Grainy

First off I want to hock my wares.  Wait, that sounds bad.  I would like to put my artisan bread officially up for sale.  As of tomorrow morning (Saturday May 2nd)  I will have 2 sandwich loaves of a wonderful multigrain bread and 2 or 3 boulés (pronounced bools (rhymes with fools)) to sell.  Fresh as can be.  I’ll be extracting them from a very hot oven beginning at 9:30 a.m.  If you would like to share in the reverie of fresh baked bread just e-mail me at chef.j.allen@gmail.com.

The Sourdough is the beautiful Arizona Rustic style that I bragged about here.  The wild yeast culture was started on April 11th so it still hasn’t hit the apex of its sourness.  Don’t let that dissuade you though, its fantastically complex and if you get it within2 hours of baking the crust is delightfully crunchy which is worth the price alone.  Oh yeah, the price.  Its $4 for a generous boulé.

The multigrain(pictured at the top of the page)(I need a catchy name for it) has quickly become one of my favorites.  I make mine a multi multigrain by including red quinoa (its a superfood), millet (not quite super, but close), polenta, oats and of course wheat.  The slight crunch of the quinoa and millet perfectly compliments the pillowy soft texture of the bread.  I add honey to give this bread a mildly sweet flavor.  Its perfect served warm with a slathering of butter or toasted with your favorite jam.  Oh year, I almost forgot.   This bread is technically a sourdough also, I used the same starter mentioned above, all wild Arizona yeast.  It gives this bread the perfect kick.  I’d marry this bread if the Arizona Constitution didn’t strictly forbid it.  $5 for a sandwich loaf, half price if you come up with a name for it that sticks.

Again, just email me at chef.j.allen@gmail.com if you’re interested.    Oh, you have to come pick it up, so if you live outside of Maricopa County, it probably not a good idea.

The Staff of Life

The Staff of Life

Its finished and I’m happy with it.  Here are some more pics.

Still notsure about the banneton.

I used a banneton for this boulé.  A banneton is a proofing (rising) basket.  As the bread rises, it takes on the shape of the banneton.  This one just made the bread look lumpy and made the surface of the dough too dry.  I need a good basket and a little practice, then maybe I’ll use it more often.

The Setup.

This is my oven setup.  The oven was preheated to 500 degrees for 45 minutes.  There’s a baking stone under the bread that you can’t see, it has been in the oven throughout the preheating along with the empty loaf pan in the upper right corner.  The bread is on parchment that has been floured lightly with bread flour and polenta (rough cut corn meal).

I placed the bread with parchment directly on the baking stone, poured a cup of water in the loaf pan, sprayed the top of the bread with a little water, then emptied the squirt bottle onto the sides and bottom of the oven to create steam.  I set the timer on the oven for 2 minutes.  After 2 minutes I sprayed more water on the bread, the sides of the oven, and the bottom of the oven.  I set the timer for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes I repeated the spraying process.  I then turned the oven down to 450 degrees and set the timer for 15 minutes.   After 15 minutes I took the bread out and placed it on a cooling rack.  No eating for at least 30 minutes, the bread needs to rest.

I put the water in the loaf pan and spray the sides of the oven to create steam.  This steam collects on the surface of the dough and allows it to expand more in the oven.  It also creates a perfectly crunchy, golden crust.

Rustic.

I didn’t get the crumb (texture) I wanted out of it.  I’d like a more open crumb with bigger holes, but I used whole wheat flour for 1/3 of the flour.  This is always going to make a more dense bread.  Thats where the rustic part comes in, apparently when you use whole wheat flour it’s rustic.

As I said before, I began this bread on April 11 and finally finished it this morning.  It is 100% wild yeast harvested from the air, the flour, and some raisins.  It is among the best bread I have ever made.  Maybe I’ll start selling it soon.

The Baguette

I went into culinary school with a chip on my shoulder as did most of the culinary program students.  We all thought we would become a hot-shot chef, the next big thing, and we all shared a disdain for the Baking & Patisserie students.  It was nothing personal, it was just the thought that they sit in their air conditioned kitchen all day, twiddling their thumbs waiting for their bread to rise while we are out slaving over a 350 degree grill, getting grease burns, developing calluses on our knife hand and snapping the leg joints of chickens.  Their undeviating use of recipes and their meticulous measuring were a sharp contrast to our throw in ingredients will-nilly method.   So it was no surprise that there was much murmuring over being required to partake in two baking classes.

The first day of Intro to baking was just that, an intro to baking.  We got the syllabus, did a quick overview of the book, were assigned our partners, were introduced to the foreign equipment, and were treated to a vitriolic diatribe where we learned that the baking side hated us just as much as we hate them.   The second day is where it all clicked for me.  I got to class 20 minutes early as was customary for me, I looked over the syllabus, determined what we were doing that day, opened my book to the recipe, and prepared my mise en place*.  We were making baguettes (I’ll Share the recipe with you soon) which is about as simple a bread as you can get, the recipe simply consists of flour, water, yeast, and salt.                                                       *For those of you who don’t watch food network, mise en place is the gathering of all your ingredients prior to cooking.

Before we started any mixing or baking we had to have a demo by the chef.  He demonstrated the bread making procedure to us like we were 3 year olds who had never seen a loaf of bread, and somehow he had maintained the level of hatred he had established the previous day.  We were finally released to make our own baguettes.  I was one of the few in the class to actually take the chef seriously.  I carefully measured out my ingredients by weight, I timed exact mixing times, rising times, proofing times, and baking times.  As I looked around the room though, I realized I was in the minority.  Most tables didn’t even have their scales out, they just tossed the ingredients in the mixer and went for it.

I must say, my finished product wasn’t perfect, but to me it was a thing of beauty.  A near perfect 24 inches in length, 6 inches in diameter, 3 evenly spaced slits in the top, a crunchy dark brown exterior with a soft wonderfully textured interior.  I was in Love.  I ate one whole baguette while cleaning and another half while listening to the chef yell at all the students who didn’t measure their ingredients.  At the end of the class he extended the invitation to us to come in early and practice our baguettes because they were a part of our test that coming Friday.  I was in 45 minutes early every day that week to get my baguettes started.  By the end of the week I was an expert baguette maker and had become pretty good at making the other types of bread also.  This classed changed my whole outlook, I had begun to enjoy baking equally as much as cooking.

Today, years later, I still love both sides equally.  I see the merits in both styles and I know that one would not be as good without the other. but I feel a special sense of wonder when I pull that bread from the oven and realize I have just created this thing of beauty.  Its a sense of wonder that has yet to be equalled on the culinary side.