the bread baker's apprentice

Some time ago, J & I acquired a fascinating book on bread making, which we have slowly been reading. After learning all about the properties of wheat, processes of fermentation, et cetera, et cetera, this week I ventured to make pane siciliano, a rustic Italian bread, on my own. It was a long process. The bread begins with a "pre-ferment", which is basically a dough that you add to your dough, so that there is already yeast acting on the wheat in the flour when you mix it. It's something you do in advance, so I made a big batch and froze the rest for future adventures. The pane itself takes two days, once the pre-ferment is ready to go. On day one, I made the dough and very carefully shaped the loaves. Here are two of them, immediately post-shaping:


Then, I spritzed them and added the sesame seeds, which were the final touch before overnight rising in the fridge:

The next day, the shaped loaves come out of the fridge having risen verrrry slowly, which is supposed to help maximise the flavours of the flour. Then, the oven is prepared for 'hearth' baking, which means it has to be very hot and have mechanisms for creating steam at the beginning of the baking process. In our case, the steam mechanisms include a cast-iron pan put in place before the heating starts, hot water poured into the pan just as the bread goes in, and little spray bottles for spraying the hot walls of the oven. It was intimidating, but actually not particularly difficult to do. Here are the lovely risen loaves, just before being subjected to steam and heat:


After the closely monitored baking, the loaves *must* cool for at least 45 minutes before being cut. This is the part I don't like, because I maintain that bread is most delicious when it's hot out of the oven and has butter melted on it. Joey maintains that I like to ruin bread. Anyway, here's the cooling. (Aren't they pretty?)


And after a little patience, here's the reward:

The End.