Philippe Gosselin's Pain a l'Ancienne

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Finished product

According to Reinhart's first hand knowledge, dmSnyder's interpretation, and modifications.

The Will Falzon method.

Total formula 

Flour - 500g

Water- 355g

Salt -        9g

IDY -         5g

The Autolysis (Refrigerated overnight 8 hrs.)

300g King Arthur Sir Lancelot ( high gluten 14%)

100g All purpose flour (11.5%)

50g Sprouted Whole wheat 

50g Dark Rye

325g Water (Ice Cold)

The Final Dough

All - The autolysis dough

30g - Water

  9g Salt 

   5g IDY

The procedure 

Preheat the oven to 475° F one hour prior to bake off.

Incorporate the Final Dough ingredients until a cohesive elastic dough is achieved. Full gluten development is not necessary. Bulk ferment at room temperature (72°F) until the dough doubles in volume. This can take up to six hours according to Reinhart. On a well floured work surface, divide the dough into two equal pieces. Rest covered on the bench top for ten minutes. Dust the dough liberally, preshape each dough ball into football shape. Rest for ten minutes. Gently stretch the football s to approximately 14" use well floured hands and as much bench flour as is needed. Place the shaped baguettes into the baking pan. Score and bake immediately with heavy steam. After 15 minutes, purge the steam from the oven an bake until the desired shade of brown is achieved. Approximately 15 more minutes. 

11:00 PM mountain standard time, autolysis begins.

Baguette

After 5 hours of bulk. At 1:40 Mountain standard time the sticks are in the oven. The after bulk procedure was divide preshape into blunts. Without further manipulation the preshaped blunts were rolled into the baguette shape. There was a 15 minute rest of the final shaped baguettes. 

Not as rustic as one would have expected. That being said, I am curious about the effects on the flavor profile that the extended cold bulk ferment will have. Next time I will use the twist shaping method.

Baguettes

 

They look like good loaves, nicely formed. I would say the title is a bit off because your recipe has basically nothing in common with Reinhart's (!)**. 

Show us the crumb and eating report please, we are eagerly holding our breaths!

 

** I mean the recipe in his "Artisan Breads Every Day" book. Its process is slightly streamlined compared with BBA, I think.

Was given verbally by Gossein.   He posted it, as given to him in a bread journal. He streamlined the process to make it easier for the home baker. My understanding is that this cold Autolysis process is what Gossein gave him. 

The crumb could have been better. That being said, my wife said the flavor warm with butter was outstanding! I concur. It will go perfectly with my low and slow smoked spatchcock chicken!

It seems you subbed Sprouted WW and Dark Rye which would affect the crumb , I  would think. The other aspect I just don’t get is no real rise time after shaping. I would have to let them rise til puffier then bake , but that’s me. 
In reading other posts from the past I see comments about how difficult it is to get the cold dough to accept the final dough ingredients. 

All in all it seems like a lot of work . I’d love to hear some feedback. 🙏c 

The streamlined procedure in Artisan Breads Every Day has all the ingredients mixed together, then 4 S&Fs in the first hour, then into the fridge for at least overnight. For baking, let the dough warm up for an hour, then cut into strips - handle gently to avoid degassing -  which get rolled in flour, then stretched lengthwise to final length as they are laid down on the peel or whatever you use. Bake with steam, no further proofing.

Except I do a final proof and I did shape gently. So basically I am already doing this as I always mix everything and do bowl folds the in the fridge overnight . 

My dough is SO BIG and full of air when I dump it out that I could easily immediately cut 6 ( in my case )  cold pieces stretch gently and bake right then. I’ll see next bake. I will do 2/2/2 as I cover with my roaster pan lid I don’t steam per se. Will place in fridge to hold in between. 

Thank you Tom and everyone who contributes to the discussion. 

Here are a few more versions of (or info about) the base recipe:

https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2022/06/pain-lancienne.html

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2723/pain-lancienne-recipe

https://bakingstories.blogspot.com/2012/11/soak-it-to-me.html

http://www.bread-bakers.com/msgs/v103n007/msg00025.html

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/52802-gosselins-pain-alancienne/#elControls_730184_menu

In the last link, there is a post from Reinhart explaining why his rendition differs from Gosselin's.  It's mainly about the differences in batch size. Large amounts of dough will take a long time to cool down so you don't want them to include yeast.  Then you have to add it in the next stage.  Home bakers with their small batches won't have that problem so they can add the yeast at the beginning and not remix.

 

Hi, Caroline!

I haven't made Gosselin's baguettes in almost 15 years, which is inexcusable, given how good they are. I don't remember them being "a lot of work," and I did all the mixing by hand. What makes it easy is 1) mixing initially with a dough whisk; 2) using pinches, together with stretch & folds to incorporate the salt, yeast (if used) and additional water; 3) no fancy shaping. Just cut strips, stretch 'em out and bake.

Note: All the fermentation is done in bulk. No proofing after dividing and shaping.

See this blog entry for my version: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23821/baguette-tradition-after-phillip-gosselin

Happy baking!

David

I referenced that blog entry a minute ago . I have looked at it before. I am a dump everything together at the outset person. I will try the divide and bake as my nod to the technique. Will post the results. It will be at least a week as we have other bakes to eat first. And the “ grands” are coming ( sounds like a pronouncement ❤️❤️) and they love making Challah so that takes precedence. 

Have a wonderful New Year of baking. c

I found that the Gosselin  baguette recipe in my folder is actually a more recent iteration dated October, 2017. It is also in a better format. 

My blog post from that bake seems to have disappeared from TFL!

Well, I'm going to bake these in the next few days, so I'll post the current formula then.

David