February 22, 2008 - 5:34am
what recipe do you like to use for epi?
I'm after some rustic, non bland epi... anyone have a preferred recipe that is tops for epi?
That picture near the back of BBA always gets me of the epi from the wood fired bakery. :)
Also if anyone has a suggestion of a % hydration, to still get well-defined epi, but not be just like a typical modern straight dough baguette.
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The hard part is cutting it...... ;-(((( qahtan
qahtan,
Don't know if you've seen this guy's video, but he has some very cool shots of him cutting different shapes in baguettes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLFa7puW2Zg
-Mark
http://thebackhomebakery.com
I loved the video...cool to watch someone slash with abandon and do such a great job. Loved the squirrel at the end..bet he thought he hit the motherlode..I could even stand the Rap..see what good bread stuff will do for you ; ) Thanks for sharing
You want something with lots of pre-ferment so that it develops plenty of flavor, because if you proof the epi too long you can't handle it anymore--not to mention that if it is really sticky your cuts will just close up and glue themselves together again. Pain a l'Ancienne from BBA would be a good choice, but it definitely needs to be on the firmer side--much more so than for baguette. I have had pretty good results with 65-70%, but the trade-off is tricky--the firmer the dough the easier you can shape it into the epi, but the less open the crumb. Maybe you can give it a longer fermentation to develop the flavor more and short it just a bit on the proof so that the loaves are not too hard to handle. And give it plenty of steam to try to reduce the tendency to rupture.
I am always surprised that everybody wants baguette dough to be so slack, because from what I have read, a classic parisian baguette is 60%. That would make for some very easy and forgiving handling if you could get the crumb to open to your satisfaction.