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Around this time, as is customary, my little microbial helpers need a dash of tender loving care. The yoghurt has already had two quick passages and is much the better for it. The kefir is about to have its first. But with temperatures in the high 30s°C I wasn’t super keen to look after the bread starters. Of course I could have just refreshed them without actually baking, but where’s the fun in that, and in any case stocks of frozen bread were dwindling fast. So, yesterday I took a look at the stiffer starter.

Old bread starter looking extremely unwell; dark, slimy moist.

It wasn’t good.

The top was dark and slimy, the driest parts powdery (with spores?) and a fair bit of liquid hooch. The smell wasn’t reassurring either. But I’m here to reassure you that all was well and that if you are ever faced with a neglected starter, there’s no need to abandon it.

Turning the lump over, the base was perfectly fine, so I dug out a small spoonful, trying not to break through to the other side. It weighed about 9 gm. I added 24 gm of water and 32 gm of wholewheat flour (preserving the 75% hydration) mixed it up and left it to get going.

One thing about the heat; it got going in a hurry. Three hours later it was light and well aerated. Time for a second build. A single loaf needs only 175 gm of starter, and there was no way I was going to bake two in this heat, so the feed was 75 gm of water and 100 gm of flour.

Again, three hours was about all it took to more than double in volume. After that, I made the bulk dough (50% Manitoba, 50% wholewheat, 2% salt, 70% hydration), gave it a quick knead and left it on the counter for an hour. One set of folds and into the fridge overnight.

This morning I took it out, nicely risen, gently shaped it, placed it in a banneton, and left it for about 90 minutes. Normally I preheat the oven and my Le Creuset casserole for 35 minutes before baking. Given the heat, no way. It has been a long time since I first tried baking from a cold start and only a couple of times since, but saving 35 minutes of oven blasting made it worth it. Lid removed after 30 minutes, baked for a further 20 minutes.

A loaf of bread with four slices, on a cutting board, mozarella and tomatoes on plates in the background

The result was very acceptable. Not as much oven spring perhaps, but plenty, and a nice, even crumb. If this weather keeps up, I will do the same sort of bake when I revive the looser starter.

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A friend kindly gave me a copy of The Perfect Loaf, by Maurizio Leo, and very fortunately there was just about enough room in my suitcase to bring it home with me. The explanatory section at the start is very informative, even if most of it was pretty familiar already, and I did pick up a few new ideas. Still, the proof of the pudding and all that … so I resolved to make his Simple Sourdough.

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A couple of weeks ago, I read a fascinating post on The Fresh Loaf, in which Kendalman described his interesting approach to stretch and fold and offered an alternative explanation of what is going on, because he believes the conventional view is mistaken. As near as I can tell, he says that there are two glues at work in the dough, a short-acting glue that preserves the shape of the loaf for about 30 minutes, and a longer lasting glue that maintains the whole mass as a whole mass. Stretch and fold activates the short-term glue, holding the loaf together while the bubbles caused by fermentation grow larger. It is the bubbles, ultimately, that give the dough its shape and hold it up.

Nearly round bubbles packed together keep the shape of their gluten foam better than any other bubble shape and the bigger the bubbles the better because that spreads the dough weight over a bigger surface area and so makes it easier to hold up.

Anyway, Kendalman helpfully linked to a video of his procedure, which he calls a kendalroll, that I watched absent-mindedly. The video certainly demonstrated that he got a lovely, well-risen loaf with no kneading and a lot of rolling. Proof of concept, as they say.

Loaf of bread, well-baked, showing impressive rise thanks to rolling method of shaping

A couple of days later I discovered that we were almost out of bread, with a few days still to go before the big weekly bake, so why not give it a go.

I made a standard white sourdough at 75% hydration, mixed only enough to incorporate everything, and then proceeded to roll the log about every 30 minutes. I was a bit concerned that it might take a lot longer than Kendalman’s yeast-powered dough, so I used double my normal amount of starter; pre-fermented flour was thus 40% of total flour.

Rolling the dough is a bit of a messy business, hence the lack of photographs, but it is obvious rolling is building strength and structure in the dough. In the and, after four hours, it seemed big enough to bake. Getting it onto the stone was tricky without being able to simply invert a banneton onto a peel, but I managed.

Halfway through the bake, when I opened the oven to remove the steam pan, I was very pleasantly surprised by how little it had spread. The end result was a really good loaf, with a fine crisp crust and a good, light and even crumb. Judging by the minor blow-out at the bottom of the loaf, I could even have left it to rise a little longer. The gummy bit at the bottom of the crumb photograph maybe confirms this. Very passable.

My kitchen doesn’t really have room for doing more than one loaf this way (whereas bannetons stack nicely), so I cannot see adopting the kendalroll for everything, but for occasions when I want a good white loaf, especially for sandwiches, it is a winner.

Crumb of rolled loaf is mostly even, with small bubbles

Final conclusion: I think I have a better understanding of stretch and fold, and I have a new arrow in my shaping quiver, which is a win all round.

Syndicated from jeremycherfas.net.

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Successful panis quadratus seen in elevation

Panis quadratus, an offering to Fornax.

My visit to Ostia Antica last year, guided by the wonderfully knowledgeable Farrell Monaco, was destined to end in more than a podcast. There was no way I was going to be able to avoid attempting a panis quadratus of my own, and what better time to make the effort than during Fornacalia?

This is the festival during which ancient Romans made offerings to the goddess Fornax. She was charged with ensuring that when they parched the wheat, which made it easier to mill, the grain did not burn. I did not go as far as making my own mola salsa, but I had to attempt the bread, using Farrell Monaco’s latest iteration for a particularly festive version with fennel and poppy seeds and fresh parsley.

First effort at panis quadratus; the demarcations have almost vanished because they were not deep enough.

First attempt at panis quadratus. I was too timid with the demarcations, which almost vanished as a result

I’m not going to go into much detail, because thanks to her research and experiments Farrell’s articles tell you all you need to know and plenty more besides. The dough is actually very easy for a slightly experienced baker. It is quite stiff, about the same as my usual bagel dough, but being 100% wholemeal never quite becomes as smooth and elastic. Its stiffness, in fact, makes me really curious about the kneading machines that we saw in Ostia. Could wooden paddles really have had any impact on a 55% hydration dough of 100% wholemeal flour? I’d love to see a reconstruction in operation.

Anyway, the relatively small amount of leaven means it doesn’t rise very quickly, so on my first attempt I put it in the fridge overnight because I didn’t fancy staying up into the early hours even to please Fornax. The second time, I started much earlier in the day — about 8:00 am — and had a baked loaf by 5:00 pm.

Loaf before baking with string tied around the equator, much deeper demarcations and the impressed bread stamp

Second attempt ready for baking, with much deeper demarcations.

The tricky part is not the dough but the shaping and handling. The key elements of panis quadratus are the belt around its equator and the divisions pressed into the top to demarcate the sections. Tying the string, of finest Italian hemp, was a little bit fiddly for my fat fingers. And on the first trial, I was much too timid about pressing my reed (bamboo, actually) into the top of the dough. As a result, just as Farrell foretold during our visit to Ostia, the oven spring all but obliterated the marks. The next time I bore down on the bamboo and the marks survived well. And even though mine were the only loaves in my oven, for the finishing touch I did mark them with the bread stamp Farrell sent me.

The finished panis quadratus, fresh out of the oven, its demarcations and stamp intact

Second attempt just out of the oven, with the demarcations clear and the bread stamp visible.

As for the taste, it really is rather good. The bread is by no means light and fluffy, but it is not hard to chew either. It is soft, without being fluffy, and the taste of the poppyseeds and especially the fennel, comes through in every bite. I really like it with some well-aged sheep’s milk cheese, although it is also very good with a little butter and honey.

Fornacalia ends tomorrow. I reckon I will be in Fornax’s good graces for another year.

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A little while ago I started to be more methodical about restoring some of the posts on my main website that had become disconnected as a result of various changes in the site’s back room. A few of those are bread posts that predate this site. Some of those I have already brought in here, while others I have not because they didn’t call to me. If I’m being methodical, however, I ought to be properly methodical.

This is what I wrote back in 2009:

Much of the bread you can buy in shops in Italy remains remarkably good. Some things, though, aren’t available, at least not nearby. One of those is rye bread. So I resolved to make some this weekend, using a recipe for Heidelberg Rye from the 1973 edition of Bernard Clayton Jr’s The Complete Book of Breads.

Conclusion: A fine loaf, but I do need to internalise that stuff about watching the loaf not the clock. If I can do it while the bread is in the oven, why not while it is rising?

Heidelberg rye crumb

Full details remain at my main website. I’m posting this here at least in part to encourage me to try that recipe again.