sourdough

Finnish Rye

There are many things I like about this Finnish Rye. It’s dense but moist, chewy and a bit crunchy, rich in whole grain flavor but a little sweet as well. It’s very good, although not what I’d want to eat every day.

The thing I love about this bread is how an incredibly simple technique – rolling the underside of the dough in coarse flour during the last turns of the shaping, and baking with that flour-dredged underside on top – produces such a striking crackled crust. If I were ever to open a bakery (which I never will), this bread would definitely be one of the ones front and center in the window.

The combination of the dark-colored dough and light-colored flour here makes for an especially beautiful contrast, but the same technique could be used with just about any boule-shapeable dough and any coarse topping such as semolina, cornmeal, bran, or even small seeds.

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Semolina Bread with Fennel & Currants (and Pine Nuts)

When it comes to baking, I would make a terrific Boy Scout. I just do not like to be caught unprepared. 50-pound bag of flour? Check. At least 10 pounds of high-extraction flour in the refrigerator at all times? Of course. Five-year supply of panettone molds? Just got those in.

In other words, I stock up.

This is not about buying in bulk to save money, although that’s always nice. This is more like, I’m notoriously bad at planning ahead, so I plan way ahead. If that makes any sense at all.

How uncharacteristic of me, then, to allow my supply of dried currants to run low. But how truly characteristic of me to discover this right when it is time to add them to the dough. Let’s just say that mise en place is a concept that is not fully en place in this kitchen.

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World Bread Day, World Food Day, and a Recipe

World Bread Day World Food Day

Today is World Bread Day. The International Union of Bakers and Bakers-Confectioners designated this day to celebrate and honor the food that is, in many phraseologies, synonymous with “food.” So it is no accident that World Bread Day was chosen to coincide with Word Food Day, October 16, the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

The theme for World Food Day 2007 is “The Right to Food.” The FAO’s message is that regular access to sufficient, nutritious, culturally appropriate food is a basic human right that is currently denied to 850 million people worldwide.

The recipe is coming, I promise. But first:

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High-Extraction Miche

A few days ago I brought one of these miches to dinner at the home of people I’d never met before. In retrospect, this was one of those “what was I thinking?” ideas, because it could have been awkward if they had turned out to be bread wimps. Luckily, they weren’t, or they were very gracious about hiding it. Huge and chewy and sour, with a crust so dark it might be mistaken for burned by the uninformed, this miche is some serious bread.

I’ve had trouble pinning down the exact definition of “miche” (French slang for “butt-cheek,” according to Daniel Leader’s Local Breads). I believe that nominally it is a large, round, somewhat flattened loaf, but beyond that it seems that most breads that call themselves miches involve sourdough and a substantial proportion of whole-grain or high-extraction flour.

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Sourdough English Muffins

Wish I was an English muffin
‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster
— Simon and Garfunkel, “Punky’s Dilemma”

If you want to make the most out of your toaster, lose the Thomas’ and grace it with these instead.

Inspired by several talented bakers at The Fresh Loaf who have produced various takes on the English muffin in recent months, I finally could stand it no longer, and had to try them for myself. I see why they have been so popular. The bang for the buck is tremendous; they could not be easier, yet the result is outstanding.

The recipe uses just the amount of starter I’m “discarding” from my evening feeding, so I don’t even have to have planned ahead to make them (always a bonus in my world). Ferment the sponge overnight, and it’s a simple affair in the morning to mix and cook them.

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One Bread, Two Ways (98.4% Whole Grain Seeded Sourdough)

Did you look at the title of this post and think you were going to get something along the lines of one of those glossy magazine articles on how to live fashionably on a budget by taking a single outfit from the office to the evening with the simple addition of a few well-chosen accessories? (You know, the ones where you start with one ridiculously-priced suit, replace the businesslike button-down blouse with a silk décolleté cami, add the diamond necklace, Fendi bag, and Blahnik stiletto slides, and you’re good to go? Bargain city.)

Sorry to disappoint, but this isn’t exactly that. It is the decidedly less glamorous story of how I made two breads with EXACTLY the same ingredients (no baker’s diamonds here), the first only so-so and the next a bit better, by paying closer attention and changing just a couple of things in my method.

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