Crowded kitchen

It has been a busy few weeks in our house (and kitchen)!  I feel terrible not reporting on the on-goings, but hopefully I’ll get around to that soon.  (Maybe a little after I find some time to plan and start my seeds for this year’s garden?  Hmm…)  So!  What did I bake up this week?  I decided to try again with a “real” bread, so I figured I’d try out Girl Meets Rye’s Tartine Country Bread.

Her description of the loaf being good for beginners was definitely encouraging, and her pictures are always beautiful.  So, Friday night I set Fran to work, doubled the recipe, and over the course of the next couple days, produced these two (crackly!) lovelies:

As is my wont, however, I did modify things slightly.  Here’s how I did it:

Levain:

22g starter (I have no idea what hydration % Fran is at)

150g whole-wheat flour

150g water

Mix it all together, leave it overnight (maybe 9 hours) to ferment.

 Dough:

The levain (go Fran go!)

800g all-purpose flour

200g whole-wheat flour*

~700g water — I found my dough quite wet, so I reduced

20g kosher salt

* I thought about increasing this more, but was afraid of the Stodgy Loaf Factor.  I might bump it up to a 35/65 ratio next time.

Mix everything except the salt together until it is, in GMR’s words “a shaggy mass”.  Leave it alone for 2 hours.  Knead the salt into the dough, turn into an oiled bowl, and “fold” it every 30-45 minutes for the next 4-5 hours.  Then exile it to the fridge (in my case for 21-ish hours).

Whenever you’re ready, take it out, shape it (i.e. hack it into two and plunk each half into a loaf pan, in my case) and let it come up to room temperature for awhile.  In the meantime, preheat your oven/baking stone at 500F.  (Yes, I parked my pans on the stone.  What?  It works.)

When it is time, throw your pans in, along with some ice cubes (not on the baking stone!!) slam the door, then forget to turn the heat down to 475F for 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off, run back to the oven panicking, notice that your bread has not actually burnt black.  Turn it down to 375F and let it keep doing its thing, in my case, about 25 minutes.

Remove, allow to cool, glory in the delightful crackling sounds.

All told, it made for beautiful bread — crisp and crackly outside, fluffy and airy inside… but not chewy enough for my taste.  I don’t know if increasing the whole-wheat end of the equation would help there, or if I’ve just been spoiled by the oatmeal loaves I keep making but I’m not sure I’d make this again.  The flavour is fine, I just… like my bread a little more toothsome.

Wow, and here I was thinking that I was less of a bread snob these days…