Bread Machine (93 page)

2 tablespoons bran or wheat germ

1 teaspoon gluten with vitamin C added

1
¹
/
₂
teaspoons salt

¹
/
₄
cup yellow cornmeal, for sprinkling

Place all the dough ingredients in the pan according to the order in the manufacturer’s instructions, adding the starter and yeast with the water. Program for the Dough cycle; press Start. The dough will be smooth, slightly moist and sticky, and a bit soft. Don’t add more flour. When the machine beeps at the end of the cycle, press Stop and unplug the machine. Gently deflate the dough with your finger. Set a timer for an hour and let the dough rest another hour in the machine.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with cornmeal. When the timer rings, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces, and using your dough card, gently knead each into a ball. Place the balls on the baking sheet a few inches apart. Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Twenty minutes before baking, place a baking stone on the lowest rack of the oven, if desired, and preheat to 425°F.

Sprinkle the top of each loaf with flour and rub in. Slash a crosshatch or triangle into the tops, no more than 14 inch deep. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the crusts are deep brown, very crisp, and sound hollow when tapped with your finger. I insert an instant-read thermometer into a soft crease on the side; it should read about 200°F. Remove from the oven and place the loaves on a rack. Let cool completely before slicing.

Pain de Campagne from a Vermont Kitchen

Brinna Sands of King Arthur Flour is an avid bread machine baker and student of traditional baking techniques, so I asked her to contribute a recipe for this book. She sent me a three-page recipe for a European-style country bread in prose form. It was so evocative of the stream of consciousness of a philosophical baker, that I decided to include it for you just as she sent it. Brinna measures her ingredients in a very different manner than the rest of the recipes in this book, so I have included regular measurements should you find hers daunting.

Brinna Sands’s Pain de Campagne I’m hoping that if I commit this recipe to print, as it stands now, that I will stop obsessing about it and be able to move on. What I’m really afraid of is that, even then, I may not want to move on because this bread has become, for better or worse, our current daily bread. The struggle I’m having is that it flies in the face of all the whole grains,
levains
, and starters I’ve been committed to over the years. It is, after all, a primarily white, yeast-leavened, bread-machine kneaded loaf that is the antithesis of all things I used to hold important. But I love it. Everyone loves it. It’s terrific right out of the oven, a half an hour out of the oven, the next day, the day after that, and finally as toast, bread pudding,
strata
, croutons, crumbs. … What makes it so compelling? Try it and see. I’m not sure I have the answer.

The Day Before Baking

The
Biga

Perhaps the fact that this is made with a
biga
somewhat mitigates my guilt about making it. A
biga
is an Italian name for a kind of pre-fermented dough. I’m calling it a
biga
because a
biga
can be almost any form of pre-ferment, from a sponge (two parts water to one part flour by weight) to a dough (1 part water to 1
¹
/
₄
to 112 parts flour by weight). The French have more precise names for these things, names that are harder to remember and say than
biga
. And “biga” seems to be a good name for a creature that has taken up habitation in your kitchen or refrigerator and keeps reappearing. Besides, this loaf is more Italian than French in heritage.

A pre-ferment is what a baker uses to speed up the time between mixing a dough and pulling finished loaves out of the oven, without sacrificing texture and flavor. By making up a sponge or dough with a touch of yeast, and letting it work for anywhere from 2 to 48 hours, you can add it to a newly made dough that will inherit the flavors it has had time to develop.

So in making a bread with a
biga
, you add one more step. But it’s only remembering to make the
biga
that can be called “work” because it’s a cinch to make. Place your bread machine bucket on a scale and measure into it:

6 ounces (
³
/
₄
cup) water

1 ounce (3 tablespoons) pumpernickel or whole rye meal

7 to 8 ounces (approximately 1
¹
/
₂
cups) unbleached all-purpose or bread flour

¹
/
₄
teaspoon instant yeast (SAF yeast or
¹
/
₂
teaspoon bread machine yeast, not rapid-rise)

Put the bread pan in the machine, start the Dough cycle, and allow to mix just long enough to thoroughly blend all the ingredients, 5 to 6 minutes. Then hit Reset and go away. You can leave this
biga
right in the machine until you’re ready for the next step, or you can take the bucket out of the machine, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit. If you aren’t going to get to it after 12 hours or so, put it, covered, into the fridge. It will keep very nicely there for a couple more days.

The Day of Baking

The Dough

The dough for this bread is quite wet, one that a bread machine does really well developing. The final bread will be light, with good-sized holes in it, and chewy with an assertive crust.

Take your bread machine pan, uncover it if it’s covered, and put it back on your scale. Add:

12 ounces (1
¹
/
₂
cups) water

1
¹
/
₅
ounces (
¹
/
₄
cup) pumpernickel or whole rye meal

15 to 16 ounces (approximately 3
¹
/
₄
to 3
¹
/
₂
cups) unbleached all-purpose or bread flour

Scant tablespoon salt

1
¹
/
₂
teaspoons instant yeast (SAF yeast or 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast, not rapid-rise)

Put the pan back into the machine and set it on the Dough cycle. After it’s had a chance to mix, get in there with a rubber spatula and scrape any residue off the sides of the machine and incorporate it into the dough. After the machine has finished its cycle, let the dough continue to rise until it has just crowned over the top of the pan.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board, and, with the help of a bench knife or bowl scraper, fold the edges of the dough into the center, gently pressing out the accumulated gases. Turn it over and shape it into a round loaf, tucking the edges into the middle of the bottom until it’s neat and tidy and well shaped.

Rising and Baking

If you have a baking stone in your oven, you can bake your loaf right on the stone. To do this, place the shaped loaf on a piece of flour-dusted parchment, cover and let rise until it’s well developed, an hour or more. Twenty minutes to a half hour before you want to bake your bread, preheat your oven to 450°F. Just before the bread goes into the oven, slash the top in whatever artful way you wish. This allows the loaf to continue to expand in the oven without shredding and gives it your signature appearance. If you don’t have a stone, place your shaped loaf on a baking sheet or a dark pizza pan that’s at least
¹
/
₂
inches in diameter.

You’ll develop a much better crust if you can add steam to the oven for the first few minutes the bread is baking. This can be done either by spraying the loaf fairly copiously with water before it goes in, or by placing a metal pan under the baking stone or rack you want to bake the bread on, allowing it to preheat with the oven. Pour a half to 1 cup of very hot water in the pan just before you slide in your loaf. Be very careful. Steam can burn. Good oven mitts are very useful here.

Bake the bread for about 45 minutes. Keep an eye on your loaf. If it seems to be browning too much, turn the heat down and continue baking at 400°F. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. In a minute or so the loaf will begin to speak. Cool pretty thoroughly before you cut into it so the interior structure has a chance to set.

Eating

The easiest way to get at this loaf is to cut it in half, stand a half on edge and cut slices starting at one end. Store the other half on edge to prevent it from drying out. Eat it with whatever excuse you need (because it’s there; to eat with butter, jam, soup, or tea; or best of all, the presence of a friend with whom the bread just needs to be broken).

Afterthoughts

Perhaps it’s because the gestation of this loaf is so long, or because the loaf is so fulsome and round, or because it speaks when it is done. Maybe it’s because the bread machine makes it so easy to create. Or maybe it’s just because it’s the perfect vehicle for so many of the things that make life a good place to be. Whatever the reason, it’s at this point that I go back to the beginning and start another
biga
.