Discussion
This is my standard Italian Bread recipe. It's derived from a recipe in Clayton, "The Breads of France."
This bread is made with all Harvest King white flour. I've modified the recipe to accomodate my style:
- I made a poolish of 200 grams each Harvest King and water and 8 ml / 1/2 teaspoon yeast.
- I left the poolish on the counter overnight.
- I added an autolyse of 25 minutes after initial mix and before adding salt and doing the kneading.
- I did three fermentation periods, two of one hour separated by a fold, then another fold and a final fermentation period of 30 minutes.
- You can also do a simpler method: ferment for 2 hours, then fold and ferment for 30 minutes.
- You can choose the fermentation method that fits your schedule.
- Final rise period after shaping was 50 minutes.
Poolish
| Ingred |
Ounces |
Grams |
| Bread Flour |
7 |
200 |
| Water |
7 |
200 |
| Dry Yeast |
1/2 tsp |
2 |
This Italian bread will frequently give enough oven spring to form two very large basketballs, expecially is you use very strong bread flour.
For instruction on how to make a poolish, go here, but use the amounts above.make a poolish
Ingredients to Add to the Poolish
If you don't have malt syrup, use sugar.
| Ingred |
Ounces |
Grams |
| Water |
17 |
480 |
| Bread Flour |
31 1/2 |
890 |
| Dry Yeast |
1 Tbsp |
15 ml |
| Salt |
1 Tbsp |
22 |
| NF Dry Milk |
1/2 cup |
225 ml |
| Olive Oil |
1 Tbsp |
15 ml |
| Malt |
1 Tbsp |
15 ml |
See malt discussion here. |
Method
- Measure the flour and other ingredients.
- Put the poolish, water, sugar, yeast, oil, malt syrup and milk powder in the mixer bowl.
- Add half the flour and mix for two minutes.
- Switch to the dough hook, add the rest of the flour and mix for two minutes.
- Let the dough rest for 25 minutes.
- Add the salt and knead for 8 minutes.
- You can ferment this dough with one long first fermentation, 2 hours, and then fold it and do a final short final fermentation, OR you can do two 1-hour fermentations, with a fold in between, and then a fold and the short final fermentation.
- The pictures show the three-step fermentation, but either way works well.
- Shape into two 2-pound / 900 gram loaves, place on parchment paper and let rise for 50 minutes.
- Slash in a tic-tac-toe and bake in a dry oven at 425 F / 220 C for 20 minutes, turn and finish baking. The internal temperature should be 200F / 93C.
- For a deeper crust, turn off the oven and leave the bread in the cooling oven for 5 or 10 minutes.
- You can also spritz the risen loaves with water and sprinkle sesame seeds on the loaves. This will deepen the color, too.
For larger holes in the loaf, use a very gentle fold, such as the Hamelman fold in the folding section.
And Away We Go!
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