Sourdough Ciabatta

Posted on August 18, 2021 by GoofyDawg

After the success I had with the baguettes based on the Tartine Bread recipe, I thought I’d apply a similar principle to making ciabatta. But this time around, roughly 30% of the flour would come solely from a young sourdough starter as opposed to the half levain/half poolish of the baguettes.

Notice that I mentioned employing a young sourdough starter. This is important in that I wanted lots of yeast activity and also to mitigate the sourness from the bacteria. This is along the lines of Chad Robertson’s approach in Tartine Bread.

Like all ciabatta, this is an extremely wet dough. When you fold this dough the first time, it’ll feel a little icky. But don’t worry. The results are fabulous! Let’s get into the formula.

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water (warm – 85°F)	80.00%
Salt	2.00%
Olive Oil	5.00%
Total Percentages	187%

Levain

Preferment Flour %*	30%
Hydration %	100%
AP Flour	194.44
Water	194.44
Mature Starter	~30
Preferment Required	389

Note that the weights listed here are what is needed for the recipe. I’ll get into building the levain below.

Final Dough

Flour	454
Water	324
Salt	13
Olive Oil	32
Levain	389
Total Yield	1212 2 X ~600g loaves
Optimal Dough Temp	80°F-82°F

Weights are in grams

Please TRUST YOUR EYES AND YOUR HANDS with this. I list out times like 30-60 minutes, but things can happen faster or slower. As with any baking process, times are only guidelines!

Make the Levain. I do a double feeding to really crank up the yeast activity before I mix the dough. So I first take a good spoonful of mature starter and add that to 100g of AP flour and 100ml of water and mix it up well. I place my container in a fairly warm place (80°F+) and let it more than double. When it’s ready, the top is bubbly – very bubbly – and you can see the activity of the yeast. Once it gets to that point which, at least for my starter, takes about 2-3 hours, I feed it with 100g flour and water, then let that double. The activity is pretty strong at this point, so the levain is ready in under 2 hours (yesterday, my levain was ready in an hour!). The levain will be fairly bubbly and as with the initial feeding, you should see activity at the top of the mass.

Initial Mix. In a large bowl, mix the levain and all of the water and completely liquify the levain. Place the flour in another large bowl, then gradually add the water and mix until there are no dry ingredients. Rest for 30 minutes.

Final Mix. Sprinkle the salt over the dough mass, then once lightly incorporated into the dough, add the olive oil. It’s best to just squeeze it into the dough to work it in. Once all the olive oil is incorporated, do a series of light stretches and folds to fully incorporate the salt and oil. Note that this isn’t meant to build strength in the dough. Rest for 30 minutes.

Bulk Fermentation. Up to 2 hours depending on ambient temp. Ideally, your dough should ferment in an environment that’s no lower than 78°F.

Folding. After 30 minutes, stretch and fold the dough. It will be wet and will feel like a batter. Continue stretching and folding until you start feeling some tension build in the dough. You may have to do 10-12 stretches and folds. Four will not do the job. This is a critical step in building up some dough strength and gas retention properties in the dough. I love this part because I can literally feel it transform from a very liquid mass into a dough. After folding, rest for 30 minutes.

You may not see much apparent fermentation activity at this point, but that’s okay. The yeasts are working!

Lamination. This is the last step in building structure in the dough, so it’s pretty important. Liberally flour your work area. Don’t be stingy with the flour here because you do not want it to stick and tear the dough. Using your bowl scraper pour your dough out onto your work surface. Then to ensure that there’s flour underneath your dough, use your bench scraper to push flour underneath any areas that could potentially stick. To make sure your dough’s not sticking, move the whole mass around. It should move easily. Then once you know it’s not going to stick, with quick, definitive motions, slide your fingers under the sides of the dough and lightly stretch it into a square till the dough is about 3/4″ thick.

Take the top of the dough and stretch it away from you a bit and bring it to the center. Take the bottom half, pull it toward you, then completely overlap the top fold. Gently pat the rectangle down to even out the thickness, then do the same stretch on the left and right sides. Pat the dough down, then repeat the process two more times if you can. If the dough fights you, that’s a good thing. It means you’ve built some strength into the dough. Once you can no longer laminate the dough, gently roll it onto the seams and with cupped hands, work it into a round. Transfer the round seam-side-down into a lightly oiled bowl. Let the dough rest in the bowl for another 30 minutes or until you see about a 25% increase in volume. Note that this could take a little longer.

At this point, preheat your oven to 500°F and make sure you have steaming container handy – a cast iron pan or a loaf pan with water-soaked towels.

Divide and Shape. Slide the dough out of the bowl onto a well-floured surface. As with the lamination step, gently pull the dough into a square with roughly even thickness, then cut it into two equal halves. Gently tug each half into long rectangles (forming the slippers). Then holding a rectangle at each end, bring your hands together to scoop the rectangle and place it onto a well-floured couche or towel. Once it’s on the couche, gently tug it back into shape. Once both loaves are on the couche or towel, gently dimple the tops of each piece to promote even rising.

Final Fermentation. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. What you want to watch for is that the loaves are nice and puffy with obvious bubble formation on the skin. Exercise some patience here because with natural yeast, things happen A LOT slower than with commercial yeast, and if you bake the dough too early, you will not get very good bubble formation!

Bake. Get some hot water into your steaming container to get the steam going in your oven about 10-15 minutes before baking.

You’ll really need a flip board for this so as not to degas the loaves. If you don’t have one, you’ll have to basically do the same motion as putting the loaves onto the couche to transfer the loaves to either a baking sheet covered lightly with cornmeal (if you don’t have a baking stone) or flipped onto a transfer board sprinkled with cornmeal or semolina.

Quickly place the loaves into your oven and immediately turn the heat down to 475°F. About five minutes into the bake, check to make sure there’s still water in your steaming container. If not, replenish it (see notes). Bake with steam for 12 minutes then remove your steaming container(s) (I use multiple to ensure steam is produced faster than it can be vented) and reduce your oven temp to 425°F. At this point, the loaves will have started to take on color. Bake for another 12-15 minutes or until the crust is a deep golden brown. You can let these cool if you want, but there’s nothing like slathering a hot slice of ciabatta with butter and honey!

Notes

Some bakers I’ve encountered talk about not being able to keep steam in their ovens. I can’t either. Like almost all domestic ovens, my oven is designed to vent moisture. But if you produce more steam than the rate that the oven can vent it (I use multiple containers), you’ll be able to maintain a steamy environment. Furthermore, when you bake with steam, you need to check to see if your water has burned off during the time you need to be steaming! I always check my steaming containers 5 minutes into each bake to make sure they’ve got plenty of water to do the job.
Once you add the olive oil, the dough will really feel liquidy. Don’t worry and please don’t add flour. Olive oil is like a gluten lube. It increases a dough’s extensibility immensely and in addition to adding great flavor, contributes to the production of large bubbles.
Speaking of olive oil, do yourself a favor and use nothing but real extra virgin olive oil, not the cheap grocery store stuff.

Tartine Bread Baguettes

Posted on August 13, 2021 by GoofyDawg

Yesterday, I wrote a post saying that I had some issues with the Tartine Bread baguette recipe, especially with the yield, which was much more than the two or three baguettes that the recipe said it would produce. It was more like seven or eight baguettes. Not a bad thing, but the inconsistency kind of bugged me. I was also a little dubious about the hydration being only 64% and that the poolish used a seemingly large amount of yeast for such a small poolish amount.

But despite my issues, these baguettes totally intrigued me because Chad Robertson employed both a levain AND a poolish. And unlike most poolish baguette recipes that add a little yeast to the final dough, the rising potential with both types of preferments completely eliminates the need to use any extra commercial yeast other than what goes into the poolish!

Using two preferments was all I needed to know to want to make these baguettes. Chad’s reasoning was that they’d contribute tons of flavor to the bread – they do – but also give the dough lots of extensibility and a longer shelf-life (and I could attest to that because my pure sourdough baguettes will last a week).

But I didn’t want to make as much dough as the recipe in the book yields, so I had to scale it down. To scale it down I had to get the overall formula, then figure out my ingredient weights from that. I shared all this in my previous post, but I’ll put it down here now:

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	64.00%
Salt	1.70%

Levain

In Tartine Bread, Chad Robertson says to use a tablespoon of mature starter – it’ll be somewhere around 30-40g of mature starter.

Mature Starter	30-40g
AP Flour	150g ~14.25% of total flour
Water	150g

Poolish

The book says to use 3 grams of yeast for 200 grams of flour and water each. Even if he meant fresh yeast, that’s an awful lot for such a small amount of flour (instant yeast weight would be 1.2g – that’s an insane amount). It’s not necessarily wrong, but the poolish will mature much faster than 3 hours with that amount of yeast and the aim is to get both preferments to peak near the same time.

AP Flour	150g ~14.25% of total flour
Water	150g
Instant Yeast	0.4g
Optimal Fermentation Temp.	78°-80°F

Poolish should develop in a warm environment to make the 3-hour schedule.

Final Dough

Bread Flour	170g
AP Flour	402g
Water	286g
Salt	14g
Poolish	229g
Levain	229g
Total yield	1330g 4 X 330g 60cm loaves 6 X 220g 40 cm loaves
Optimal dough temp	78°-82°F

Yield is just a little more than 1300g which is the target to account for loss due to evaporation or processing (dough sticking to stuff).

Note the relatively high dough temperature of 78°-82°F. This is consistent with Chad Robertson’s method of a warm bulk ferment. You can achieve this by placing your bulk fermentation container in a cold oven with the light on. The light bulb will provide enough heat to maintain that temperature range. But keep an eye on the temp. You don’t want it to get too warm. Propping the door open with a dish towel or oven mitt will help control the temperature.

This is a fairly straightforward formula. BTW, in case you’re interested, both the Poolish and Levain flour contribute 14.25% each to the total flour. So if you want to scale this up, you can use that percentage to determine how much flour you’ll need for both. Without further ado, let’s get into the dough development!

Make the Preferments

One thing to note is that both preferments should be made from predominantly AP flour. The reason for this is that whole grain flours will have much more fermentation activity.

Build the Levain

For the levain, take about 30-40 grams of mature starter and mix it with 150g each of flour and water. Your starter should have enough activity where the levain will be ready in three to four hours. Or if you have a regular schedule, try to coincide the peak of the levain with the peak of the poolish.

Poolish

With the poolish, thoroughly mix all ingredients together. Set aside in a warm place to promote yeast activity. Poolish will be ready when it is heavily bubbled on the top.

Both preferments should pass the float test to ensure optimum activity.

Initial Mix/Fermentolyse. Set aside 50 grams of water. Measure out what you need from both preferments and place in a mixing bowl. Liquify the preferments with the rest of the water, then sift all the flour and add to the liquid. Mix well until there are no dry ingredients and no large lumps in the mix. It’ll be shaggy. Cover and rest for 30-60 minutes.

If you’ve made baguettes previously, you will notice how stiff the dough is. Don’t be alarmed and add more water! The fermentation action of the starters will soften and aerate the dough. Also, note that this is not a true autolyse as the preferments are included. But it does help to hydrate the flour!

Final Mix/Bassinage. Sprinkle the salt all over the dough mass, then add the remaining 50 grams of water. Note that for this small amount of dough, I just mix it by hand, squeezing the salt and water into the dough. Mix until all the water has been incorporated and you don’t feel any salt crystals when you squeeze the dough.

You could use a stand mixer for all the mixing. But if you do, mix only on the lowest setting! I’ve found that with baguettes, you actually don’t want to develop the gluten too much in the mixing stage. You’ll do all that through the folds.

Bassinage Explained

Bassinage is a term you’ll occasionally hear from bakers from time to time. The literal translation of the word is “bathe.” From the perspective of dough development bassinage is the process of folding reserved water into an already mixed dough; basically bathing the mixed dough. You hold back some water (typically 5%-10%), then mix the dough with the remaining water to start the gluten formation. At a later time, you add in the reserved water.

The idea behind it is actually kind of ingenious. The thinking is that the initial mix will get gluten formation started. Then when the reserved water is added, though some water will obviously combine with the remaining flour, other water molecules will get trapped in the gluten matrix, thus forming little pockets of water, which in turn will help in the formation of a more open crumb.

Given that, especially with a moderately stiff dough like the Tartine baguettes, bassinage conceivably will help with creating an open crumb as the trapped water molecules will form steam bubbles during baking.

Bulk Fermentation. 3-4 hours. As with Chad’s basic country loaf, you’re looking for about 25-30% dough expansion. Even though it was pretty warm in my kitchen, I let the bulk fermentation go for about 4 hours.

Folding. Fold every 30 minutes within the first three hours for a total of 6 folds. Truth be told, I got to the fourth fold and the dough had plenty of strength, forming a nice windowpane. As with any kind of bread, you should never be too parochial about the folding suggested in a recipe. Once you’ve developed enough strength, stop folding. Continuing will just degas the dough.

To be honest, having made these a few times now, I’m not convinced the dough needs this many folds. The hydration is so low that the gluten bonds form quickly. I’ve never gone past four folds. The bulk fermentation does take four to five hours though. With that in mind, I’d suggest doing four folds every 45 minutes instead of six every 30 as is written in the book. But this also depends on your flour. When I use my Azure Standard Bread Flour, two folds is all I need.

Divide and Preshape. Gently turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and tug it into a rough rectangle, then scale out four 330g pieces for 60cm baguettes, or six 220g pieces for 40cm baguettes. With each piece, letter-fold the dough in an east-west direction, then roll it up like a jelly roll and seal the seam and ends. Take care not to roll too tightly. Add just a little tension! Place seam-side-up on a well-floured couche. Rest for 30-45 minutes depending on how tightly you rolled the pieces. With this low-hydration dough, you need the dough to be well-relaxed.

Shape. I always use Master Chef Markus Farbinger’s baguette shaping technique. But if you have a shaping method already, feel free to use it. One thing that Chef Farbinger doesn’t mention in shaping is that while rolling, your fingertips and the heels of your hands should have contact with your board as you roll the dough out, forming a natural cup. To lengthen the log, you simply flatten your hands a bit – not completely – and the dough will push out to the sides.

Final Fermentation. Up to 3 hours. Yes, you read that correctly. Remember, this is a stiff dough, and after shaping, you want to give it plenty of time to relax. My dough was ready in about an hour and a half. It was a warm afternoon when I baked, and I didn’t want to run the risk of over-fermenting the loaves. In hindsight, I could’ve let it go out for about two hours. To tell if the loaves are ready to bake, if you do the poke test, the surface should give easily. And once you press a little deeper, the interior should have a little more tension, but it should give as well. Once you remove your finger, observe how the dough springs back. It should spring back slowly.

I can’t stress enough how important this last fermentation step is! This step will make or break the bake – even more so than the bulk fermentation because that rest period will allow the bubbles to re-form, which is crucial to achieving an open crumb. Remember, this is a stiff dough at 64% hydration compared to the standard hydration of 75%. And though the acid in the preferments will aid in the extensibility of the dough, it still needs time to develop the bubbles. So, once you’ve shaped, give this dough time to expand.

Bake. During the last hour of final fermentation, warm up your oven to 500°F. I use a stone to bake, but you can bake on a sheet or even a dedicated baguette pan. Use lots of steam! When I bake baguettes, I use both a broiler pan that I put hot water into, plus two loaf pans that have well-soaked terry-cloth towels in them to provide a steamy environment (NOTE: Your oven should be steamy when you place the baguettes in it). These are in the oven for about 10-16 minutes before I pop the loaves in (allowing my oven to come back to temperature). Quickly place your loaves in the oven, then immediately turn it down to 475°F. Bake for 12-15 minutes on steam or until the crust just starts getting color. Remove the steaming containers, turn down the oven to 425°F, then bake for another 12-15 minutes until the loaves turn a deep golden brown.

Cool on rack. You can eat these warm!

Notes

The crumb, while open, is very much like a sourdough crumb. It’s tender, but a lot chewier than the baguettes I normally make. I realize that that could be a function of the flour I used. The next time I make these, I will use all AP flour – most probably Central Milling flour as it is only 10.7% protein. This should lend itself to a much lighter crumb texture.
While I appreciate the romanticism of baking on a stone, I always use parchment paper on my transfer board to get my loaves into the oven. Especially with baguettes, since I load them into the oven along their long sides, I’ve had too many mishaps where the loaves roll off my board! So, I use parchment paper. When I remove the steaming containers, I also remove the parchment paper from underneath the loaves.
The loaves could’ve benefited from a longer final fermentation. As you can see in the pictures, they turned out fine, but I think I could’ve had them even puffier had I let the final fermentation go longer. That said, I will have to monitor their progress carefully if I use low-protein flour.
Once the final fermentation is complete, I cannot stress enough that you handle the shaped loaves as gently as possible.
I must admit that I’m still a little bugged by the yield in the original recipe and the recommendation to break up the dough into 2 or 3 pieces. But despite that, I will relegate that to copy-editing oversight.

When you see the Real Bread loaf mark, it indicates that this recipe produces bread with no artificial additives and is leavened either by a natural starter or commercial yeast.

Butter Burger Buns!

Posted on August 3, 2021 by GoofyDawg

Yesterday before she left for work, my wife prepared one of the family’s favorite dishes: The meat for Turkey-Mushroom and Swiss Burgers. As she was walking out the door, she asked if I could make burger buns – specifically buns I’ve made a few times that are light, airy, chewy, and packed with yeasty goodness. With the butter and sugar in them, they’re very similar to brioche, but not as sweet and not as buttery – but they’re close, which is why I call them butter buns.

But I have to be honest: This is NOT my original recipe, though I’ve refined it over the last year. This is a riff on King Arthur’s “Beautiful Burger Buns” recipe. And these burger buns really are beautiful. But not only that, they’re super easy to make!

When I first made these buns, I was surprised to see that there was no milk or powdered milk used in the recipe. I was also surprised at how low the hydration was (46-48%). But the egg and butter make up for the lack of hydration. Plus, the butter combined with the egg gives the crumb a slightly yellowish hue.

And though there’s sugar in the formula, these buns are not sweet overly sweet. The sweetness is much more subtle considering the amount of sugar used.

I’ve made these buns several times and to be honest, I recommend using a mixer, especially if you’re pressed for time. I made the buns entirely by hand yesterday and hand-kneaded the dough. But I had a bit of time, and hadn’t kneaded by hand for a long time (gotta keep my chops up). In any case, let’s get into the formula:

Overall Formula

	Baker’s %	Final Dough
AP Flour (pref. unbleached, unbromated)	100%	473
Water (lukewarm)	46%-50%	207-225
Egg (1 lg. egg – room temp)	8%	36
Sugar	12%	57
Butter (room temp)	7%	33
Salt	2%	9
Yeast	3%	14

Totals	179%	808
Optimal Dough Temp		80ºF

This will yield 8 100g buns and provides 1% of loss during processing. Note that this is a warm bulk fermentation!

Dough Development

Note that the hydration is 46%-50%. On cooler days, I recommend using the lower number. On warm days, use the higher number. That said, I always start with the lower number, then as I’m mixing will add a bit of water to get to that smooth consistency. Also, make sure your water is nice and warm! It helps incorporate the butter much easier.

Preparation. Before you start mixing the dough, mix the water, sugar, and yeast together in a mixing bowl to dissolve the sugar and activate the yeast; yes, even if you’re using instant yeast. Beat the egg so the yolk and white are well-combined. Note that I don’t bother measuring out the weight of the egg if I’m making a single batch and just drop a large egg into the mix. But if I scale up, I will beat a few eggs together and weigh according to the formula.

Mixing. Combine the flour, butter, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the egg and water mixture and mix until all the ingredients come together there are no dry ingredients present. If you’re using a mixer, combine the ingredients at low speed, then once mixed go to the second speed to knead the dough for 2-3 minutes (dough should be smooth and pulling off the walls of the bowl). If mixing by hand, turn the dough out onto your board and knead until the dough is smooth (about 8-10 minutes).

Bulk Fermenation: 1-2 hours @ 80ºF or until the dough has almost doubled. In warm weather, this will happen FAST! With this amount of yeast, bulk fermentation will happen pretty quickly so you need to keep an eye on it.

Divide and Shape. Turn the dough out onto your board, then scale out 100g pieces. Roll the pieces into tight balls (you can do two at a time), then let them bench rest for 10 minutes. Place each ball on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press them out into 3″ disks. Gently dimple the tops as you would a ciabatta (believe it or not, this promotes even rising). If you’re using a standard-size baking sheet, you might want to stagger the pieces so they fit better. Don’t worry if they touch when you press them out. They’ll expand even further during final fermentation and baking.

Final Fermentation. Allow the shaped disks to rise for up to another hour or until they’ve clearly expanded and are puffy. On warm days, my dough’s ready in about 30 minutes. In any case, check them after about 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Baking. Right before you bake, lightly brush the tops of the buns with melted butter. Bake them for 15-18 minutes until the tops are a light, gorgeous, golden-brown. Remove from the oven, then brush them again with butter. Cool for at least an hour before cutting.

Some Alternatives

I love this formula because you can use it for a couple of different kinds of bread besides burger buns!

Dinner Rolls. Instead of flattening out the rolls, place them in a round or a 13X9 pan to make dinner rolls.

Hawaiian Rolls. Half the sugar, up the butter to 10%, and replace 70%-75% of the water with pineapple juice and you’ll get a VERY close approximation to Hawaiian bread! Load the rolls into a pan as with the dinner rolls! You could also replace the remaining water with milk for an even fluffier texture!

Recipe: 40% Kamut Flour Sourdough (Updated)

Posted on July 20, 2021 by GoofyDawg

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I love baking with Kamut flour! It’s such a dream to work with and most importantly, it just produces damn good tasting bread! In light of that, I thought I’d share my formula for making sourdough with 40% Kamut flour. With that in mind, here is the overall formula:

Overall Formula

Flour (40% Kamut, 10% Whole Wheat or Rye [from starter], 50% Any other combination of flour)	100%
Water	78%
Salt	1.8%

Notice in the formula, there is no entry for the starter. This is because the starter’s flour and water are always figured into the overall hydration. It is NOT a separate ingredient.

Final Dough

Flour	809
Water	611
Salt	16
Levain	180
Total Yield	1616g 2 X 800g loaves with some extra for process loss
Optimal Dough Temp	76°F

Total flour is about 900g

Make the Levain. Make a 100% hydration levain. I use a hybrid scrapings method of leftover mature starter from my fridge and botanical starter and whole grain flour (for me it’s usually white whole wheat but I will use kamut at times).

Mix. Reserve about 50g of the water and dissolve the salt into it. Mix the flour and remaining water and autolyse for at least 30 minutes (you can autolyse longer if you want). Once autolyse is finished, fold the starter into the dough, then add the salt water and thoroughly mix until everything is well incorporated.

Bulk Fermentation. 1 1/2 – 2 hours (or until 25%-50% dough expansion)

Folding. 2-4 folds at half-hour intervals. You want to be gentle with the folding since you’re using a whole grain flour. Windowpane test after each fold to determine dough strength. If at any point it’s sufficient, stop folding and let bulk fermentation complete.

Divide and Pre-Shape. This recipe yields 2 X 800 gram loaves, so scale the pieces out then shape into rounds. Once shaped, bench rest for 20-30 minutes until the dough has relaxed.

Shape and Final Fermentation. Shape into rounds or ovals (I love to free-form batards). Once shaped, you can let the loaves proof for 1-2 hours at room temp, or pop them into the fridge for 8-16 hours. Note that if your fridge is particularly cold or your yeast really slows down in the cold, it may take longer.

Bake. Bake at 485°F/250°C for 15 minutes with steam. Remove steaming container or purge steam, then bake at 425°F/220°C on convection if you have it; otherwise, 435°F/225°C for 25-30 minutes. Bake until the bottom half of the loaves is a nice mahogany.

Basic Ciabatta

Posted on July 16, 2021 by GoofyDawg

One would think that with the bread craze that has swept the world during the pandemic lockdown, that sourdough is the only bread being made and that the only bread that qualifies as artisan can only be made with a starter. That’s bullshit of course because doing something in an artisan way has less to do with the ingredients or materials and much more to do with craftsmanship.

When I make ciabatta, I typically use a biga or a poolish. But sometimes, I just want some bread. So as I do with Baguettes de Tradition, I’ll just whip up a batch of dough in early in the morning, and have fresh, hot bread for breakfast. No, it doesn’t keep, but at the small quantities I make, it’s gone in less than a day.

One might think that a straight dough can be bland and boring. But done right, a bread made from straight dough can be absolutely wondrous. And I will submit that while a same-day straight dough bread may not have the depth of flavor of one made with a preferment or employing a slow-rise, cold bulk ferment, employing great technique will go a long way toward making up for that.

That said, one way to add a little flavor complexity is to use a flour blend. Though I list using unbleached AP flour in the formula, my flour is actually a blend of 30% high-extraction flour and 70% AP flour. The high-extraction flour lends a nuttiness to the overall flavor of the bread, plus an ever-so-slight grainy texture to it making it seem much more substantial than it actually is.

Especially with ciabatta, the crisp, crackly, and crunchy crust combined with the light and airy crumb, redolent with large holes can create a magical bread. A full bake that activates the Meillard reaction (but not taking it to super-dark) can add flavors that would otherwise not be present on lightly baked loaves.

Overall Formula

Unbleached All-Purpose Flour	100.00%
Water	75.00%
Salt	2.00%
Yeast	1.50%
Milk (optional – see below)	10%
Olive Oil	4.00%

MILK?!!! No, I’m not kidding. It actually makes the dough fluffy and soft. This is perfect for sandwiches. You can dispense with the milk though and replace it with water. Definitely do the bassinage stage described below, so mix to an initial 75% hydration, then take it up to 85% with the reserved water.

Final Dough

Unbleached All-Purpose Flour*	525
Water	394
Salt	10
Yeast	8
Milk**	52
Olive Oil	21
Yield	2 X 500g loaves 4 X 250g loaves
Optimal Dough Temp	76°F

*Preferably organic and definitely > 11% protein. You can use Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur. I use Azure Market AP Flour.
**If you don’t want to use milk, that’s okay, just use all water, but milk will help with the fluffiness of the bread.

If you use a baking stone, preheat your oven to 485°F / 250°C to ensure your stone’s hot by the time you’re ready to bake. Things happen pretty quick with this bread, and you don’t want to get to final fermentation and have to wait for your oven to warm up.

Mixing. I recommend using a stand mixer if you have one, but this can be done by hand as well – it just takes longer. Sift the dry ingredients together then add the water. If using a mixer, mix on slow speed to incorporate all the ingredients then go to the second speed until mixture is smooth and the dough climbs to the top of the dough hook as the gluten is starting to form at this point. Rest for 20 minutes.

Bassinage. Once the dough has rested (you may also notice bubbles forming), fold the milk (or water if you decide not to use milk) into the dough until it is fully incorporated. This will get it to 85% hydration. But since the gluten started developing with the thorough mixing, there’s already strength in the dough and it will not feel like a soupy mess. You can actually feel the gluten strands! Once the liquid has been fully incorporated, drizzle the olive oil over the dough, and mix it in well.

Again, I use a stand mixer for this because it’s much more effective at getting the milk and olive oil incorporated.

You want to be gentle with folding and lamination steps. What we’re trying to do is build the gas retention properties of the dough in these steps.

Folding. Once the milk and olive oil have been incorporated, rest the dough for 20 minutes then do a set of stretch and folds. Don’t just do the standard four-fold North-South-East-West. Stretch and fold until you feel the tenacity of the dough building. Rest for 20 minutes.

Laminate. Liberally flour your work surface then gently pour the dough onto it. Gently tug it into a rectangular shape that is about 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick. Letter fold the dough in an NSEW pattern 3 times, gently pressing and flattening the dough between folds. After the last letter fold, roll the dough onto the seam (no need to seal) and shape it into a round. The dough ball should hold together and not collapse too much (don’t worry, it will collapse a bit because of the hydration). Place the dough into a well-oiled bowl seam-side-down (I just wipe down my bowl then spray it with olive oil). Rest for 20-30 minutes (or more) until the dough ball has almost doubled in size.

After laminating, you can go directly to dividing or shaping after the 20-30 rest, or retard the dough in your fridge for a few hours. With this much commercial yeast though, I recommend that your fridge temp is between 36°-40°F. You really want to slow the yeast and promote the lacto- and acetobacillus activity. That said, alternatively, you could use a bit less yeast, say 4 grams and retard the dough for an even longer period of time.

Divide and “Shape.” Again, liberally flour your work surface then pour your dough onto it. Gently tug it into a rectangle, then divide it into two equal pieces (or four if you want to make sub-sized buns). I’m kind of anal about things being even, so I actually scale out my pieces to 500 grams apiece. Gently tug each piece into long rectangles, then transfer to a well-floured couche (as shown to the right). Once you transfer them to the couche, flour your fingertips and gently dimple the loaves to promote even rising – and prevent over-rising, believe it or not – for the final ferment.

Final Fermentation. Cover the loaves and allow them to ferment for 30 minutes or until the dough is nice and relaxed and puffy.

Bake. Liberally sprinkle semolina or rice flour over the loaves while they’re on the couche, then flip them onto your transfer board. Bake the loaves with steam at 485°F for 12 minutes. Remove your steaming container, turn your oven down to 435°F, then bake for 20-25 minutes or until the crusts are a deep golden brown. You don’t want to go out to dark brown/black with these as the dough doesn’t have enough complexity in flavor to compensate for a super-dark crust. That’ll be the predominant flavor and the bread will taste like burnt toast. Not good. However, a deep golden-brown crust will also be relatively thicker lending a nice, textural quality. I realize that this veers from the traditional thin crust of ciabatta, but I love the textural contrast between the crunchy crust and the soft, pillowy crumb.

These are best eaten warm, so let cool for 30 minutes, then enjoy!

I don’t really think about it because I’ve made it so much, but ciabatta’s a challenging dough with which to work because of its hydration level. You have to make quick, precise movements with a dough like this. But the handling of the dough is mitigated by the bassinage. I just can’t stress enough how important that step is!

When first mixing the dough, it’s at a workable 75%. This allows us to work it and develop the gluten and thus dough strength early on in the process. Once the milk and olive oil are added, even though dough may appear to be a smooth batter, if you pull on it, you’ll see that it actually transforms into a highly extensible dough with all the wonderful gas-retention properties we expect! (Read: big holes)

And let me re-emphasize that the craftsmanship put into making bread like this is tantamount to its quality. But be that as it may, as a straight dough, it doesn’t really have a lot of complexity in flavor. That said, done right, it becomes a canvas on which you can build wonderful dishes.

I love using this bread for dipping into a fine olive oil (my preferred brand is Segreto from Italy that I have my daughter bring from New York City) mixed with a well-aged balsamic vinegar. I’ve used this bread for bruschetta as well. And let’s not forget that its very shape lends itself for wonderful sandwiches! Gawd! I’m getting hungry just thinking about these things! 🙂

Happy Baking!

Recipe: Baguettes de Tradition

Posted on June 30, 2021 by GoofyDawg

The way I learned to make baguettes was from Master Chef Markus Farbinger, who uses a slow rise or pointage en bac method. It is a straight dough, but bulk fermented and retarded overnight. This allows the amino acids and lacto- and acetobacillus bacteria to develop, while retarding the activity of the yeast. The results, as shown in the picture to the left, are pretty magnificent.

But I learned another technique called Baguettes de Tradition from Jeffery Hamelman’s book, “Bread” that he learned from Japanese bakers. This is a straight dough that differs rather significantly from slow-rise baguettes. First of all, these baguettes are baked in just a few hours from the final mix, so you’re working with room-temperature dough. Second, where I would normally use an 11.7% protein AP flour mixed with about a third high-extraction flour, this recipe calls for 100% bread (strong) flour. And finally, this is a wetter dough than what I’m used to using at 76% hydration.

As Hamelman puts it: “…a baker could be excused for concluding that the dumpster and not the belly is the destination for the bread.” This is because mixing is done gently, so after mixing – even using a stand mixer – there’s virtually no gluten development! The dough just comes apart. But with the folding schedule, the gluten develops quickly, and by the last fold, the dough is luxuriously smooth and supple – and strong.

Chef Hamelman warns that this is a challenging bread and certainly not one for beginners. I can attest to this as the dough at this hydration using pure bread flour is tacky and will easily stick – especially since you’re handling a room temperature dough. So keep your hands floured when shaping and use quick motions!

But the end result is pretty fabulous. You will notice right away when the loaves come out of the oven, that you will not get pronounced ears. This is because with these particular baguettes, you minimize the creation of a skin during shaping. The crumb is significantly different from my other baguettes in that there were not many huge voids. But that could be more of a function of how I handled them during shaping. But in spite of that, the texture of the crumb is magnificent, redolent with numerous pockets.

Overall Formula

Ingredient	Bakers %
Bread Flour	100%
Water	76%
Salt	1.8%
Yeast	.75%
Total	178.55%

Final Dough

Flour	769
Water	585
Salt	14
Yeast	6

Total Yield	4 X 340g pieces
Optimal Dough Temp	76°F

Especially with this recipe, before you get started, I highly recommend sifting your flour to avoid creating lumps which are a pain to get out, especially if you’re mixing by hand.

Mix. Combine flour, salt, yeast in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly until all the dry ingredients are well incorporated. Whether or not you use a stand mixer, gradually add the water until you form a shaggy mass, then stop. I know that it might not make any sense, but believe me, the end result will be pretty amazing!

The dough is a shaggy mass after the initial mix

Bulk Fermentation. 1.5 to 2.5 hours (could be shorter) depending on the ambient temp of your kitchen. I know it’s a wide margin, but on hot days, things will happen quickly! Do not take bulk fermentation out too far, otherwise, you will shorten the final fermentation, and a lot of the final magic of creating nice holes happens there. I recommend 50%-75% volume expansion.

Right before the second fold. The dough has already started puffing up and is well-domed at the top!

Folding. During the first hour, gently stretch and fold the dough at 20, 40, and 60 minutes, being careful not to degas the dough too much. For each folding session, make sure to stretch the dough to its extent without tearing it and feel the tension and tenacity build up in the dough – eventually, it will fight you and not want to be stretched. When you’ve finished folding, turn the dough onto the seams. By the end of the third fold, you will have a very luxurious and supple dough! I never cease to be amazed by the transformation, plus the gentle, but frequent folding in the first hour really helps build the gas-retention properties of the dough. As such, I use this folding technique for all the baguettes I make!

Pro Tip: Wet your folding hand often!

By the end of the third fold, the dough is super-strong and smooth, with proonounced bubbles inside. This picture was taken about a minute after I turned it over on its folds to show how well it holds together.

Divide and Shape. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces (for this recipe, they’ll be 340g). Gently letter fold each piece, pulling one side over two-thirds of the dough, then repeating that on the other side. Roll against the seam like a jelly roll, seal the seam, then place seam-side-up on a well-floured couche. Let rest for 15-30 minutes ensuring the dough has sufficiently relaxed before shaping. Shape into baguettes then transfer back to the couch for final fermentation.

For pre-shaping and shaping tips, see My Baguette Dough Development Process.

Final Fermentation. 30-90 minutes depending on ambient temp. No matter how gentle you are, shaping a baguette is a bit of a violent affair on the dough. This is why you want to leave as much room for final fermentation to let the dough recover from the shaping process. Use the poke test at about 30 minutes to see how fast the dough pops back up. If it’s real quick and leaves no mark, then it’s not ready. Check it after 15 minutes to see how things are progressing. It’s a real feel thing with baguettes!

After final fermentation, baguette loaves should be puffy. Note that the skin on these is very delicate so scoring must be quick and decisive. You cannot pause the blade.

Bake. Bake at 475°F with steam for 15 minutes. Remove the steaming container, then bake at 425°F with convection (if you have it) for 15-20 minutes. If you don’t have a convection setting, finish the bake at 435°F. When you remove the loaves from the oven, check how they weigh in your hands. They should feel lighter than they look and the crust should not be soft. It will soften a bit later but fresh out of the oven, it should be firm and a bit crackly. If you feel they still have a little mass or if the crust is soft, pop them back into the oven for a few minutes.

Finished product. I kind of messed up on the shaping of these, but they generally turned out fine. The crust should have a slight sheen and the crumb should be riddled with holes of various sizes.

Notes

Though I provided specific ingredient amounts in the table above, I always work backwards in figuring out how much of the ingredients I need. For instance, for my oven, my standard batch is 4 baguettes scaled out to 335g apiece. So I know I’ll need 1340g of dough. I always add a fudge factor of about 1% due to loss during processing, so I’ll up that to 1350g. Given that, I can easily calculate the flour I’ll need by dividing the total yield of 1310g by the total of the percentages – in our case here it’s 178.55%. So 1310 / 178.55% = 734g of flour. From there, I can just use the ingredient percentages to figure out the amounts for the rest of the ingredients.
As far as scaling out the pieces is concerned, officially, a baguette should be 60 cm in length and weigh 250 grams. I’ve found through experimentation that I can get there if I scale the baguettes to 335 grams. However, I myself prefer a little bit wider baguette, so I scale my dough out to 340 grams. But as a rule of thumb, I use a factor of 5.5 or 5.6 and multiply that by the length of the baguette I want to make. This factor is basically dough weight/centimeter. 40cm demi baguettes typically scale out to 220g.
As with any high-hydration white flour dough, this dough is tacky! I can’t stress enough the quick, definitive movements I had to make to work with this dough. I also had to make sure that during shaping I was dipping my hands in my pile of flour to prevent sticking.

Roasted Garlic Rosemary and Cheese Bread

Posted on June 29, 2021 by GoofyDawg

There’s something ethereal about biting into a slice of garlicky, herbacious bread. But add a sharp cheese like Asiago or Parmesano Reggiano, and the bread goes to another level! This is a bread that I don’t make too often simply because it’s an incredibly caloric bread. My family requests it quite a bit, but I usually end up making my Garlic-Rosemary sourdough bread and citing health reasons.

This bread, on the other hand, is made from a straight dough. I developed it more out of convenience and ease because it’s a same-day bake. However, I have made it with a levain made from 20% of the total flour.

No matter what you use to raise the bread, this is a great recipe for learning how to incorporate cheese into your bread. When I first made it, I used nothing but shredded cheese. Unfortunately, cheese melts, which means it liquifies! I’ve had a few collapsed loaves from only using shredded cheese. But I’ve learned to use a combination of shreds and predominantly chunks. Even with chunks, the cheese will melt, but it will melt in pockets rather than shreds that will melt into the dough.

A Note on Ingredients

For the cheese, I use a combination of Asiago and Parmesano Reggiano cheeses. The cubes are folded into the dough. Depending on my mood, I use different shredded, sharp white cheeses such as Gruyere or Grana Padano Parmesan or a four cheese Italian blend that I sprinkle on top of the loaves during the last 10 minutes of the bake.

I only use very good extra virgin olive oil. There is a lot of shit olive oil on the market. Most California olive oils from independent producers are pretty good. It’s a bit of a crap shoot with Italian olive oil which I love. For Italian olive oils, I use oils produced by the Frantoi Cutera brand; specifically, their Segreto and Primo types. These oils can be pricey, but they’re really robust. I always have a bottle of one of these on hand. For Italian oil, though it’s not a guarantee, look for the “DOP” or “PDO” badge on the bottle. Also, check the bottling date. It should be less than a year old.

For California olive oil, I absolutely adore anything made by Sciabica Family California OIive Oil. I was first introduced to their oil at the annual Dominican Sisters Christmas Fair. Sciabica harvests, crushes and produces the olive oil for the sisters, and they also sell their own oil at the fair, which I bought and absolutely love! But you can get it online! You can order a 1.5L “oil in a box” for $36.00. They use flat rate shipping. For me, it was $5.00. So it’s high-quality but very affordable olive oil!

Let’s make some bread!

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	65.00%
Olive Oil	5.00%
Salt	2.00%
Yeast	1.00%
Garlic	6.00%
Fresh Rosemary	0.25%
Cheese (cubed)	20.00%

Total Percentage	199.25%

Final Dough

Yield: 4 X 700g loaves

Flour	1,419.32
Water	922.56
Olive Oil	70.97
Salt	28.39
Yeast	14.19
Garlic	85.16
Rosemary	3.55
Cheese	283.86
Total Dough Weight	~2828g
Yield	4 X 700g loaves
Optimal Dough Temp	76°-78°F

Prep the Garlic. Peel and measure out the garlic you’ll need (I buy peeled, fresh garlic from my local produce store). If you’re over a few grams, it’s not a big deal. Place the garlic on a piece of foil, and drizzle a little olive oil to coat the cloves. Wrap the garlic in the foil, then roast it for 35-40 minutes at 400°F. Set aside and let cool for at least a half hour before mixing the dough.

Prep the Rosemary. You can use dried rosemary, but there is nothing like the aroma and flavor of the oils from fresh rosemary. Though I listed 0.25%, you can use more or less. I actually use a little more than called for.

Prep the Cheese. For the chunks, I like to use a combination of Asiago and Parmesano Reggiano. Cut the cheese into 1/2″ – 3/4″ cubes.

Mixing. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast together until fully combined. Gradually add the water. When the ingredients just start coming together, add the olive oil, garlic, and rosemary, then mix until all the ingredients are fully combined with moderate gluten development. You do not want to knead this dough!

If you use a mixer, mix only on low speed, just to bring the ingedients together. If you find a lot sticking to the sides, go to the second speed for a few seconds, then go back to the lowest speed.

Bulk Fermentation: 1 1/2 – 2 hours until almost doubled.

Incorporate the cheese and folds. After mixing, let the dough rest for 30 minutes to get fermentation started. Spread the cheese cubes evenly over the surface of the dough and press them into it. The dough will be a little puffy even after 30 minutes. Once you have all the cheese pressed into the dough, take the dough by the long end, stretch it up and fold it back about 2/3 over the dough. Turn your container around, then do the same on the other side. Turn the container 90° then repeat the letterfolding process. Make sure to give the dough a healthy stretch without tearing it! Roll the dough onto the seams. Rest another 30 minutes then repeat the process.

Lamination. After another 30 minutes, you’re going to laminate the dough on a board. It’s basically the same thing as the folds in the container, but stretching it a bit more as the dough should be more extensible by then. Lightly flour your board so the dough doesn’t stick, tug the dough into a rectangle, then stretch and letter fold the dough. Be VERY gentle with this to avoid tearing, but give it a good stretch. There will be a little tearing due to the cheese chunks, but don’t pull too quickly or violently. Once you’ve folded over all four sides, roll it over onto its seams then form it into a ball. You could try using your bench scraper, but it’s actually easier to do with your hands. Return the dough to your container seams-side-down then let the dough rise for another 30 minutes or until it has about doubled.

Divide and shape. Divide into four equal pieces. Ideally, based on the formula, the pieces would be 700g. But… sometimes I use a little more garlic or cheese, so I scale out to four equal pieces. Once scaled, pre-shape into rounds, being careful not to let the cheese tear the skin (lightly dust the tops with a little flour to help with this). Bench rest for 15-20 minutes, then shape into batards or rounds.

Final fermentation. 30-45 minutes. By now the yeast will have really propagated, so this final rise will be fairly quick. Just do a poke test to see how the loaves are doing.

Bake. Bake at 500°F for 15 minutes with steam, then 30 minutes at 435°F. 10 minutes before the bake is done, sprinkle a healthy amount of shredded cheese over the top of the loaves.

If you bake on a stone, I highly recommend lining it with parchment paper as the cheese will ooze out of the loaves – which is a good thing. It will prevent your board from staining.

If You Want to Use a Sourdough Starter

I’ve made this with sourdough starter as well. The only difference in the development is that things go quite a bit slower. The mixing and initial folding stays the same, but bulk fermentation will take longer to get the dough to double, and final ferment can take a couple of hours at room temp. You can also pop the loaves in the fridge overnight.

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	65.00%
Olive Oil	5.00%
Salt	2.00%
Yeast	1.00%
Garlic	6.00%
Rosemary	0.25%
Cheese	20.00%

Total Percentage	199.25%

Levain

Preferment Flour %*	20%
Hydration %	100%
Flour	283.86
Water	283.86

As I always state, build up a levain that’s more that what you need, so in this case, make a 600g 100% hydration starter.

Final Dough: Yield 4 X 700g loaves

Flour	1,135.46
Water	638.70
Olive Oil	70.97
Salt	28.39
Yeast	14.19
Garlic	85.16
Rosemary	3.55
Cheese	283.86
Preferment	567.73

Total Dough Weight	2,828.00
Total Flour	1,419.32
Total Water	922.56

My Master Pizza Dough

Posted on June 18, 2021 by GoofyDawg

Though I haven’t ever posted anything about pizza dough, I actually make pizza or flatbread a couple of times a month. I just haven’t posted anything about it because I’ve been working on my formulation as well as my dough development technique. But I finally developed a formula and method that I’ve been using the past few times I’ve made pizza and as I’m getting consistent results, I thought I’d share it.

This dough may not be for everyone, especially those who like a thin, crusty crust. I like a crust that’s similar to baguettes: A crispy exterior and a chewy, toothy crumb. If you like a crust like that, this dough will fulfill that!

One thing I love about this particular dough is that it’s highly extensible due to the olive oil. But what I discovered is that you can’t add the olive oil too early as it inhibits gluten formation (I actually had to do some research on that). So the olive oil is always added last, after the dough has been worked a bit.

Contributing to the dough’s extensibility is the use of a stiff biga. But it also lends a very nice, slightly sour flavor profile from the long, slow fermentation. That, combined with a cold final fermentation makes this dough very tasty! Let’s get to the formula!

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	68% – 70.00%
Salt	1.80%
Yeast	1.30%
Olive Oil	5.00%
Total Percentage	178.10%

Biga

Preferment Flour % of Total	17%
Hydration %	60%
Preferment Yeast %	0.20%

Final Dough

Flour	430
Water	299
Salt	9
Yeast	7
Olive Oil	26
Biga	138

Yield	909.00 / 2 X 450g pieces
Total Flour	510.39
Total Water	357.27

For both the biga and the final dough, I like using a high-protein flour. Something in the range of 14-17% protein content. You can use King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill bread flour and add a bit of vital wheat gluten to get you over the 14% mark. I wrote an article on upping the protein percentage in your dough using vital wheat gluten that you can use as a reference.

Biga. As I make a lot of Italian bread, I usually have a couple of different biga formulations in my fridge, so when I need some, I just scale out what I need for a particular bake. For this, you want to make a 60% hydration biga. Most folks won’t have a 60% biga on hand, so you should make it the day before you mix. So for this recipe, take 100 grams of high-protein flour, 60 grams of water and a half-gram of yeast. Mix it all together then form it into a ball. Place it into a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic. Let it begin to ferment at room temp for an hour, then pop it into the fridge. It will be ready when the surface is riddled with holes and the center is ever-so-slightly recessed.

While I recommend using a mixer to mix, you can do this by hand. It’s just a little harder.

Mix. Measure out the water to 68% (the final dough indicates what you’ll need for 68%). Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl except for the biga and the olive oil. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together. As the ingredients start coming together, add the biga in chunks, then mix until fairly smooth. Once everything has been incorporated, the dough should be sturdy, but still pliable. If it seems a little dry and stiff, add a few grams of water to correct the hydration. Work the dough a little to start developing the gluten, then once you’ve got some gluten development, add the olive oil. At this point, I usually squeeze the olive oil into the dough with my hands. To use the mixer would mean to mix at a higher speed, and I don’t want to tear the gluten strands to incorporate the oil.

Bulk Fermentation. 1-2 hours or until the dough has doubled. It was 83°F in my kitchen yesterday when I made the dough and the dough doubled in 45 minutes! So in warm weather, keep an eye your dough!

Folding. If you mixed by hand, you can optionally fold after an hour. But I never fold if I use a mixer. I get good enough gluten development with it.

Divide and Shape. Scale the dough into 450g pieces. These will be big enough for a 16″ peel. If you want smaller pieces, then just half the halves again. Form the pieces into rounds (it’s not important to form a super-taut skin), then place on a floured surface, seam-side-down. If you plan to bake them the same day, let the balls rest for 20-30 minutes then they’ll be ready to press out or thrown. Otherwise, sprinkle the tops with flour, then wrap each piece individually with plastic then place them in the fridge. Alternatively, you can place the pieces unwrapped in a sealable container. Store in the fridge for up to 24 hours. That said, with this amount of yeast in the final dough, I’ve had the most success with a 12-hour final ferment. If you rested your rounds in the fridge, allow them rest at room temp for an hour before baking and shaping into flats.

Note: If you want do an even longer cold fermentation, use 25%-50% of the prescribed yeast. Depending on how cold your fridge is, you could take a two or three days.

To shape, press the ball into a flat circle or a rough oval if making flatbread. Stretch the dough with both hands on the backs of your knuckles, rotating often to ensure an even thickness. As the dough thins, it will tear, so be careful not to tear it! These particular dough balls will make 16″ pizzas. Once finished shaping, place on a peel that has been well-dusted with semolina or coarse-grind cornmeal (my preference), then add toppings.

There’s technically no final fermentation step unless you count the bench rest after shaping into rounds or resting in the fridge. .

Bake. This is where it kinds of gets tricky. And as much as I’d like to say you can bake your pizza or flatbread on baking trays, you get the best results with a stone or steel. Even though you can’t get the high 700° temps of a wood-burning oven, you can still get pretty good results. So bake at 500°F dry for 10-12 minutes. The crust will be golden brown.

Ciabatta with Biga

Posted on June 16, 2021 by GoofyDawg

Like the humble baguette, a ciabatta is the model of simplicity when it comes to its ingredients. But also like the baguette, if you don’t bring your A-game to this bake, it’ll bite you in the ass! The dough is so wet that you have to use quick movements when working with it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up with my hands covered with dough (more like batter). I don’t want to discourage anyone from making this, but just be prepared.

Speaking of preparation, I’ve adapted this recipe from a few sources, but mainly from what I learned from Carol Fields’ book, “The Italian Baker” and her Ciabatta Polesana, which she in turn adapted from former race driver Arnaldo Cavallari who quit racing and started baking the flour from his family’s mill. In her recipe, she recommends using high-gluten flour. I’m not sure just how high of protein content she was talking about, but the high-protein flour I use is 17% protein. At 88% hydration, it’s like working a regular dough. So I upped my hydration to 93% when using this flour to get it to a looser consistency. But I do recommend bread flour or a mix of bread and AP flour at this hydration.

Ms. Fields also recommend using a mixer. I usually use one if I’m making a larger batch of ciabatta. But when I’m just whipping up a couple of loaves, I just mix by hand. But as I often recommend, a Danish dough whisk really comes in handy. That said, let’s get to the formulas!

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	88.00%
Salt	1.80%
Yeast	0.75%
Total Percentage	190.55%

Biga

Make a 75% hydration biga from 35% of the flour you’ll need (we’ll get into that in just a bit). Whatever that weight comes out to, make a bit more than what you calculate. For this particular recipe, our yield will be 2 X 500g loaves and I always add a percent or two for process loss, so about 1010g total dough weight. The biga formula is as follows:

Preferment Flour % of Total	35%
Hydration %	75%
Preferment Flour Weight	185.52
Preferment Water	139.14
Preferment Required	325

As the table above shows, to make the total dough weight, we need 325g of biga. I made 350g and just measured out what I needed the next day.

To figure out how much total flour you’ll need for ANY recipe, take your target dough weight (this recipe is 1010g) and divide that by the total percentage (in this case 190.55% or 1.9055). That will give you about 530g. So, for the biga, you’ll need about 185g of flour as that is 35% of the total flour.

Final Dough

Flour	345
Water	327
Salt	10
Yeast	4
Biga	325

Total Yield	1,010.00
Total Flour	530.04
Total Water	466.44

Biga. The night before, mix the flour, yeast, and water you’ll need for the biga. Form into a ball, cover with plastic and let it rest. The next morning, it should be covered with bubbles and slightly domed. For my kitchen, it took about 10 hours to get to this state. It will be shorter in warm weather and longer in cold weather. Carol Fields recommends putting the biga in the fridge after an hour. But be forewarned that it will take 18-24 hours to get to the proper state. This is NOT a bad thing as it will develop the flavors of the organic acids.

Mix. In a large bowl, mix biga, yeast and water. Break up the biga (it will not completely dissolve. Add the flour, then sprinkle the salt over the flour. Mix until well incorporated and get the mixture to be as smooth as possible. Adjust hydration so that the dough is loose, but not quite a batter.

Bulk Fermentation. Approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hour.

Folding. After mixing, let the dough rest for 20 minutes then stretch and fold the dough.

Be sure with your folding that you do not tear the dough! However, do plenty of stretch and folds and feel the gluten strands develop. You will not get a lot of resistance at first, but you will feel it build. Also, don’t be afraid of wetting your folding hand often to prevent the dough from sticking.

Laminate. Pour the dough out onto a well-floured surface (be generous with the flour). Using wet or well-floured hands (and I also use my bench scraper), gently tug the dough into a large rectangle about 3/4″ thick. You don’t want to pull it too thin because you want to retain the bubbles as much as possible. Gently stretch out one of the short sides of the dough then fold it 2/3 over the sheet, then repeat with the other side. Do this again with the short sides of the dough until you’ve completed a north-south-east-west pattern. Gently pat the dough a little flatter, then repeat the NSEW pattern two more times, with a light pat-down in between. The dough will build up after each lamination, so be careful not to flatten it out too much. After the third lamination, gently roll it over onto the seams – no need to seal. Move the dough ball to a lightly oiled bowl for the final stage of bulk fermentation. Let the dough almost triple. This will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. At this point, we’re after bubble production!

Do yourself a favor and use really good olive oil. While you can use the standard stuff you can find in a grocery store, I’ve found that even the small amount that’s used with this bread makes a huge difference in the taste. I use Frantoi Cutrera Segreto Degli Iblei cold-extracted extra-virgin olive oil from Sicily.

Dividing and “Shaping.” At this point, you can be pretty generous with the flour you put on your board. Slide your dough out onto a well-floured work surface and tug into a rectangle about 3/4″ to 1″ thick. You’re going to divide it along the length, so try to make the rectangle as even as possible. Placing your fingers under the ends of a piece, quickly bring your hands together to scoop up the dough and transfer it to a very well-floured couche, or well-floured baking pan. Do some final arrangements to evenly distribute the dough across the flat loaf. The loaves will not be of even weight, though you can get pretty close. (Update: I scale out to 500 grams pieces – I like ’em even)

You will also notice bubbles just under the surface of the skin. Do not pop them!

Note: If you use a baking pan, use a mixture of flour and course-grind cornmeal or semolina. You won’t be transferring the loaves to a stone.

Final Fermentation. This is a little tricky because all you really want to do is let the dough reset from dividing and shaping. Chef Markus Farbinger only waits 10 minutes for this final stage. I go from 15-30 minutes. The poke test will not work here. What I look for is if the dough has puffed up a bit and the sharp edge of my cut is all but gone.

A good ciabatta will be riddled with holes!

Bake. Transfer the loaves to a transfer board. For added texture, I sprinkle a generous amount of cornmeal on my transfer board to give the bottoms of the loaves a nice crunch. Lightly spray olive oil on the tops of the loaves. Bake with steam at 485°F for 12 minutes. Remove the steaming container, turn the oven down to 435°F and bake for another 20-25 minutes until the crust is a deep golden brown. Cool for 30 minutes before cutting.

Fully baked, a ciabatta will feel a lot lighter than what its size may indicate. My ciabatta are 22″ long, but they feel light as a feather. If your loaves feel a little heavy, bake them for a few more minutes. It’s the water that makes them heavy.

Happy Baking!

What About Using Sourdough?

That is entirely possible, though I’d change the formula a little to use a hybrid starter/commercial yeast method of rising as indigenous yeast tends to make finer holes. You’ll use half the yeast prescribed in the original recipe and cut the starter’s flour percentage to 20%.

Furthermore, I recommend building a levain from AP flour to keep the flavor mild. Or if your starter is based on whole-grain flour, I’d recommend a grain that has some gluten in it. If you want to use a rye-based starter, then knock the hydration down a couple of percentage points.

Given all that, here’s what the adjusted formula would look like:

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	88.00%
Salt	1.80%
Yeast	0.30%
Total Percentage	190.10%

Starter

Preferment Flour % of Total	20%
Hydration %	75%

Final Dough (Yield: 2 X 500g loaves)

Flour	425
Water	388
Salt	10
Yeast	2
Preferment	186

Notes

Though I mentioned using a hybrid rising technique you could still go with using nothing but a levain to raise the dough. But if you do, I highly recommend doing a long, cold bulk fermentation for at least 12-16 hours to ensure good bubble formation. Also, after you remove the dough from the fridge, you’ll need to give it a couple to a few hours to come up to near room temp before proceeding with the rest of the processing.

Recipe: Sourdough Baguettes (Updated)

Posted on June 14, 2021 by GoofyDawg

As I’ve often mentioned in the past, baguettes are my favorite bread to make. Nothing gets me in the zone as much as making baguettes. The reason for this is that though they seem so easy to make at first blush, they’re actually incredibly difficult to get right. For me at least, making baguettes requires me to be on my game every step of the way; forcing me to be absolutely mindful of what I’m doing because one misstep can result in total disaster. Which explains why I haven’t released a sourdough baguette recipe until now. I’ve had quite a few disasters and I didn’t want to publish a recipe until I had a few successful runs.

As with all my baguettes, I make them for the express purpose of being a platform for sandwiches. But they work just as well for tearing up and dipping into olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They’re also optimized for baking in a domestic oven, so they’re more demi-baguettes than full-sized 60-80 cm loaves.

Also, these use a hybrid rising technique using a levain and some yeast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear the sourdough purists out there screaming, but I prefer the results of the hybrid technique over a pure levain-risen dough. I’ve baked several permutations and I have to be honest: While I love the flavor profile of a pure levain-risen dough, it’s far too extensible, and backing off the hydration creates too tight of a crumb. The small amount of commercial yeast used here helps open the crumb. But that said, you still can choose to not use any commercial yeast. The process will take longer and the crumb may not be as open.

This can be up to a two-day process, depending on how long you want to do the bulk fermentation. But unlike a poolish baguette where you make the poolish the day before then mix, shape, and bake the final dough the next day, with this you’ll build the levain and mix the final dough on the same day, then either bake that day or cold ferment overnight. Let’s get to the formula:

Overall Formula

Flour	100.00%
Water	76.00%
Salt	2.00%
Yeast	0.50%
Total Percentage	178.50%

Levain

Preferment Flour % of Total	25%
Hydration %	100%
Levain Flour	192.5
Levain Water	192.5
Levain Required for Recipe	385

Final Dough

Flour	577
Water	392
Salt	15
Yeast	4
Levain	385
Total Yield	~1374g total dough 4 X 340g loaves (60 cm) 6 X 226g loaves (40 cm)
Optimal Dough Temp	76°F

Levain. Build a levain to yield the amount you’ll need for the bake. With these baguettes, the flour of the levain represents 25% of the total flour needed in the recipe, which would be 192.5g out of a total of 770g. Your levain will be ready when it passes the float test.

As far as the type of starter to use, for baguettes, I normally use one based on AP flour as I want less sourness in my dough. But you can use any flour to evoke different flavor profiles.

NOTE: I’m not going into building a levain as there are plenty of resources available for making and building a 1:1 (flour:water) starter. As for how much you should make, while the requirement for this recipe is 385g of levain, make more than that – like 400g – to account for evaporation and levain sticking to your mixing utensil.

Initial Mix/Autolyse. Reserve 50-75g of the water. In the remaining water, break up the levain until it’s fully dissolved, then add the flour and combine well, being careful not to develop the gluten much. Autolyse for at least 20-30 minutes on up to an hour (remember, there’s starter in this, so you don’t want fermentation to progress too far).

Final Mix. Sprinkle the yeast over the dough. Dissolve the salt into the reserved water, then mix in the, salt, and reserved water into the dough until well incorporated with no large lumps. The dough should be shaggy.

The rest of the process can also be seen here in my Master Baguette Recipe.

Folding. Gently stretch and fold 3 times in the first hour at 20-minute intervals. By the third fold, the dough should be smooth and supple, with bubbles forming. When you do your stretches, try to be as smooth as possible, but do make sure to stretch the dough to its full extent. This is important, especially with baguettes because you only have a narrow window – one hour – in which to build dough strength.

I love this part of the process because the dough goes from this ugly, uneven mass and transforms into a smooth, luxurious and structured dough.

Bulk Fermentation. 1-2 hours depending on room temp. Or you could pop the dough into the fridge for a long, cold nap. In either case, take the dough out to about 75-80% and NOT doubled as you might see in other recipes. You don’t want to take it too far.

Divide and Shape. Pour dough out onto a floured surface and gently tug it into a rectangle of even thickness. Scale out 4 X 340g pieces. Letter fold each piece, making sure to stretch the sides out when folding, then roll each piece out into a jellyroll shape, and seal the seam. Place seam-side-up on a well-floured couche and let relax for at least 20 minutes (maybe more depending on how tightly you rolled the logs). After resting, shape the logs into baguettes.

Final Fermentation. 1-1½ hour. This could be shorter in warm weather.

Bake. Transfer loaves to a loading board or baguette pan. Score, then bake at 500°F for 8-10 minutes with steam (baguette should just start getting color). Remove your steaming container, then bake at 425°F for 12-15 minutes on convection if you have a convection setting, otherwise bake at 435°F for 12-15 minutes. Bake longer to a deep russet color, but beware that because of the acid in the dough, you don’t want to take these out too far as the crumb will dry if baked too long.

NOTE: You could technically leave out the commercial yeast, especially if your levain is super-active. With its flour representing 25% of the total flour, there will be plenty of yeast to rise the dough. However, if you do this, lengthen the time between folds to 30 minutes and be super gentle with your folding. Consider doing a coil fold for the final fold. Pure sourdough dough is much less forgiving than one that has commercial yeast. Also, final fermentation time will increase as the density of yeast in a levain is much less than that of commercial yeast.