I think of myself as a pretty decent baker. I make a lot of bread, most of which is reasonably aesthetic (in a rustic sort of way) and pretty tasty. While I haven't made bread in a while (mostly making things like English Muffins more recently), I still figured that I would be able to make something decent.
I decided to make a version of my old favorite bread-- Bread Cetera's Pain de Compagne. I modified it by replacing the poolish with starter, but leaving the regular yeast in. I'm not sure what the problem was but the dough simply would not coalesce into, well, dough. It was a sticky mess. It also didn't rise quite as much as I had hoped.
As a last resort, I stuck the dough into a loaf pan and baked it at a low temperature. It did have some amount of oven spring, as you can see from the dome in the middle of the loaf. It also had a sort of sandwich-loaf-like texture, although it was a bit heavier (even though, oddly, the holes in it were a bit bigger). I didn't get a picture of the crumb--I forgot. It tasted reasonably decent with almond butter, but I'm still not sure what went wrong.
Maybe my commercial yeast is dying. Maybe my starter was too wet. Who knows what the problem was. I'll probably buy some new yeast and try it again when it's cool enough to use the oven. In the mean time, I think I'll make some more English muffins.
So yesterday our Kitchen Aid mixer came. Servia and I decided that would be our early Christmas present and we could use it for some holiday baking. We searched around for a while and found a refurbished one on the Kitchen Aid website. Excited to try it out, we made two batches of cookie dough last night.
The Kitchen Aid is shockingly efficient. In about 30 seconds it can cream butter and sugar to a consistency that it would take me at least 10 minutes to achieve. It was amazing.
Creamed Butter and Sugar
The one thing that bothers me is that with this machine baking is a streamlined process. Although I certainly sample the fruits of my baking, I started baking in order to relieve stress. Baking is very physical-- creaming butter or kneading bread requires strength and skill. Even though I have been remiss on hitting the gym (and I primarily do cardio when I have), I have little muscles in my arms from kneading bread dough. Without the physicality of baking, it turns the stress relief from stress baking to stress eating, which can be very dangerous. So is this appliance going to ruin how I bake?
No. In reality, the efficiency can be extremely helpful. I often have to make a dessert for my final class of a session, etc when I'm stressed and have other things to do. Furthermore, one of the batches of cookies I made last night are my dark chocolate shortbread cookies. These cookies are a big hit, but they are actually more frustrating to bake than I would like. The dough is extremely dry and very hard to combine to the correct consistency. The Kitchen Aid made them without the frustration and they were suddenly both simple and delicious.
Thus, I have (quickly) made peace with the mini-factory in the kitchen. I will still probably make almost all of my bread by hand (with the exception of trying this amazing loaf of deliciousness that I've been eying for ages). However, over the holidays when efficiency is paramount, I have a feeling the new Kitchen Aid and I will become fast friends.
I made some of the Bread Cetera Pain au Levain. It was lovely! I switched a few things, no rye flour: 620g all purposed unbleached flour, 150g whole wheat flour, and 540g water. I must have messed something up because the dough was supposed to be 75% hydration and it seemed more like 85% hydration. It made a lovely open crumb, though.
Nice Open Crumb
We gobbled it up. It was fantastic. Another loaf waits in the fridge so I can bake it in the morning.
I love whole grains. More and more I find that white bread without at least 15% whole wheat is just too bland and I savor anything above 50% whole grains, with the 70% Whole Wheat Tartine Loaf being my favorite bread that I've made. I realized recently that I have a lot of unbleached starter sitting around and I needed to use it for something. So I decided to make Peter Reinhart's Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread from Whole Grain Breads which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter.
Here is how I modified the recipe (it is now about 71% water instead of 61%): Day 1: Soaker and Starter
Soaker
170g water
56.5g red whole wheat flour
56.5g rolled oats (I used steel cut by accident)
56.5g semolina flour (I didn't have any cornmeal around)
42.5g white whole wheat flour
7g flax seeds, whole or ground (I used toasted whole flax seeds)
7g wheat or oat bran
4 salt
Mix soaker ingredients together in a bowl for about 1 minute. It will form a dough that resembles thick porrage.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap at room temperature for 12-24 hours.
Starter
200g mature starter (unbleached flour)
100g unbleached bread flour
128g water
28g whole wheat flour
Blend ingredients together until fully hydrated.
Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
Day 2:
Final Dough
456g starter (all of it)
400g soaker (all of it)
100g whole wheat flour
5g salt
20g sunflour seeds
20g pumpkin seeds
20g sesame seeds
You may need a little bit of extra whole wheat flour for adjustments
Two hours before making the dough
Take the starter out of the refrigerator
Toast the sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds. Let them cool.
For the final dough
Mix together the starter and soaker until fully combined. Warning: this was an oddly challenging process, but it does work. I used a danish dough whisk. The dough will be very wet and sticky.
Add in the whole wheat flour a little bit at a time and mix it into the dough.
Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
Mix in the salt and the seeds. Make sure the dough fully absorbs the salt.
Using wet hands (the dough is very sticky) need the dough for two to three minutes.
Use the Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold technique, but do two stretch and folds in a row every ten minutes for 40 minutes. This dough is very troublesome. Note that it will probably not come completely together until the second stretch and fold and it should become significantly silkier by the fourth stretch and fold. [1]
Let the dough rise between 78-82 degrees for four hours. Do a stretch-and-fold after the first, second, and third hours of the rise.
After four hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half so both sides are lightly floured.
Then gently stretch it into a rectangle. Fold it up 2/3 of the way, and then fold the left side over 2/3 of the way. Fold the right side directly over the left side and pull the top down over the bottom to develop surface tension. Turn the dough seam side down and let rest under a large overturned bowl.
Let the dough bench rest for 20 minutes.
If the gluten structure seems weak, repeat this process again. If the dough spreads out with fairly even thickness, proceed to the final shaping.
Shape the dough any way you like for the final shaping. I decided to make a large batard. My shaping skills are pretty terrible, so I would suggest looking at some videos (e.g. Bread Cetera) for shaping suggestions. Place in a banneton or in a bowl or pan lined with a floured dishcloth.
Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1 hour under plastic wrap or similar
Then, place the dough in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.
Day 3:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a combo cooker or brothpot and stone.
Take the bread out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.
When you are ready to bake, turn the bread onto a floured peel and score it.
Put the oven down to 450 degrees F and bake under steam for 20-25 minutes.
Remove the lid for keeping the steam in and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the outside of the bread is a rich brown and the internal temperature reads 212 degrees F.
Wait at least 1 hour before slicing.
Crust
Crumb
The bread is great. It's very hearty and seedy and it has a lovely, rich, nutty flavor. I will most definitely make it again.
I am sending this into Yeast Spotting. I hope it doesn't look like too much of an ugly duckling among the beautiful breads.
Endnotes
I did mixing techniques by trial and error which is why I don't think my bread rose as much as it could have it did not develop quite the crumb I was hoping. I am hoping to have better luck with this technique as written.
This week I had two, count them two, unsuccessful attempts at Pain de Campagne. However, each unsuccessful loaf provided (1) a vital learning opportunity and (2) some good food.
Loaf 1: The Song of the Bread.
Having read a lot of writing on bread, one of the things that comes up is the mythical crackling of the perfect artisan crust as the baker removes it from the oven. It supposedly has something to do with the quick change in temperature as the bread comes from the hot oven into the cold air and is reputedly the mark of a perfect loaf for some bakers. I have never had a loaf crackle as it comes out of the oven until two days ago. I accidentally left it proofing for a little too long so the bread flattened out and had pretty much no oven spring (and no irregular holes). However, for the first time ever, when I took the bread out of the oven, it began to sing. I heard a veritable orchestra of crackling crust! It was amazing. Then I opened up the bread and realized that I had forgotten the salt #epicfail. Anyway, although it was overproofed, it was light and airy and it made fantastic croutons (thanks, Servia). I realized not only that I had proofed it too long butthe lack of salt meant that the bread proofed even faster than it would have otherwise. Oops.
Singing crust
Bread overproofed...it flattened like a pancake
Crust & Crumb
Crumb shot
Loaf 2: Shaping Method and the Poke Test
I couldn't let this loaf go. I wanted to perfect it, so I tried again. I still did not manage. I realized that my only effective shaping method is the one I have been practicing on my beautiful loaves of Tartine bread. The problem is that I think my Pain de Campagne loaf might be too delicate/not high enough hydration for this kind of handling. Anyway, a combination of that and a my incorrect assessment of the poke test (and resulting in overproofing) caused a very strange crumb. The bread was light and had a moist, creamy texture, but the crumb was aesthetically displeasing. I will try this bread again over the next few weeks until I perfect it. I am determined to make it work. Sadly, this crust did not sing.
Crust...moving forward.
Servia scored this. managed a nice ear.
Really strange crumb
Note: the poke test is a test to determine whether the bread has finished it's final proofing. If you poke the bread and it rises back up quickly, it's not done. if it rises very slowly, it has finished proofing. I still don't quite understand the magical point in this test where you know whether the bread is re-rising slow enough. I think I misread it though.
My uncle and aunt surprised us by coming into town bringing a variety of California wines and extremely impressive viticulture knowledge. I have already started to attempt to siphon off some of their expertise and I will try to relate what I am learning in future editions of Wine Snob
This is my most recent bread: Pain de Campagne. It's not aesthetically perfect, but it was flavorful and light (all the water cooked out of it).I wanted the holes in the bread to be larger and more irregular like they used to be when I baked it at my alma mater. I will try another loaf next week or the following week. Today I have to start another country loaf from Tartine Bread (I am making one as a thank-you gift for a friend who helped me resurrect my computer last week and partook of my second, quite successful attempt at the recipe).
The main problem that I ran into with this country loaf was that it got so big. It was so big it wouldn't fit under my broth pot and the edges got slightly squished. This is probably because my shaping technique is still not good enough and I did not develop enough surface tension for the final proofing (I tried to make a boule instead of a bouton d'ore). I also added an autolyse to the recipe (only 15 minutes) to see if that might make the kneading easier (which it did), but I am worried that this essentially worked as an extension to bulk fermentation and the baker's yeast. Thoughts?
Crust
Crumb
Another attempt will be coming soon. However, this one tasted fantastic, so I shall consider it a medium-grade success.
Egyptology News just posted this piece about how the largest whale skeleton in the world has been found-- in Egypt. I had no idea that Egypt used to be an ocean, but apparently palaeontologists have discovered 37 million old mangroves and whale and shark skeletons. Very cool. I have been reading The Alchemist at a pace of about 5 pages per day when I need to relax for a few moments. Just outside of the oasis in Egypt the main character finds a shell and realizes there must have once been an ocean there. It's very cool that the same ay as I read that moment in the story such a massive find has once again confirmed this fact.
As a note, I made a pate fermente for Pain de Campagne tonight. I am hoping that it turns out the way that I remembed from baking it at my alma mater. I will post results.
Over the past three days I made three different types of bread. Each bread had its own failures and successes. None of them were perfect, but none of them were bad either. They all need work and I learned a lot. Luckily, we had a friend from out of town to help us taste all of the breads.
The first bread to be ready to eat was the More Sour Sourdough from Wild Yeast. As the temperature in my house is not ideal (even though the bread was rising in the oven with a pot of boiling water), I increased each of the rising times by about 1/3 and I chose the refrigerator option for the bread. I made one big mistake that came close to ruining the loaf. I used the "poke test" to try to determine if the bread had risen enough when it came out of the refrigerator. The poke test involves poking a small indentation into the bread with a finger; if the bread rises back up, it's not proofed enough. If it remained indented, it needs to proof longer. Anyway, the bread seemingly failed the poke test so I let it sit out for a few hours. The dough became softer as it warmed to room temperature and it ended up sticking to the banneton in such a way that I had to reshape the dough and let it proof again for a few hours. I think that if I had taken it out of the oven for about 20-30 min and then baked it, the bread would have come out a bit better. As it was, it was a bit dense but pretty nice, especially with brie while warm or toasted with brie in the morning.
Crumb
The crumb is still obviously far too dense, probably from the reshaping with not enough re-rising and not enough steam at the initial part of the bake. I will get it right one of these days. The crust is problematic. Although it is nice and crunchy, it has that serious dappled/multi-colored look too it which indicates that something went wrong. Probably because the dough re-rose. I think this might be the change in temperature from rising in the refrigerator (post being shaped) and then rising again at a warm room temperature.
Crust
The second bread that I made was a 70% finely-ground white whole wheat modified from Bread Cetera's Pain de Campagne. I changed the rising times, increased the hydration slightly (to compensate for the whole wheat) and replaced 70% of the flour with white-whole wheat. I thought this would make a whole wheat version of the exceptional bread i baked all through my senior year at my alma mater. Something did not quite work. The bread was reasonably light, but not as flavorful as I had hoped and it also had the small even air-bubbles of the my version of Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat Hearth Bread instead of the large irregular holes of my original attempts at Pain de Campagne. I am not sure if this is because it was a 70% whole wheat bread or whether I did something else incorrectly in the process. I may try again with a 50% whole wheat or similar at some point.
Crust
The crust was nice, but the crumb was just...wrong. I am not sure. I think I might need to add more water and try a different shaping technique. Thoughts will be forthcoming.
Crumb
The final bread was the crown of the bunch, although not a polished gem by any stretch of the imagination. This was the Country Loaf from Tartine Bread. Once again, this book is absolutely incredible. I finished reading it this weekend in between doing other things and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Anyway, the bread had a few problems in the process of making it, including (I think) adding too much levain, having to leave it longer than intended and changing the temperature during the initial bulk fermentation, and extreme trouble during the shaping process. Worst, I don't have a combo cooker, so I improvised with my stone and an upside-down angel cake pan. The angel cake pan was not nearly large enough, as it turns out, for the way the dough wanted to oven spring, and obviously hampered the oven spring. On the other hand, the dough was moist and flavorful and the crust was wonderful and crunchy.
Crust
Crumb
The crumb has lovely irregular holes, but obviously the bread did not have enough oven spring (because of my faux-pas with the cake-pan), but I can see the potential for this bread. I am very excited. I think this bread is going to be my new wonderful go-to artisan loaf. I found that I have a large broth pot that can be overturned and put in the oven which should allow for enough room for the bread to expand while I look for a good and cheap combo cooker.
In the process of making this bread, I realized that part of the reason that my breads have such uneven oven spring is that they really are not getting enough steam. The home oven is meant to vent steam and it's good at it. My oven at my alma mater was designed to vent steam, but it was really awful at it, which meant that the bread could be steamed much better in that oven than my home oven (hence some of the problem with early loaves). So, except for baguettes and pizza, I will now try the upside-down broth-pot method over my stone to see if I can accomplish better steaming. Results forthcoming.
One other thing I realized making this bread is that my approach to bread baking is not very systematic. At school, things worked about 80% of the time by either fluke or beginner's luck and so I just kept trying new things. When I was having trouble shaping the Tartine Country Bread, I complained that I needed a baker to hang around in our kitchen for the day and help troubleshoot, or at least someone who made successful bread. My mom mentioned that a number of her friends could make one great loaf, but that's all they did. She reminded me that most people perfect a loaf and stick with it. I have never done this. So, my new approach will be to perfect one loaf at a time, starting with the Tartine Loaf (while making the amazingly successful pizza dough in between). When I have perfected the loaf, I will move on. Wish me luck!
I have never used white whole wheat or even seen the flour in a store. I used to think it was a combination of whole wheat and white flour. This is not true. Rather, there are two types of wheat: red wheat and white wheat. Apparently, the whole wheat I usually get is red whole wheat (good to know) because this whitewhole wheat is a much lighter color. This particular white whole wheat ground incredibly fine so it feels like white flour but it's actually whole wheat. Anyway, I decided now that I have it that I should experiment with the flour and see how it works. I am making three loaves of bread over these three days, so we will see how it goes.
Pate Fermente
I decided to make a 70% White Whole Wheat version of my favorite bread I have ever made: Bread Cetera's Pain de Campagne. I will write up my version of the recipe and post it. I also have found some amazing new tips in Tartine Bread, which I read about half of and highly recommend it.
My thing that I learned from Tartine Bread is a way to speed up the rising process without having to turn on my oven (which really screwed-up one of my last loaves of bread). I put the bowl with the rising dough, covered with plastic wrap, in the oven and place a pot of boiling water in the oven next to it. This kept my rising bread warm so it actually rose at a reasonable pace instead of taking forever. I will be using this as a technique and will begin to modify my rising times accordingly. More information and recipes coming soon!
Although there are a lot of things I could and should be doing right now, I am making some more bread. The bread will not be ready until later, but I thought I would share some of the things I have been wondering about before I do a review of Norwich More-Sour Sourdough. I would love for anyone who has insight on these issues to share ideas.
My first real knowledge deficit is about types of flour. I usually use whatever unbleached flour or bread flour is in my pantry rather than carefully following the different types of flour advised in recipes. I also often substituted whole wheat for rye flour (as I am not a huge fan of rye). Doing some reading, I realized that this could be a problem. According to Cookwise, substituting flour can make up to a 25% absorption difference in water absorption (Corriher 8). Unfortunately, Cookwise only provides a chart concerning baking white flours and does not provide any conversion for ancient flours. This may significantly change the consistency of the dough.
Another problem I am having is temperature verses time. Many recipes call for the bread to rise at specific temperatures or assume about 75 degrees F. The problem is that with a fairly open kitchen, it would be ridiculous to heat the entire house to 75 degrees F. So I increase rising times. However, all of these increases are approximations. Because the house is between 68-70 degrees, how much should I increase? I tried to google search and I couldn't find much. Today, the second half of the Pain au Levain that I left in the refrigerator, was still cold after it had been sitting out for two hours. Wanting to have the bread in time for dinner, I decided to proof it at a higher temperature by turning the oven on for a short burst of heat, letting it out, and leaving it about what I thought was about 85 degrees F. The dough rose more beautifully than any of my previous sourdough creations.
Pre-proof
Post-proof.
But as it turns out, I thought wrong. The oven was about 100 degrees F and produced a sticky mass and a skin ont the bottom edge of the dough banneton when I tried to turn it onto the peel. Lesson learned. However, one good thing did come out of this. I punched down the dough, reshaped it, and put it back into a re-floured banneton while Servia took the skin, shaped it into a dinner roll, and popped it into the preheated oven. Much to both of our surprise, the dinner roll worked rather well. Even more exciting was the distinctive sour flavor of the dough, far different from the mildly-sour Pain au Levain I cooked on the second day.
Funky looking but crunchy crust.
Dinner roll crumb.
Although this may not be the finest dinner roll I will ever make, it actually tasted pretty good. Hopefully the re-shaped larger loaf whence it came will taste great too! I think the crust was that odd color because the dough was too old. I am revising my estimate on the keeping of the dough.
Speaking of sourdough, I did something rather unusual to my sourdough starter. One day when I was not paying attention, I accidentally mixed some of the sourdough starter from my Alma Mater into my sourdough from home (so I now have one hybrid whole wheat along with my "pure" starters from each place). My Alma Mater was in one of the prime sourdough cities, my home is not. What will happen to this hybrid? Will one yeast become dominant and kill off the other? Will they cohabitate and produce a mixed-flavor bread? Will they bread and create a new starter? According to Wikipedia, yeast generally reproduces by asexual reproduction, which would mean that the two yeasts would remain differentiated. However, under conditions of stress, apparently, the yeast reproduces sexually which means that I might end up with hybrid yeast. I wonder. Thoughts?
The final thing about which I wanted to wonder in print was the ratio between first and second fermentation. Corriher says that the bread rises faster during the proofing than it does during its first fermentation (Corriher 4). Does this mean that the second proofing should be shorter? Should I have made my sourdough first fermentation six hours instead of the second one when I made Pain au Levain? I am still not sure. Which one of the two fermentation increases the flavor more? Cookwise provided no answer. Does anyone know?
This is my first hearth bread that actually came out as bread instead of a gummy mass [1]. I stuck pretty close to Reinhart's recipe from Whole Grain Breads, so I won't replicate the recipe here (Reinhart 153-155) [2]. If I tweak it some more, I will probably add it [3]. If you are new to bread baking (like I am or newer) and you like whole grains, this book is fabulous, not only for it's fabulous introduction on whole grains but also the incredible glossary in the back.
I thought I would use this bread to remember some lessons that I learned (and am learning) about baking. A recent comment from a wonderful friend (who is, in fact, the person who gave me Whole Grain Breads in the first place) reminded me that I am guilty of not providing adequate information to those who are self-teaching in breadmaking (which is what I did). So, I will go through my process making the bread and discuss the different techniques that I learned. I will omit a discussion of baker's percentages because I discussed them in a previous blogpost.
This bread starts out with a soaker and a biga, each at 75% hydration. Biga and soaker are both types of pre-ferment or "old dough." Pre-ferments are used to increase the flavor of the dough without having to spend a long time and lots of space increasing the flavor of dough through a slow, cool fermentation process. In this particular case, almost all of the dough goes through this long-fermentation process (only enough flour is added the next day to move the dough from 75% hydration soaker and biga to 70% hydration dough and no water is added). Biga is "the Italian name for pre-fermented dough. It is usually a stiff dough with a small amount of yeast and no salt" (Reinhart 299). By contrast, a poolish (not used int his bread) is "a French-style, sponge-type pre-feremt, usually made of equal parts water and flour and a very small amount of yeast" (Reinhart 300). Soaker is an "old dough" but a non-fermented one, "containing grain, along with water or other liquid, and sometimes salt. Soaking the grain initiates enzyme activity in advance of fermenting the dough" (Reinhart 303).
Instead of a biga (made with baker's yeast) I used wild yeast (better known as sourdough starter, sourdough culture, or levain). I keep my sourdough starter at 100% hydration, so I modified it by adding enough extra flour and water to give it the 75% hydration of the biga.
Baker's yeast is the yeast that you can buy at a grocery store. There are two kinds: instant yeast (or bread-machine yeast) is Reinhart's preferred yeast. It does not require hydration before it is mixed into the dough. The alternative is dry active yeast, my preference, which requires a small degree of hydration before use. In this case for the final dough, I added a little bit of water to my yeast so it became a paste when I put it in, and I added a in small amount of flour to compensate for the change in hydration. This dough uses a large amount of baker's yeast (2.25 teaspoons) so that it can rise rapidly. Even with the large amount of yeast, I doubled Reinhart's rising times because my house is at a lower temperature than the ideal conditions for rapidly proofing bread (which I believe, but I could be wrong, is about 80-85 degrees F for bakers yeast and about 70-75 degrees F for wild yeast [4]).
In the morning after the overnight fermentation of the old dough, you have to allow any old dough that has been in the refrigerator to warm to room temperature, and then mix the final dough. My final dough included honey, which sweetens the flavor of the whole wheat. It also softens the crust and means that the crust and brown or burn at a lower temperature. Reinheart gave the option of adding oil or butter as well and instructed that the baker roll the dough in oil later in the process. The oil/butter also compromises the hard crunchy crust, so I decided to omit it. After mixing, the dough rests so the flour can fully hydrate. Reinhart suggests five minutes. A longer period is called an autolyse, and usually allows the dough (or the dough except for salt or oil) to sit for often 30 minutes in order to allow the flour to hydrate and the dough to gain the silky texture of well-worked dough more quickly (Reinhart 299).
Kneading is the most important part of the process. At this point, you develop the gluten structure that will allow the bread to rise and gain an open crumb, that wonderful light, airy, holey texture of artisan bread, and incorporate some air into the bread. I think the air incorporation helps because it adds some air into the dough but it also means that the yeast that is raising your bread during the proofing are in aerobic respiration-- i.e. they eat faster and produce more carbon dioxide. If it lacks oxygen, it respires anaerobically, which is slower and produces ethanol which will eventually kill the yeast [5]. Bread Cetera describes the slap-and-fold technique as a way of mixing bread which incorporates air. I agree and I used it for a while on this bread, but I find that slap-and-fold tends to work best for breads over 70% and under 80% hydration. At 70% hydration dough, like this hearth bread, the momentum of slapping the bread against a surface does not seem to stretch the dough sufficiantly. Because of this, I used a combination of first slap-and-fold and then stretch-and-fold. Stretch-and-fold is Reinhart's technique of stretching the dough and folding it in half away from you, and then the same toward you, then folding the left half in a third of the way, and then the right half in a third of the way, and then flipping the dough so that it is seem-side down. Repeat four times in a 40 minute period. When the dough is ready, it becomes silky and elastic.
Another way to test is called the window pane test: stretch one corner of the bread in front of a light to the point where you can see light through it. If it works, gluten is developed. If the dough rips, it requires more kneading.
Before first fermentation
After kneading comes the first fermentation or the first rise. The dough usually rises in a clean, lightly-oiled bowl (although Rayner alleges that even this small amount of oil slightly compromises the crust) covered with plastic wrap or some material the will keep the dough air-tight so it does not dry out. Using a moist towel does not help (Rayner 78).
The end of first fermentation
Once the first fermentation is over, round the dough by placing it on a floured surface and pre-shape it without degassing so the shaping will be easier. Let the dough relax for 15-30 minutes so that it does not try to shrink back into it's old shape. The comes shaping. Shaping is my least favorite part of the process because it is my weakest area. Servia actually shaped my Pain au Levain for me while I was at work. The most important thing for a free-form loaf (one not cooked in a loaf pan or similar) is making sure the "skin" is taught to hep ensure a crunchy crust and open crumb. I put my boule (the round shaped loaf) into my banneton (a wooden bread basket which I sprayed with a little bit of oil and dusted with flour) to rise for the final proofing.
After the pre-shape
I may have been a little over-zealous putting flour on after the pre-shaping. This is not advised.
Shaped and in the banneton
After the final proofing
The final proofing allows the bread to rise again after the partial-degassing that happens during the shaping process. Then I placed a floured peel over the banneton and turn it over so the dough falls onto the floured peel. I use a peel, because I bake my bread on an oven stone. You can use a traditional oven stone or you can use an unglazed terra-cotta tile. My first baking stone, which I still use although I now have a more traditional oven stone, was a granite tile ($4) that I turned so that the polished side was facing the bottom of the oven. I oiled my stone with olive oil before I used it and dust it with flour immediately before the bread goes on it. An oven stone helps mimic the stone ovens that bakers use to bake their bread and it helps to more evenly distribute the heat to the baked goods.
On the peel.
Then I scored the dough. I did a particularly sloppy job this time. Scoring the dough provides that great artisan look and allows it to expand. It also, according to Understanding Baking, allows some of the gasses to escape so that the bread does not swell too much in the oven and end up with gigantic air pockets (Amendola 165). I think there are other reasons for it, but I do not remember what they are. I use an exacto-knife, but traditionally one scores dough with a lame. Let the knife do the work, and cut at a shallow-ish 45 degree angle for that textured scoring. I did not know this when I scored my Pain au Levain.
Scored
Then I baked the bread for 15 minutes under steam. As I mentioned in my comment, baking under steam means that, in imitation of a real baker's oven, you make sure there is some steam in the oven. My preferred way is to fill a small pan with 1-2 cups of water in it. You take the pan out partway through just as a baker would release the steam from his/her professional oven. I put my pan on the shelf under the stone. Peter Reinhart suggests placing it above, but this caused my oven light to burst. For similar reasons, do not use a glass pan to hold the water. I am told it will explode. The guy who runs Bread Cetera uses a metal steamer thing and injects steam. He has a great video on his blog.
Baking under steam improves the crust and crumb of the bread, because according to Understanding Baking, "steam...has the principle purpose of keeping the crust soft during the first part of the baking so that the dough can expand rapidly and evenly" (Amendola 141). The bread can be cooked at a high temperature and once the steam is taken out, the bread's crust will harden into the wonderful rustic crust.
Out of the oven
In the oven, the bread should rise a little bit more. This increase in size is called oven spring. My breads (until this one) tend to have a lot of oven spring at home. The reason that this one did not spring was probably because we used the oven on convection and the temperature was too high. A convection oven blows the heat around. I noticed my breads were rising more on one side than the other on the regular setting so I put it on convection this time. However, the crust browned far more quickly, meaning that it was not soft enough to allow the bread to rise. I think I will put more water in the pan and put it in when heating the oven in order to make it steamier so the crust stays soft and allows it to spring before hardening.
Apparently it takes at least 30 minutes for the crumb to set, so do not cut into the bread before then, no matter how tempting it is. The flavor improves as the bread cools. For this bread, Reinhart recommends waiting one hour (Reinhart 153-155). The crumb was a little more dense than i had hoped due (most likely) to inadequate oven spring, but it was not significantly denser than Reinhart's own version. I personally like a more open crumb, so I may try another whole wheat bread.
Crumb
Crust and crumb (odd because of the flash)
Anyway, the bread was great with brie. Servius said it had a "malt" flavor (probably from the honey) and it will certainly go well with almond butter for breakfast.
Endnotes
The gummy mass happened a few months ago when I first tried this recipe. I covered the soaker and biga wrong and they completely dried out overnight, making the bread an icky mess and making it impossible to develop proper gluten.
Although I will discuss baker's percentages.
For anyone who has a copy of the recipe, I used the stretch-and-fold technique after some more traditional kneading to develop the gluten (which seems to have worked). I also doubled the suggested rising times (so the first one rose for two hours and the second rise was for 1.5 hours). I omitted the butter/oil, used honey as the sweetener, and used sourdough starter instead of biga (although I used the recommend 2.25 teaspoons of instant yeast in the final dough).
This comes from Wild Bread and Rayner actually says 65-75 degrees F (Rayner 78), but the dough will rise more slowly at 65 degrees F than at a slightly higher temperature.
I remember this from 10th grade honors biology, so I might be over-simplifying a bit.
which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter. 
(I am making one as a thank-you gift for a friend who helped me resurrect my computer last week and partook of my second, 
at a pace of about 5 pages per day when I need to relax for a few moments. Just outside of the oasis in Egypt the main character finds a shell and realizes there must have once been an ocean there. It's very cool that the same ay as I read that moment in the story such a massive find has once again confirmed this fact.
, so I improvised with my stone and an upside-down angel cake pan. The angel cake pan was not nearly large enough, as it turns out, for the way the dough wanted to oven spring, and obviously hampered the oven spring. On the other hand, the dough was moist and flavorful and the crust was wonderful and crunchy.
, substituting flour can make up to a 25% absorption difference in water absorption (
alleges that even this small amount of oil slightly compromises the crust) covered with plastic wrap or some material the will keep the dough air-tight so it does not dry out. Using a moist towel does not help (
(a wooden bread basket which I sprayed with a little bit of oil and dusted with flour) to rise for the final proofing.
over the banneton and turn it over so the dough falls onto the floured 
or you can use an unglazed terra-cotta tile. My first baking stone, which I still use although I now have a more traditional oven stone, was a granite tile ($4) that I turned so that the polished side was facing the bottom of the oven. I oiled my stone with olive oil before I used it and dust it with flour immediately before the bread goes on it. An oven stone helps mimic the stone ovens that bakers use to bake their bread and it helps to more evenly distribute the heat to the baked goods.
, allows some of the gasses to escape so that the bread does not swell too much in the oven and end up with gigantic air pockets (
. Let the knife do the work, and cut at a shallow-ish 45 degree angle for that textured scoring. I did not know this when I scored my 
