call for it) so at least I know I didn't screw that up, haha!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Now you know it was the shaping.  If you degas during the pre-shape and final shape then it doesn't matte what happens during the stretch and folds

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Okay, so, if I'm hearing you correctly, if I would've degassed more during the shaping, I would likely get more even crumb?

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

gone but the crumb should still be very open.

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Fantastic!  That's exactly what I'd like to see.  I appreciate the insight.

bottleny's picture
bottleny
Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Thank you, I corrected it.

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

I decided to try the recipe again this weekend in hopes of better results. I did everything exactly the same, except that I made sure to degas the dough more. 

Everything was going fine, until it came time to turn out the dough from the banneton. Like an idiot, I decided to go a little lighter on flouring the banneton this time since last time I had caked on burnt flour I had to painstakingly remove. Well, I screwed up and the dough stuck. While I carefully tried to coax it away from the liner, it kept spreading and spreading, and still ended up tearing the dough. I watched through the oven window as it just sat there with almost no oven spring. When I finally pulled it out (after only half the baking time due to the high surface area), this is the pancake I was left with.

 

I was just about to pitch it when I had an idea. Assuming that the crumb was dense as a rock, if I cut it on a strong bias, I could get some usable pieces out of it. Granted, a decent amount would probably go to waste, but considering the alternative was the trashcan, it was worth a shot. 

So, I cut into it just to see what I had, and this is what I got.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled that all of my work wasn't wasted, and I'm also very pleased that I have a more even crumb.

On the other hand, I'm incredibly frustrated at the thought of what this loaf COULD have been if I had just floured my banneton a bit more.

 

Anyway, just thought I'd share.