I’m a bread whore. Shameful but true: I flit from one recipe to the next, searching for bready perfection, never quite satisfied with a single formula. And who can blame me, really? The bread I want first thing in the morning with Marmite and marmalade (that would be on the same slice, thank you) is a rigorously wholemeal sandwich loaf, but that’s quite different from the milk-enrichened, buttery white sandwich bread that I use to make crustless tramezzini on Sundays. Breads with fruit and nuts are perfect with cheese, but with prosciutto I want something like a salt-free, tuscan brick with challenging crusts. And seeded loaves or soda breads are perfect with wintery soups, but when it’s hot outside you can’t beat Ligurian focaccia that leaves the chin slick with olive oil, or pizzette, or crisp breads stuffed with melted cheese…
Fussy, moi? So off I go, flit flit flirting with one recipe after another. But lately I’ve been weary of all this variety. There’s a niggling voice in my head which says stop being such a crumbslut and just pick one good formula and stick with it, get better at it, learn how it behaves in your kitchen and your hands. What if there could be just one bread? One bread to rule them all? [insert evil laugh here]
This might well be it. A spectacular craggy crust that shatters before ripping. A blend of wholemeal and white flours that takes morning jam and afternoon smoked salmon equally well. Close-crumbed enough to slice and toast but with enough openness and strength to feel real rather than plastic. Tested to complete consumption by yours truly. It’s the kind of rustic bread that, brought to the table at the start of a restaurant meal, relaxes you instantly with the knowledge that the meal to come will be simple and wholesome, the wine local and fruity, the host convivial and the bill undeservingly low, leaving you with a glow of good cheer and minus an extremely generous tip. Yes, a bread can do all that and more.
Peter Reinhart, whose recipe this is, suggests that it is ideal to shape into all sorts of fancy fendus, auvergnons or coronne. I like to make a pin-wheel shape, as found on the brilliant Wild Yeast Blog (advised for all crust and flour nerds, and also check out her weekly yeast roundup at http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/). Mine aren’t quite as pretty or as delineated (I think I need to be firmer in the cuts) yet. Still, the colour varies between bright gold valleys and darkest burnished peaks. The four ears are supremely satisfying to pull apart from the centre, and as each is the size of a smallish loaf, they cook through thoroughly. It comes close, very close, to being my perfect loaf.
Pane della casa, a rustic bread
Makes 1 pinwheel loaf. Recipe by Peter Reinhart in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.
The day before, make the patê fermentée, or old dough, which will give the bread lots of flavour, staying power and other magical qualities:
- 140g plain or AP flour
- 140g white bread flour
- 5g salt
- 1.5g instant yeast, about a fifth of a sachet
- 170g water
Mix the dry ingredients together with enough of the water to make a tacky but not sticky dough. Knead for 5 minutes, then leave to rise for an hour. Put in the fridge overnight (or up to three days before baking the final loaf).
On baking day:
- all the patê fermentée (550g)
- 225g white bread flour
- 45g wholemeal flour
- 5g salt
- 3.5g instant yeast (half a sachet)
- 170g water
Bring the patê fermentée up to room temperature for an hour or so in a large covered mixing bowl, pulling it into golf ball sized pieces to help it along.
Mix in the flour, salt, yeast to the patê fermentée and add enough of the water (YMMV as ever, depending on flour, humidity etc) to bring it into a smooth, soft, pliable dough.
Knead by hand for 10 minutes (less by machine).
Leave to rise until doubled in size – if this takes less than two hours, you can knock it down half way through and let it rise again. I often do this in my hot humid kitchen.
Divide the dough into two rough balls and leave to relax for 10 minutes before shaping into a pinwheel. I use semolina to sprinkle on the proofing board which seems to give the crust a nice yellow crackle.
Leave for the final fermentation until risen a good 1 1/2 times. Meanwhile preheat the oven as high as it’ll go and prepare for steaming.
Bake at 240˚C for the first 10 minutes, then lower to 200˚C and bake for another 30 minutes.
Leave to cool (the hardest bit) before ripping apart with bare teeth. Grrrr.
NB As ever my bread recipes can be a bit sketchy, just because if you’re a bread baker already you know what to do, and if you’re not there are so many sites out there that will explain rising, knocking down, steaming, slashing and all that jazz far better than I can here. If you need to fill in the details and prefer paper, I heartily recommend the River Cottage Bread Handbook as a fantastic place to start.
