Tartine Basic Country Bread
As noted in a recent thread, my wife gave me 3 books for Christmas, including Tartine and Forkish's WFSY. I read the books cover to cover and decided my first attempt from those would be Tartine Basic Country Bread.
Now, as also noted in reply to a comment in that thread, I can not handle 75% hydration with the flour I use:, Robin Hood All Purpose White Unbleached. Maybe it's the flour, maybe it's my lack of skills at handling the dough, maybe a combination of both. So I used 5% Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten to add to the gluten structure and firm it up a bit.
Here are the results of my first attempt:
I am still playing with oven times and temps, but always pull the bread once it's 210 deg F internal or higher, so it's not as dark as I would like:
It blistered beautifully (if you like blisters on bread):
The crumb came out fantastic, and had a wonderful texture:
The holes have a pearlescent look to them like I've not seen in my bread to date, but has been common since I baked this loaf a few days ago:
So, all in all, I was thrilled with this first attempt and what I consider one of the "Holy Grails" of bread.
I have to say I love his method of mixing the levain right in with the dough at first, then adding the salt after a rest of ~ 30 mins.
Jamie