I love bread. This bread comes out of the Ottolenghi cookbook, but I've changed it quite a bit to get what I wanted out of it. Its a nice bread, perfect for everyday consumption. It takes two days to make, but is extremely easy.
The bread is made in 2 parts: the biga, and then the final dough. Making the biga a day in advance allows time for the gluten to develop, and for the bread to develop a slightly deeper flavour.
I use Eureka Mills flours. They are preservative and bleach free, and are stone-ground, making them more wholesome and healthy than other flours. I wouldn't recommend using anything else.
Ingredients
Biga: 375g strong white bread flour
200ml water
1-1½ tsp active dried yeast
Final dough: 25g strong white bread flour
2tsp barley malt syrup
120ml water
1½ tsp fine salt
DAY 1
Make your biga. Put all the ingredients for the biga in the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment and run on low speed for about 7-10minutes, or until the dough comes together as a tight ball. You may need to add a bit of water, or get your hands involved to incorporate some of the flour. Seeing as the dough is quite 'dry', it tends to be stubborn in incorporating all the flour itself.
It'll start off looking like this:
Then after a few minutes, this will happen. Notice the few dry pieces refusing to become part of the dough. Give it a bit of a knead inside the bowl to get these into the dough.
You should end up with this:
Lightly brush a bowl at least twice the volume of the dough with some olive oil. Put the dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a damp cloth or lid, and leave for about 24 hours at room temperature.
DAY 2
Take the biga out of the bowl. It should've roughly doubled in size, i.e. from this
To this:
Take the dough and cut it up into little pieces with a pair of scissors or a metal dough scraper.
Put these pieces into the bowl of the food mixer with the flour, malt and water.
Knead on low speed for about 7 minutes. If the dough battles to come together, use one of your hands to squeeze it all together in the bowl of the mixer. The biga can be a bit of a mission sometimes to incorporate just by using the mixer. Your hands will do a great job. Increase the speed and knead on a medium-high speed for another 5 minutes. The dough will go from this:
To this:
Add the salt at this point and knead for a further 5 minutes or so on medium-high speed. Keep an eye on your dough to make sure that it does not creep up the dough hook and into the mechanism. This will cause untold shit. So keep an eye out. The dough will be quite sticky and will look like this:
Take it out of the mixer and put in in an oiled bowl. Cover with a damp cloth or lid and place in a warm place which is draught free for about 45 minutes.
*A NOTE ON PROVING DOUGH*
In order for the yeasts in bread to activate, they need two things: warmth and fuel. The fuel comes from the gluten in the hydrated flour. Optimally, yeasts want a temperature of around 40°C. Obviously, we cannot control the weather. What I like to do to give my dough a warm environment, is I switch the oven on for about 3 minutes just so that it heats up slightly, then I switch it off and place my dough in there to prove. It works fantastically.
After 45 minutes or so, you are going to give the dough a series of turns. Lightly oil your hands, tuck your fingers under one side of the dough, and pull the dough upwards to stretch it. Push this flap down onto the middle of the dough. Turn the dough and repeat this, until you have turned the dough once all over. Flip the dough over in the bowl so that the flaps are on the underside, and cover and leave to prove in a warm place for a further 1 hour.
Put your baking stone on a rack below the middle of your oven. Switch it on to the conventional heat or conventional baking setting, and turn it up to 245°C. It will need this amount of time to heat up properly.
After and hour or so, turn the dough again as you did, and let it rest for 10 minutes. Prepare a teflon baking sheet by placing it on a chopping board and lightly dusting it with flour. Flour your hands. Turn your dough out carefully onto the sheet. Gently handling your dough, shape it into whatever shape you please (I like the classic ciabatta shape, its great for slicing the bread and making sandwiches). Leave the dough to rest for around 30 minutes.
It will start off looking like this:
And will relax slightly into this:
Now its time to bake the bread. If you look at the picture above, you will notice a water spritzer (sprayer) and a container with water in it. What you need do next must happen very quickly, so that your oven does not lose too much heat.
Step 1: Open the oven and slide the dough (still on the teflon sheet) off the chopping board and onto the baking stone.
Step 2: Carefully throw the water out of the container and onto the bottom of your oven. It will boil instantly and will create steam inside the oven.
Step 3: Spray your water spritzer directly into the oen about 5 or 6 times. Close the oven door immediately.
All of this should take roughly 15 seconds. Turn your oven down to 235°C. Bake the bread for about 15 minutes until the crust starts to take colour, open the oven door to release the steam, then close it and bake for a further 20 minutes or so until the crust turns a dark colour. Don't stress if it takes longer, the bread can't really "overbake".
*A NOTE ON STEAMING YOUR OVEN*
In order for the bread to be allowed to rise in the oven without forming a crust immediately, we need to create steam inside the oven. This moist environment will allow the oven spring to occur before a crust forms. We create this environment in a home oven by throwing water onto the bottom of the oven once the dough is in, and by spraying water vapour into the oven as well, just for reassurance. Once the bread has risen to its full potential height (after about 15 minutes) and you can see colour starting to form on the crust, this moist environment is no longer needed, and we need to quickly release the steam from the oven by opening the oven door. This new, dry environment will allow a dry, crunchy crust to form.
The bread will go from this:
To this, within about 3 minutes:
And then to this a further 4 minutes later:
And it will finally end up like this:
When the bread is baked, take it out of the oven and allow it to cool on a cooling rack.
The bread develops a wonderfully crunchy crust, and a light, soft crumb (the crumb is the part inside the bread). I find that it is best enjoyed on the day of baking, as the extreme crunch of the crust softens slightly after a day. However, the bread stays fresh for at least 3 days, and is brilliant toasted.
Have fun baking.
dK
