Fancy durham flour!!?? Are you kidding me?  As I read through the ingredient list for this 29th bread of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, I was stunned to discover that we needed yet another variety of flour to produce the Pugliese Bread.  My freezer already looks like an ad for King Arthur Flour.

In my pantry and freezer I currently have all-purpose flour, bread flour, high gluten bread flour, semolina flour, clear flour, white rye flour, pumpernickel flour, whole wheat flour and pastry flour.  But with a name like “Fancy “, how could I resist?  Of course I caved and bought a bag. 

Pugilese bread hails from the Apulia region of Italy.  It is similar to Ciabatta bread except that it is usually shaped in a round rather than the slipper shape of the ciabatta.  The other distinction is that authentic Pugilese bread uses  golden durham flour, which is finely milled and then packaged as Fancy durham flour.  And of course, I want my Pugilese breead to be authentic.

The making of this breads begins on day one with the preparation of a starter dough known as a biga.  The biga contains flour, yeast and water.  It rests on the counter for several hours and then is put in the fridge overnight to help boost flavour.  The next morning the biga is removed from the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature.  Then the final dough is made.  This is quite a wet dough. 

 I used the Kitchen Aid and mixed for about 6 minutes until the dough was smooth.  The dough cleared the sides of the bowl, but still stuck to the bottom.  This is exactly what you want.

Then the dough is transferred to a heavily floured counter and is stretched and folded 3 times with a 30 minute rest between each session of stretch and fold.  

 Then the dough is placed in a bowl and covered with plastic wrap and covered for 2 hours.  Next, divide the dough in half and form 2 boules.

 Then the dough is set aside for it’s final rise in proofing bowls.  I was quite excited to try out my proofing basket.  I found it in my cupboard a few years ago and had no idea what it was for until I started this challenge.  I only have one of these so I used a small stainless steel bowl as well.

 Each bowl is lined with a clean cotton or linen towel which has been slightly sprayed with pam and dusted with flour.  The boules of dough go in seam side up and are covered with the towel for their final rise.

After about 90 minutes, the boules are placed on a baking peel, scored with a sharp knife and transfered to a baking stone in a very hot (500) oven.

After about 20 minutes the loaves are done.  Scoring skills still need work.

The bread was delicious dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar. 

The crumb was a bit tighter than I had imagined it would be, given the high hydration of this dough.

Pugilese bread is perfect for tuna melts the next day!

Forgive me, Cousin Mark, for I have lapsed.  It’s been 24 days since my last post!  I came home from our winter holiday with a renewed sense of vim and vigour, determined to get back to the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge and my once a week baking and blogging schedule. I baked the Potato Rosemary Bread within 3 days of getting home never quite got around to blogging about it.   Life just got in the way.  My daughter was home from school visiting for a week and I began January, spending lots of time doing things for and with her.  Then I went to New York City with friends to celebrate our respective wedding anniversaries.  When I got home from that trip, the last thing I wanted to do was bake, blog or eat bread!  Then it was onto another trip, this time to Israel to visit my daughter, who is studying here for a year, and watch my husband participate in an ice hockey tournament.  Yes, ice hockey in Israel!!  But that’s a story for another time.

I’m writing this post from my hotel room in Jerusalem.  My cousin Mark has shamed me into it.  Thanks Mark!  It’s just the push I needed.

As I read through the ingredient list in Peter Reinhart’s recipe I noticed a few unusual ingredients.  Roasted garlic and mashed potatoes?

Let’s just say, as Renee Zellweger says to Tom Cruise, in Jerry Maguire, “You had me at hello.”,   Peter Reinhart, you had me at mashed potatoes!  Mashed potatoes are my go to comfort food.  When I was pregnant with my first child, it was all I craved.  I was working in a gourmet take-out food shop, and our chef, Karen Barnaby, would make staff lunch every day.   Usually it was some version of Pad Thai.  But for me, she made mashed potatoes with butter, cream and cheddar cheese.  Every day!  No wonder I gained 40 pounds with that pregnancy.  You might think that I would never want to look at mashed potatoes again after eating it every day for lunch for 6 months, but the exact opposite is true.  I still love mashed potatoes.  The recipe called for 1 cup of mashed potatoes.  It was unclear as to whether it should just be plain potatoes, mashed up or actual leftover mashed potatoes, made with salt and butter and cream.  I opted for the latter and made a big batch, saving a cup for the recipe.  The starch in the potatoes adds a tenderness to the bread .  It was a happy day in my house as I inhaled the aroma of an entire head of roasted garlic while eating a big bowl of mashed potatoes. 

The dough begins with a biga (a starter dough, prepared the day before).  The biga is incorporated with flour, salt, pepper, yeast, mashed potatoes, olive oil, rosemary and water to prepare the dough.  Then the dough is flattened out into a rectangle and the roasted garlic is spread on in an even layer.

The dough is then gathered up into a ball and kneaded by hand for an additional minute until the roasted garlic is evenly distributed.  It smells like heaven!  Then the dough is placed in a large container to double in size.  It takes about 2 hours.

Then the dough is divided in half, and formed into round loaves, called “boules”.  It is given a second rise, about 2 more hours, and then a sprig of rosemary is “glued” to the top with water as decoration.

 The loaves go into a hot oven for about 35 minutes.  These were gorgeous loaves, all burnished brown with a very heady aroma of garlic and rosemary. 

Of course we had to wait an hour before slicing into them.  I decided to invite some friends over for drinks and bread.  I prepared a pitcher of lemonade mojitos.  I put out some roasted almonds, dried cherries, dried apricots and a few different cheeses.  The girls came over and we ripped into the bread and mojitos.  Although I have no photos of the sliced bread, I can assure you that it was a tender crumb and the flavour of this bread was intense.  After 2 mojitos, my hand was not really steady enough to hold the camera.  We’ll leave it at that.

Okay, so I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have been obsessing about this bread for over 3 weeks now.  I baked my last BBA bread (poolish baguette) on December 14 and turned the page to see what was up next.  After I read through the ingredient list I was pretty sure this was not the bread for me.  I have this thing about using lemon and orange extract.  When I open that little bottle I am almost knocked out by the aroma.  To me it smells like furniture polish.

Plus, it was another white sweet bread.  We have already baked so many variations of these.  I was craving something with whole grains and a hefty chew.  However, the rules of our challenge are that we have to bake every bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice book,  so I was determined to follow through.  (I know, it’s not like the Bread Police would come and arrest me if I skipped one or went out of order, but I am a stickler for rules!)  I just couldn’t seem to muster up the excitement for this bread.  So I just thought about it every day for 23 days.  I’d wake up in the morning vowing this would be the day I’d tackle it and then go to sleep that night promising myself I’d do it tomorrow.  (Clearly I need to get a life, but that’s a subject for a whole other post!)   I’m not normally a procrastinator, so I’m not quite sure what my problem was and why this weighed so heavily on my mind.  Finally, yesterday morning I decided to get my act in gear and bake this bread.

The process begins with mixing up a sponge of  bread flour, sugar, water and yeast.

This is left on the counter until bubbly and “seeming on the verge of collapse”.  (I love this phrase!)

Next,  sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter and shortening are creamed together until smooth.  When I went to the cupboard to find my powdered skim milk, a big bag caught my eye.  I had purchased some coconut milk powder, several months ago, for coconut cupcakes.  I  decided to substitute the coconut powder for the regular milk powder.  I think when it comes to coconut there is no middle ground. You either love it or hate it.  It’s sort of like that with cilantro.   I am of the belief  that the addition of coconut will improve almost anything.  There!  Just adding coconut milk powder was making me feel better about Portugese Sweet Bread already!

I just couldn’t bring myself to use the extract, so I decided to add orange and lemon zest, instead.

 The smell of fresh lemon and orange zest makes me very happy.  I was feeling really good about this bread now.  My mood turned positively euphoric when I remembered that I had just bought a giant (32 ounce) bottle of vanilla bean paste.  I was excited to crack it open and use it.

I mixed the dough in the machine.  Total mixing time was over 20 minutes.  I still could not get it to register 77º.  I gave up at 22 minutes and 75º.  Close enough!!

Look at those gorgeous vanilla bean flecks and bits of orange and lemon zest.

Next the dough is set aside to double in size.  Then it’s divided into 2 pieces and each if formed into a boule and placed into a greased pie plate for the final rise.  We are instructed to let the dough fully fill the pan.  Mine took almost 4 hours, but it finally almost filled the pan.

It’s given an egg wash and baked for about 40 minutes and it comes out all golden brown.  We waited about 45 minutes and then cut into it.

So after all that agonizing I am happy to report that I did not hate this bread. I can’t say it was my favourite either, but there is definately a time and place for this bread with it’s heady citrus aroma and pillowy softness.  (In case you’re curious,  the coconut milk powder imparted a very faint hint of coconut.)   The second loaf was sliced and put into the freezer to be used for french toast.

P.S.  I’ve had several people ask me how they can be noitified by e-mail every time I post a new entry.  If you go to my home page (www.saltandserenity.com), just above the little monthly calendar is a small line that says, “Subscribe to SaltandSerenity’s blog by e-mail”.  Just click on that and you can enter your e-mail address and be notified that way.

Last week my sister Bo asked me how the bread baking was going and what loaf I was working on.  I told her that this week’s bread was “Poolish baguette.”  She responded that “poolish” sounded like what might result from eating such a baguette.  That got me to thinking.  I am so deeply immersed in this bread project that I am bandying about all this new baking terminology. So , for my sister Bo , and all others reading the blog, and not familiar with “Poolish”, a little clarification.

Poolish is a mixture made of equal weights of flour and water with a small amount of yeast.  In other words, it’s a wet messy goo.  This mixture is made and refrigerated, usually overnight, and then incorporated into the final bread dough the following day.  Poolish is one of several “Pre-ferments”, bakers use.  (Other pre-ferments include biga, pâte fermentée and sponge)  A pre-ferment extends the fermentation time which allows for more time for flavour to be developed in the final loaf.

Polish bakers, are credited with inventing this preferment in Poland at the end of the 19th century.  The process then was adapted in Austria and later in France.  The French coined the term “Poolish” to honour the Polish bakers who created this technique for improving bread.

I made my poolish on Friday and planned to make the final baguette dough on Saturday.  Saturday morning I took the poolish out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. For this baguette, I decided not to knead the bread but use a technique I have been reading a lot about lately, called “Stretch and Fold”. 

In my research I came across a very interesting post by Martha and Tom, where they do an experiment and bake 3 loaves side by side for comparison.  The first uses the no-knead method, the second, traditional kneading  and the third is the stretch and fold technique.  They concluded that while all the breads tasted quite similar, the stretch and fold had the best open crumb and lofty structure.  Stretch and fold rose the highest and had the most evenly distributed open holes of the three loaves.  They concluded that stretch and fold is best for “rustic” types of breads.

I mixed my dough up briefly in the stand mixer, just until everything came together.  Then I dumped it out onto the back of an oiled baking sheet.  As you can see, the initial dough is quite shaggy.

I found a wonderful video on You Tube, with Peter Reinhart demonstrating the stretch and fold method, and I followed his technique and instructions.

Stretch and fold is exactly what it sounds like.  You pull the dough to stretch it and then fold it back on itself.  This is done 4 times, with 10 minute rests between each stretch and fold session.  Wetting your hands with cold water really helps the dough not stick to them.  Here is photo of me stretching the dough.

I had to set my camera on timer as I was home alone.  That in itself was a neat trick for me as I had not used the timer function in quite a while and forgot how to do it.  I had to get my reading glasses and manual out and it was quite a production but now I know how, so look for more timer photos in future posts.  It’s opened up a whole world of photographic opportunities for me.

 I took a photo of the dough after the first stretch and fold so you can see how the dough is becoming smoother.

After the fourth stretch and fold I set the dough into an oiled container for the first rise.  The recipe said to allow the dough to ferment at room temperature for about 2 hours.  

Here is where the bread making got interrupted.  I had to drive my son to his afternoon program, do a few errands and pick him up again.  I figured I could just stick the dough in the fridge and take it out and resume when I got home.  From my previous experiences with fermentation, I knew that the cold fridge would slow the dough rising annd I could finish later.  However, something went terribly wrong,  as when I pulled the dough from the fridge 4 hours later, this is what greeted me.

Clearly the dough was hard at work in the fridge while I was away.  It would seem that it had over-proofed.  Note to self;  the interruptus method of bread baking is not fool proof!  I decided to proceed and take my chances with the overproofed dough.  I formed the dough into baguettes and set them in my homemade couche for a final rise.  The couche (an old cotton apron) allows the baguettes to hold their shape and grow without touching each other. 

After about an hour they were ready for the oven.

I carefully transferred the baguettes to a semolina dusted peel and slid them onto a baking stone in a very hot oven.  Unfortunately there are no photos of this process as I could not co-ordinate my sliding motion with the timer function on the camera.  My technical prowess still needs a bit of finessing!  However, the sliding went without incident and my loaves stayed relatively straight.  here they are fresh out of the oven.

I would have liked them a bit darker but they were registering done (205º F) with the instant read thermometer, and I did not want dry bread.  I was quite pleased with the crackly crust.

The true test, for all bread freaks out there is looking inside at the “holes” (the crumb structure).  Bread freaks want holes, dentists do not!

This is the third baguette we have made in the Challenge.  I thought the taste and open crumb structure of the Poolish baguette was quite good, but not nearly as good as the Pain à l’Ancienne baguettes we made in week 21 of our challenge.  Here is a photo of my holes from my Pain à l’Ancienne.  Much more open than the Poolish. 

 If I am going to make baguettes again, it will be the Pain à l’Ancienne recipe for sure.

In week 24 of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, we prepare the Italian Christmas bread known as panettone.  I have never made or eaten panettone before so I really had no frame of reference on this one.  As I read through the ingredient list I told myself to keep an open mind.  However, I had my doubts about this one.  I hate brandy, rum and whiskey (I’m a wine girl), intensely dislike orange and lemon extract (they smell like furniture polish to me).  I believe that candied fruits have no place in the culinary world. 

 There was one ingredient that was unfamiliar to me, “Fiori di Siclia”.  Peter Reinhart describes it as a wonderful blend of extracts and floral oils.  I decided to hunt some down, as I wanted my panettone to be as authentic as possible, a lesson I  learned from my brother-in-law Brandon.  Whenever he visits a new city, he insists on eating whatever that city is famous for and only from the original source.  When he visited Philadelphia, he almost missed his flight waiting in line for a Pat’s Cheesesteak.  When he came to Ottawa, he strapped on his skates and a fur trapper hat and skated down the longest skating rink in the world to sample “Beavertails” (fried dough dipped in sugar and cinnamon).  President Obama ate one too when he visited Ottawa!

I had the option of ordering fiore di sicilia from King Arthur for $7.95 plus $25.00 delivery (why do they charge so much for Canadian deliveries???), or from  Golda’s Kitchen (a Canadian web site) for $30.00 plus $7.00 for shipping.  Both admittedly were ridiculous options, but I was convinced that without it my panettone would not be authentic.  Since the Canadian economy needs a bit of a boost, I did my part and ordered from the Canadian web site.  The parcel arrived the next day (that never happens with US web sites shipping to Canada).  It arrived in a huge box.  I was a bit confused as I only ordered a 4 ounce bottle.  It was so carefully wrapped in bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts.  I finally managed to unearth the bottle and opened it up preparing myself for a heavenly aroma.  Feh… furniture polish.  After spending such an outrageous amount of money for this essence, I tried to convince myself that the aroma would transform into something sublime during the baking process.  Okay, so I’m an optomist.

I decided to use dried sour cherries, cranberries, apricots instead of the candied fruit. Here they are soaked in rum.  They glistened,  just like little jewels.

In addition to the dried fruits, soft butter and toasted almonds get added to the dough.

It was almost impossible to mix in all these ingredients with the mixer.  The dough hook just kept going round and round and the dried fruit and nuts sat on top.

Time for hand kneading!

After mixing the dough is set aside to rise for about 2 hours.  Then the dough is formed into little round balls and placed into special paper Panettone moulds.  I decided to do one large one and lots of mini ones.  They just looked adorable in their little paper cups.

Two hours later they had risen to the top of the moulds. 

I had to go out so I left my husband in charge of the baking.  Armed with a timer and instant read thermometer, he did a wonderful job.  Here they are fresh from the oven.

I let them cool and then we took a bite.  They looked so pretty and I wanted to love them, but it wasn’t to be.

The texture was dry, the aroma was overpowering and all I could taste was the rum and extracts.  I suppose if you were a rum lover, this would be a good thing.  My husband didn’t mind them and our babysitter loved them so she and her girlfriend took all 15 of the mini ones home.

The next day I got an e-mail from chefshop.com.  They are selling panettone in about 20 assorted flavours.  There is a Caffe Panettone with coffee, chocolate, hazelnuts and almond icing.  Now that’s my kind of Panettone!

You would think that after baking bread for the past 22 weeks, I would have learned a thing or two about the properties of yeast.  Specifically, that yeast causes bread dough to rise and expand.  Somehow I forgot this lesson when making Pane Siciliano, the 23rd bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge.

Pane Siciliano is an Italian bread made with both bread flour and semolina flour.  Semolina flour is milled from Durham wheat and is traditionally used to make pasta.  Peter Reinhart promises “a finished loaf with a beautiful blistered crust… and a crumb with large irregular holes.”  Ok, looks like we’re obsessing about bread holes again.

The bread begins with starter, made from  flour, water,  yeast and salt, prepared and refrigerated the day before.  The starter is then mixed with bread flour, semolina flour, water, yeast, olive oil, salt and honey to form a soft and pliable dough.  Then the dough is set aside to ferment for about 2 hours, until it doubles in size. 

It still amazes me that when you first start mixing you have a shaggy mass.  And after a mere 10 minutes of kneading the dough is transformed into a smooth supple ball.

Then the dough is divided into 3 pieces and each is shaped into a baguette, and then extended until they are all about 24 inches long.  I appreciated the baguette shaping practice and my skill level is almost at the mediocre level.   Still a long way to go before I am good at this, but so much better than my first pathetic shaping experience.

Then the fun begins.  Working from both ends of the rope at the same time, coil the rope (in opposite directions) until it meets in the middle, forming an “S” shape.  I think that the bread shaping is one of the most fun parts of this challenge, (well aside from eating the breads, of course!)  The coiled loaves reminded me of snails with overgrown heads. 

The loaves are placed on a parchment lined baking sheet that has been sprinkled with semolina flour.  And here is where it all started to go wrong.  I placed all 3 loaves on the same baking sheet.

Clearly the past 22 weeks of bread baking had taught me nothing!  I misted the loaves with water, sprinkled sesame seeds on them, sprayed them again with vegetable spray oil, covered them with plastic wrap and put them to bed in the fridge for an overnight rest.

I’m not sure why I was so surprised with the scene that greeted me the next morning when I opened the fridge.  The 3 loaves had swelled and had grown together into one large snail monster. It looked like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.  Clearly, each loaf should have gone on it’s own baking sheet.

  I tried to pry the loaves apart as gently as possible but unfortunately, in trying to separate the siblings, I squished them and they lost any gas they had.  After separation,they looked a little worse for the wear. 

The test to see if the loaves are ready for baking is to poke the dough  gently.  If the dough springs back quickly, they need more proofing time.  If the dough stays dimpled, they’re ready for baking.  After a gentle poke, it was clear there was no spring left in my loaves.  Into a hot oven they went for about 30 minutes.  They seemed to come back to life a bit during the baking process. 

I let them cool for about an hour and sliced into them.  I had one nice large hole but the rest of the dough had a very tight crumb. 

The taste was slightly sweet and nutty and the texture quite tender.  I was hoping for a crisper crust and chewier inside.  We managed to eat about half of one of the loaves for dinner that night but unlike some of the other breads on this challenge, this one did not continue calling me into the kitchen all night for “just one more slice.”

Next week we tackle the Italian classic Christmas bread, Panettone.