LET'S BUILD A BREAD - PAIN AU LEVAIN DE SEIGLE

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Plötzblog is one of Germany's best bread baking blogs. When Lutz Geißler (author of "Das Brotbackbuch") invited us to his blog event blog-experiment: "Wir bauen uns ein Brot" (Let's build a bread), I was intrigued.

Of course I wanted to attend the very first "Bread Olympics"

Each participant has to bake a loaf, roll or small bread with these ingredients and these amounts:

• 450 g (90%) wheat flour Typ 550 (or bread flour)
• 50 g (10%) whole rye flour
• 10 g (2%) salt
• sourdough and/or yeast
• water

And that's it: nothing else should be added.

But there are no restrictions on how to make your bread - method, level of hydration and leaven are entirely up to you.

This challenge was hard to resist, especially since the best of all husbands was still traveling all over Vietnam, and, after sanding and re-oiling all my kitchen counter tops, I could do with some entertainment.

My husband, indulging in imperial dreams in Vietnam

I knew at once what kind of loaf I wanted to create - a French bread, made with Forkish's minimalistic method, and baked in a Dutch oven. I'm really enthusiastic about how you can bake a fabulous bread that is "pinched instead of kneaded."

So I opened my BreadStorm program, entered the ingredients, and started to play around with hydration levels and percentages of pre-fermented flour.

I also had to take into account the amounts of flour in my refreshed levain - 5 g bread flour and 2 g whole rye flour - and deduct them from the total.

BreadStorm-Users (including the free version) can download the formula here.  

Whether my Pain au Levain de Seigle will win at the Plötziade, or not - it definitely was a winner for me. I enjoyed its aromatic taste, crackling crust and open crumb so much that it went straight into Karin's Bread Hall of Fame!

Still a bit warm - I couldn't wait any longer!

PAIN AU LEVAIN DE SEIGLE - MY PLÖTZIADE-BREAD

1. Step-Levain (Refreshing - you will use only part of it for step 2)
10 g mature starter (what you have at hand)
40 g water (90ºF/32ºC)
40 g bread flour
10 g whole rye flour

2. Step-Levain (after 24 hours)
12 g refreshed levain (keep remainder as mother starter in the fridge)
47 g water (90ºF/32ºC)
47 g bread flour
12 g whole rye flour

Final Dough
338 g water (90ºF/32ºC)
398 g bread flour
36 g whole rye flour
10 g sea salt
118 g levain (2. step)

DAY 1
7:00 - 9:00 a.m. Feed your mature starter (step 1) (With such a small amount the hydration level of your starter doesn't really matter.) Cover and leave for 24 hours at room temperature.

Ripe levain, showing the typical sponge structure under the surface

DAY 2
7:00 - 9:00 a.m. (24 hours after refreshing the starter)
Mix 2. step-levain, cover, and leave for 7-9 hours at room temperature.

Mixing flour and water until all flour is hydrated

2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
In large bowl, mix flours and water by hand, until all flour is hydrated. Cover, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Add salt and levain to flour mixture

First pinching the dough...

...then folding it. (The last 2 photos are from other, similar breads)

Prepare bowl with water (to make your hands wet). Sprinkle salt over flour mixture and add levain.

With (wet) hands, fold dough from sides over to the center, then, working like a pincer, pinch dough several times, alternating with folding, until dough is smooth, about 5-6 times. (DDT: 77º-78ºF/25º-26ºC.)

After folding place dough ball back into bowl

Fold dough 3 times more, twice at 20 minute intervals, the last time before going to bed. Leave, well covered, at room temperature overnight.

The dough has tripled overnight

DAY 3
After 12-15 hours the dough should have tripled. Prepare a very generously floured rising basket.

Transfer dough to a floured area on an (otherwise unfloured) work surface. With floured hands, gently fold sides towards the middle to make a round. (The flour "skin" on the underside prevents sticking.)

Folding the dough from the sides to the middle

Then flip the round gently over, seam side down, onto the unfloured area. With floured hands, pull dough ball towards you, until you have a medium-tight boule.

Place dough round, seam side down, in proofing basket, sprinkle generously with flour, cover well, and proof for about 3-4 hours.

3/4 hours before baking, place Dutch oven (with lid) on the middle rack, and preheat oven to 475ºF/245ºC.  Place a piece of parchment paper on the counter (for the bread transport).

Finger poke test: a dimple that doesn't fill up again

The dough should at least double in size, use the finger poke test to decide whether it is ready to be baked.

Finger poke test:
Gently press a dimple with your finger in the dough - it should still be a bit elastic, but not fill up again, and stay visible. 

Cutting parchment paper to make a sling for the bread

Place bread on prepared parchment paper, smacking the banneton energetically on the counter! Cut paper around the bread, leaving 2 long pieces as handles, to make a sling. (Clipping the paper prevents creases from cutting into the bread.)

i

Using a paper sling makes transferring the bread to the hot pot easy

Remove hot Dutch oven from oven, and put bread (with paper) into it. Replace the lid.

Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid, and bake it for 20-25 minutes more, or until bread is medium to dark brown (internal temperature 210ºF/99ºC).

Tilt Dutch oven to slide bread out (the paper might now be too brittle to serve as sling), and let the loaf cool on a wire rack. Let the bread rest for at least 20 minutes before slicing - even if you, like me, have a hard time to wait!

A very tasty bread!

Submitted to Plötzblog, 

Yeast Spotting

and Panissimo:  Bread & Companatico                                       
                           Indovina chi viene a cena 

                                       
 






 

ROSE HIP LEVAIN - MADE FROM JAM!

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When I made my wonderful rose hip jam a month ago, temperatures were in the eighties, t-shirt weather for weeks, and we even used the air condition in our bedroom - in Maine!

The glasses were sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be properly tagged before going into the basement. But my husband, immobilized by his broken foot, needed special attention, and, between baking twice a week for our local natural food store, answering student questions online, and taking care of our undeserving critters, I didn't get to it for quite a while.

After a week or so, I noticed that one of the glasses showed ominous signs of frothy activity. Obviously I didn't fill it quite high enough to establish a vacuum, and, with the prevailing heat as incubator, my rose hip jam had started to ferment.

I was pretty annoyed with myself. Why didn't I pay more attention, and place the compromised glass into the fridge, before it could turn itself into booze?

No help for it, this was a goner, and had to be thrown out..... Or not? Suddenly I remembered my experiences with apple yeast water two years ago. Made from fermenting apples, the yeast water had proved to be a powerful leaven, my bread even grew a horn!

But in the end the apple yeast water died a slow death from starvation in a dark corner of my fridge, all but forgotten, since we preferred the tangier taste of sourdough.

Wouldn't it be worth a try to experiment a bit, and see what would happen if I fed the tipsy jam with  flour?

I measured a teaspoon of jam in a little bowl and added equal amounts of water....

.....and whole wheat flour to the bowl:         

5 g fermented rose hip jam + 25 g water + 25 g whole wheat flour.

Eleven hours later the reddish mixture had become bubbly and spongy, and emitted a wonderful fruity-sour smell. I was very pleased and contemplated my next move.

I wanted to make a fairly simple levain, with a bit of whole grain, but not too much. I expected a rather mild taste, but I didn't want the blandness of an all-white bread, nor a too hearty loaf that overwhelmed more subtle nuances.

So I adapted a recipe for Pain au Levain, made with apple yeast leaven, from Jan Hedh's "Swedish Breads and Pastries". I had made this bread before, with apple yeast water, it had been nice, but rather mild.

Hedh's book is gorgeous, with wonderful recipes, though not without some pesky errata - my first attempt of an attractive looking Levain with Bran and Vinegar had ended in a dense, compact brick - thanks to one erroneous Zero too many in the bran department.

Even though it was already evening, I didn't want to wait, and started with 16 g of my newborn rose hip mother - mother, chef and levain are the classic French terms for the 3 steps to make a leaven - to make the second stage: the chef.

Le petit chef before his rest

I woke up at midnight, went downstairs, eager to see how my starter was doing, and found a nicely grown chef, wide awake, and hungry for more.

A really grown-up chef

After feeding the little guy with more flour and water, I tottered back to bed.

The next morning my levain was fully ripened and ready to go!

PAIN AU LEVAIN  (adapted from Jan Hedh: "Swedish Breads and Pastries")

CHEF
21 g mother starter (it doesn't have to be rose hip, an ordinary mature wheat or rye starter will do)
   8 g water
21 g bread flour

LEVAIN
  50 g chef (all)
  50 g water
100 g bread flour

FINAL DOUGH
200 g levain (all)
 16 g spelt flour
 16 g rye meal
282 g bread flour
219 g water
    6 g salt

DAY 1:
1. Mix together all ingredients for chef. Knead for 2 minutes, then let rest for 5 minutes. Resume kneading for 1 more minute. (Dough should be stiff, but not hard, moisten your hands to incorporate more water, if needed.) Cover, and let sit for 4 hours, or until doubled in size.

2. Mix together all ingredients for levain. Knead for 2 minutes, then let rest for 5 minutes. Resume kneading for 1 minute more. (Dough should be stiff, but not hard, moisten your hands to incorporate more water, if needed.) Cover, and let ripen for 5 - 6 hours, or until doubled in size. Knead briefly to degas, and refrigerate overnight.

DAY 2:
3. Remove levain from refrigerator 2 hours before using, to warm up. Cut into smaller pieces and place with flour and water in mixer bowl. Knead for 3 minutes at low speed, then let dough rest for 5 minutes.

4. Add salt and continue kneading for 7 more minutes at medium-low speed. Stretch and fold 1 x, gather dough into a ball, place it in lightly oiled bowl, turn it around to coat with oil, cover, and let rest for 90 minutes.

5. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface, place hands in the middle and push out the air, stretch and fold 1 x, gather dough into a ball, return it to the bowl, and leave it for another 80 minutes.

6. Push out air again, and let dough relax for 10 more minutes. Shape into a round, place in banneton (seam side up), or on parchment lined baking sheet (seam side down).

7. Sprinkle bread with flour, mist with baking spray, cover, and proof for 60 - 90 minutes (in a warm place), until it has grown 1 3/4 times its original size.

8. Preheat oven to 250º C/482º F, including steam pan. Score bread.

9. Bake bread for 5 minutes, reduce heat to 200º C/400º F, and continue baking for another 15 minutes. Rotate bread 180 degrees, remove steam pan, and bake for 20 minutes more, venting the oven once to let out steam in between.

10. Leave bread in switched-off oven with door slightly ajar for another 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and let cool completely.

I changed Jan Hedh's recipe a bit. Instead of long kneading, I added a period of rest (autolyse) while mixing the dough, thereby shaving off some hands-on time.

A total baking time of 60 minutes, as stated in the recipe, was not necessary, my bread was already done after 40 minutes. And leaving it a while longer in the switched-off oven with the door a bit ajar guaranteed a nice crisp crust that didn't soften soon after baking.

Did it taste like rose hips? No. But is was delicious! And not only that: The best of all husbands found it "the crustiest bread you ever made".  

One question remains: what was it exactly that gave the bread its marvelous lift? The rose hips? The apples? Or the red wine the jam was made with?

Rugosa rose and hips

Submitted to YeastSpotting and BYOB