Hazelnut Raisin Baguette

One of my customers requested a baguette with hazelnuts and golden raisins.  After several trials, this is the end result.  My first dough was a basic baguette dough with pre-soaked golden raisins and chopped, toasted hazelnuts.  It didn't pack the flavor punch I was hoping for.  Next, I ground a portion of the nuts and introduced them to the dough in the very beginning of the mix.  I could be making this up, but I think the heat generated during the mixing process helps to pull all the oils out of the ground nuts which imparts more flavor into the dough.

I was much happier with the results after adding the ground hazelnuts but the formula still wasn't quite where I wanted it to be.  I switched from a white poolish to a wheat poolish to add even more nuttiness and texture to the dough.  I also soaked the golden raisins in apricot juice to add more complexity and sweetness to the bread.

The golden raisins disappear into the dough.  Normally, I would want to see them when I cut into the baguette but I like that, through the soaking process, they plump up and burst apart during mixing.  This helps distribute the flavor and it keeps the bread super moist.

The baguette tastes like an upscale peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The grape flavor from the juicy raisins is the first taste, followed by the earthy, nutty crunch of the toasted hazelnuts.  I drizzled honey on my baguette for breakfast this morning.  It would also be the perfect addition to a cheese plate and it would make an ultra-classy turkey sandwich. 

If you're wondering why there's a stick in the photo, it's because my 3 year old woke during my photo shoot and insisted I take a picture with the stick she brought home from the park yesterday.  How could I turn down that request?!?

After the stick entered the photo, I thought it would be fun to get Josie's help getting one last shot of the whole baguette.  So, in addition to the stick, here are two of the cutest, most helpful, three year old hands in the baking business!

If you have any questions about my breads or if you would like the complete recipe for Hazelnut Raisin Baguettes, please email me.

This post is being submitted to YeastSpotting! 

Fougasse du Temps Perdu

I'm always looking for creative ways to use extra dough.  Laminated Fougasse is a perfect solution for those of you who have a few chunks of French dough lying around.  I learned this technique from Christian Vabret at a Bread Bakers Guild of America event in 2007.  Vabret is the creator and mastermind behind the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (World Baking Cup).  It was an honor to attend one of his courses.  He, like many seasoned French bakers, glowed with passion and joy when talking about bread.

Fougasse is a traditional French flat bread.  Just like its cousin, the Italian focaccia, it is often used as a means of getting rid of bits of leftovers.  Most often, fougasse is filled with olives, lardons, cheese, and/or nuts.  My fougasse is a throwback to my grandma's raisin stuffing while embracing the traditional roots of the classic French fougasse, thus..."Fougasse du Temps Perdu" or "Fougasse of Times Past."

I should note, I majored in French in college, during which time we spent no less than 3 days discussing the madeleine scene from Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.

To assemble this loaf, first, make the filling.  I pureed raisins, caramelized vidalia onions, rendered bacon fat, coarse black pepper, fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme in a food processor.  The resulting paste is a little bit sweet and a little bit savory, just like the stuffing I remember.

Use a one pound scrap of French dough for the base of the fougasse.  Roll the dough into a 12" by 6" rectangle, spread four ounces of the paste onto half of the dough and fold the dough over.  If you've ever laminated puff pastry or croissant dough, it's the same idea.  Press the edges of the dough together to seal in the paste.  Roll the dough into a second rectangle, this time 6"x 18" and fold in thirds toward the center as shown above.  You may need to use a liberal amount of flour when rolling the dough but be sure to brush it off before making the folds.  Let the dough rest for 20 minutes and repeat this step.  

Let the dough rest for an additional 30 minutes before rolling into a 12"x 6" rectangle.  Cut through the rectangle using a pizza cutter or dough knife in the pattern illustrated above.  When you pick the dough up to transfer it onto the peel (I recommend using a piece of parchment as it can be really sticky), pull the cuts open to transform the lump of laminated dough into a beautiful fougasse.  I baked mine at 425°F for about 20 minutes.  It should be slightly puffy and crispy but not too dark.  After it is baked, while it is still hot, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt.

This is the perfect bread to present to your host(ess) the next time you're invited over for dinner.  Fougasse is  a very communal loaf.  It's fun to break off pieces and pass around as an appetizer or meal time treat.

If you would like more information about the recipe or procedure for making this fougasse, please email me!

All photos courtesy of my dear friend Hana from Haniela's Food & Photography

I am submitting this bread to The Wild Yeast Blog's weekly YeastSpotting post.

Olive Oil Tasting

Alternative title for this post: Yes, Really, I Get Paid for This!  

A few months ago, an olive oil vendor approached us about potentially switching our olive oil to the brand he was peddling.  We use extra virgin olive oil in several of our doughs including a super yummy Rosemary, Olive Oil & Sea Salt loaf.

 If you've never seen a "tote" of oil before, I don't know if you would believe it.  I could never have imagined a tote until I saw one with my own eyes.  We purchase our olive oil in totes which aren't quite as large as a city block but are 100's of times larger than the largest bottle you can purchase at the grocery store.  Our account could make for a decent payday if this particular vendor could land our business.

The oil samples arrived and my collegue, Michael and I were ordered, yes ordered, by our boss to taste them against our current oil to see if they're worth the effort involved in changing vendors.  There were 6-8 different samples in all.  We decided to pick our favorite of the newbies and then compare it to the reigning champ.  Neither of us are experts or even novices in the field of olive oil tasting.  We lined them up and started dipping baguette chunks into each puddle of oil.  I know if we were really serious about this tasting we would have tasted them straight up but we're not that serious and a baguette was as good a base as any.

Normally, I probably wouldn't notice subtleties in olive oil but when you taste several back to back, their differences or flavor notes are, well, notable.  Our observations included, woodsy, earthy, tangy, bitter and mild.  Our favorite oil had the clear flavor of olives with no subtle hints.  Subtle hints of flavor would not come through after the oil is mixed into the dough and the bread is baked.  We really need a strong olive flavor to burst out of the loaf.  When we tasted our pick against our current supply, we were delightfully surprised to find that ours was much better than any of the new oils being proposed.

For now, we'll stick with our current extra virgin olive oil supplier.  We had a great time learning and tasting all of our options.

I'll Bring the Bread

My friend Alex recently celebrated her marriage to Ciaran at her childhood home in Sumner, Maine.  Alex and Ciaran were wed in city hall some months ago but they wanted to have a party to share the even with their friends and families.  We gorged ourselves on everything from whole roasted pig to gourmet lobster spring rolls to lemon poppy seed cupcakes. The wedding guests spent the weekend in a tent community that would put the Boy Scouts of America to shame.

Kevin and I almost didn't make it to Maine.  If we didn't have a minivan full of bread and cupcakes we would have probably turned back.  It was to be our first night spent away from the kids. In the chaos of our toy infested home, we couldn't find the battery charger for our camera.  We stopped at the store on the way out of town to buy a cheap replacement camera only to find out our mortgage check  cleared from our bank account a couple days earlier than I anticipated...our debit card was declined and we had no back-up plan.  

Kevin's boss was supposed to pay him on the Thursday before our trip but he never showed with the check (typical in the construction business).  Even though I was certain he wouldn't answer his phone at 8am on Saturday morning, Kevin called to see if we could get his pay.  Good news - he answered and he had the check for us.  Bad news - we had to drive 2 hours in the wrong direction to get it.  

At least we found out about our fiscal irresponsibility before we emptied our gas tank.  We would have been stranded in New Hampshire, calling the bride before her big day with an SOS.

We made it to Maine a few, ten,  hours later with the bread and the cupcakes in tow.  It was a little wet, a little cold but a lot of fun.  

Baguettes

Just as there is a special place in my heart for brioche, there also lies one for a perfect baguette.  What makes a baguette perfect?  Well, the industry places certain standards on the baguette.  It must weigh 350g, 14 oz pre-baked.  It must be 22 inches long and it can only be scored or cut 5 or 7 times.  Easy, right?  Not on your life!

There are so many opportunities to screw up the baguette along the way.  I'm amazed and excited when mine turn out the way I hope.  It starts with a dough.  As I've mentioned before, I use poolish in my French dough.  The poolish is 50% water and 50% flour with a pinch of yeast (technically 1% of the flour weight).  This mixture sits for 18 hours before it is mature enough to use in the dough.  I know it is mature when I see big bubbles beneath the surface and there isn't too much resistance in the gluten network.  Each morning, the first thing I do is to dump my poolish tub (a rubber maid trash can) into the cold steel mixing bowl.  Then I add the appropriate amount of water and flour for the batch size I'm mixing.  These days my batches are about 60 pounds.  I mix these three ingredients at a very slow speed just until there are no big flour lumps.  I stop the mix, cover the bowl with a garbage bag and wait for at least 20 minutes.

Waiting....this is called autolyse.  Autolyse is a method developed by the grandfather of bread, Raymond Calvel.  He is a Frenchman who wrote 'Le Gout du Pain.'  'The taste of bread,' is a scientific approach to baking and one of my all time favorite books.  At any rate, during autolyse the protein in the flour starts to digest itself lending to a more extensible gluten network.  Extensiblity is important when you're striving for 22 inches! During the baking world cup, Team USA, autolysed their dough overnight.  I have to admit, I didn't think that autolyse was a needed step until I started using it.  My dough is much happier now that I take the proper time to let it do it's thing.

After the 20 minutes are up, I add the salt and the yeast to the dough and continue to mix on a slow speed.  My dough is only mixed on high speed for a minute or two.  I don't want to fully develop the gluten in the dough because I want to leave that up to time.  This method of slow fermentation will help to bring out the flavor and the texture of the bread.  Think- ciabatta versus bagels.  I then cut the dough out of the mixer with a sharp knife, into oiled tubs (again, gotta love rubbermaid).  If I were to pull off pieces of dough rather than cut it, I would be damaging the gluten network.  The dough sits in the tubs for about an hour before I fold it, punch it down, turn it...whatever the lingo, I'm simply stretching out the dough and folding it over itself.  This process evens out the temperature of the dough and gives the yeast a brand new source of food.  It is also a gentle way of developing the gluten a little more.

After another hour passes, I start to divide the dough into it's final portions.  Again, I cut off pieces with a sharp bench knife and weigh them out on a balance scale.  These pieces are then shaped into little logs that rest for 15 minutes or so before I start rolling them out into baguettes.  The baguette shaping is in line for the most difficult part of the process.  If I hadn't spent night after night, shaping thousands of baguettes at Amy's Bread, I would still be an awful baguette shaper.  The shape has to be a perfect line but the propensity to end up with a dog bone where there is less dough in the center, is very high.  Once I shape my perfect baguettes, I line them up on a wooden board, snuggled in a couche , or linen, to rest and rise.  'Coucher' means 'to sleep' in French.  This is where they stay until they've properly risen.

When they are ready to bake, I flip them onto my oven loader with a 'planchette.'  This board is a gentle way of moving the baguettes to a new surface.  I then score them, the other most difficult part of the process.  These five lines are cuts made with a straight razor called a 'lame' (pronounced like the beginning of 'llama' not like the word for 'uncool').  The cuts have to be a an exact 45 degree angle.  They overlap slightly and they run down the exact center of the baguette.  If I get this right, the baguettes 'ears' will open up, yielding a beautiful final product. 

I leave the soldiers in the oven until they are a a little darker than golden brown.  I'd say it's more of a mahogany.  The dark color is the 'Maillard Reaction' which is kind of like carmelization.  If the baguettes are light in color they will have much less flavor.  Think in terms of sugar...plain, white, uncooked sugar tastes sweet but once it is cooked, the resulting caramel is teaming with flavor.

That's it.  A day in the life of a baguette.  I have to mention, my son Keegan was exactly 22 inches long the day he was born.  Is this nature's way of telling me I chose the right profession?

Artisan?

'What Artisan Bread Means to Me' by Rachel Renee Wyman....

Just kidding.  When conceptualizing this piece it just seemed to have that elementary feel to it.  I imagined myself back in middle school being instructed to write about manatees or democracy.  The difference now is that this word truly means something to me and I feel it is being misused left and right.  I started thinking about this essay a couple years ago when a Wendy's commercial touted the use of artisan bread for their new sandwich.  I must have let out an audible gasp the first time I saw the ad.  There is no way Wendy's is employing bakers to hand shape each roll before it is sent out to their franchises.  It is equally unlikely that each store has a craft bakery in the back, behind the microwaves and deep fryers, baking off crusty bread.  Wendy's ad was the first I noticed.  There were several to follow and they continually pop up here and there.  Subway uses artisan sub rolls, Panera sells artisan bread, Dunkin' Dounuts makes artisan flat breads....it's everywhere.

In France there are laws that determine how certain food products can be marketed.  If any part of the bread making process is automated, save the mixing, the store that sells the finished product can not be called a "patisserie" or bakery.  Sure people can call it that but the law states that the sign on the store front can not contain the word patisserie.  The same laws denote the weight, shape, length and scoring of a baguette.  The Food and Drug Administration issues laws about packaging and ingredients but in a different way.  Did you know that it is illegal to package a product as "whole" wheat unless it is 100% whole wheat?  Sellers get around this by using terms like 'honey wheat' and 'soft wheat.'  Maybe they'll move on to 'wheat-like' in the coming years.  The FDA also regulates the terms 'good source of', low fat, fat free and light.

The bread baking community is split on what can be called artisan bread.  Technically, artisan refers to the crafter not the craft itself.  I am an artisan baker who bakes artisanal bread, to use the proper grammar/semantics.  What makes an artisan baker?  If an industrial mixer is used and the rest of the process is done by hand, is the bread an artisan product?  What if the dough is divided by machine, then shaped by hand?  What about using a mechanized roller to shape the loaves but individually, hand loading the bread into the oven?  What if the dough is loaded into the oven on a conveyor belt but a baker scores each loaf before it bakes?  There are several lines that can be drawn and there really isn't any end all be all to categorize artisanal bread. 

Wikipedia feels artisan bread is defined by the water content in the dough, 60-75%.  This seems odd but somewhat understandable.  High water content makes for a more fragile dough that is much harder to work with.  This hydration level would make for a more open, airy inside or crumb and it could make for more fermentation which makes for more flavor.  It would be interesting to know how wikipedia came up with this standard.

My line is drawn after the dough is divided.  I don't think using a mechanized divider as opposed to hand weighing on a balance scale, takes away from the quality or outcome of the bread.  Mechanized dividers come in several forms.   I've used a 20-pocket hydrolic divider that gentley presses and cuts large masses of dough into 20 equal portions.  This one is best used for baguettes and loaves.   I've also used a 36 peice divider/rounder that cuts smaller lumps of dough into 36 equal portions and it can round them into rolls.  Both of these machines are quite common in the industry and from my experience, they both like to break down a lot making for very trying production.  I feel shaping the dough by hand is essential in the artisan process.  It is a difficult skill to master which makes it a defining part of the baking process.  If the dough is improperly shaped it will tell on the baker who shaped it.  Have you ever cut into a loaf of bread and found a hole running down the center of the whole loaf?  This is called a 'baker's grave;'  it happens when too much flour is used when shaping and the dough can't surge to itself.  If the loaf isn't shaped tight enough, it will loose its shape before going into the oven or if it is shaped too tight, the dough may start to pull apart and break open.  There are different ways to shape dough to yield different outcomes in the finished product.  It takes an artisan baker to know these rules and to consistently create beautiful bread.  Shaping bread by machine takes the soul out of the process.  For me, shaping loaf after loaf, baguette after baguette, is very cathartic.  Even though it seems monotonous at times, there's a whole lotta love going into each loaf I shape which puts my name, my mark on the bread I sell.

There is definitely an increased awareness of bread in America in much the way there is an increased awareness of organic, natural products.  As educated consumers, we have to be cautious about which products to believe in.  Is it labeled as artisan or organic or both to sell a product or is it labeled that way because it truly is organic artisan bread?

2-Day Poolish

When I was in Culinary school, I learned the right way to do everything...the right way to shape baguettes, the right way to mix a dough, the right way to treat starters....  For the most part, I still do everything right but the longer I bake, the more I push the envelope.  For instance, most bakers take the temperature of their surroundings everyday.  There is a complex equation for finding the proper liquid temperature to add to a dough in order to get the "desired dough temperature."  [WT= FF(DDT)-TTF] It involves finding the room temperature, the flour temperature, the temperature of the starters, and the friction factor which has to do with the length of time and force with which the dough is mixed.  The DDT is what will give you the best possible outcome for any given product.  Everyone's DDT is different.  I may be shooting for 80 degrees while another bakery is going for 75 degrees.  My DDT changes with every season.  I am currently trying to get my dough to come off the mixer at 95+ degrees.   This is difficult given my temperature constraints.  The thermal death point of yeast is around 140 degrees which isn't really that hot.  Also, my big, thick steel mixing bowl is freezing cold every morning making it difficult to get a warm dough outcome.  When I was a student, I always laughed at the other students who had their thermometers resting in the flour bags.  Isn't it obvious that the flour temperature should be the same as the room temperature?  Well, not so in my new world.  My flour is stored in a basement, two flights of stairs below the bakery (I'll get to the joys of lugging 50 pound bags up these steps another time).  The basement flour is always cooler than the room temperature in the bakery. [insert photo of me sticking my foot in my mouth here]

What does all of this mean in the real world?  It means that I come in somewhere between midnight and 2am, take my coat off and make a couple decisions.  First, I turn on my oven and decide if it's cold enough that I have to turn on the convection oven too.  If the answer is yes, I determine whether the ambient temperature is such that I need to turn on both convection ovens.  Last winter there were days  I had to turn on the gas burners in order to get the room up to a livable temperature.  After generating some heat, I fill a couple buckets with my desired water temperature.  I don't use a thermometer, I use my instinct.  I stick my hand under the running water and use my patented Goldilocks method...too hot, too cold, just right. 

I have to say that it is very important to take temperatures if you're just begining to bake bread.  I have a couple things going for me.  I've been baking bread for a long time and I've been baking the same breads in the same setting for a long time.  I know my dough!  I know that yesterday the French dough moved (rose) a little slow so today I will use slightly warmer water and maybe I'll sit the dough tub in front of the convection oven for a little while.  I know that the cheese bread is always a rapid riser so I put it in the coolest part of the bakery after it is shaped so it won't rise too fast.  I know that the seeded dough moves so fast in the summer that I have to cut the yeast in half if I want to avoid a disaster.  If I was mixing a new dough in a new setting, I would take the temperature to have a starting point.

Where does 2-Day Poolish come in to play?  Well, as I said, I push the envelope.  Sometimes I am successful.  Certain sourdoughs are made the day before they are baked.  This helps me to jam pack the oven for every second it is open from the time it comes up to temperature.   I have found that I can refrigerate my sour starters if I need to skip a feeding.  The poolish is much like the dough because it contains a small amount of yeast.  In the summer I mix poolish with ice cold water and I reduce the yeast.  I literally put ice in the water.  In the winter, I mix with room temperature water and I up the yeast a little.  The bakery was closed on Christmas Day.  Normally I would bring my poolish tub home and mix the goo 18 hours before I need it.   I really didn't want to think about the bakery on Christmas day so I decided to try 2-Day poolish.  I mixed a tub right before I left the bakery on Christmas Eve.  I used cold water and a tiny amount of yeast to balance the long fermentation time.

I arrived at the bakery on the 26th hoping to find a nice bubbly tub of poolish.  When I took the lid off the bucket, I found an over-fermented yuck.  It was clear from the water marks on the sides of the tub that the poolish had risen to it's maximum ability and then it fell.  Normally, I can stretch and hold the poolish in my hands to put it on the scale.  Not this stuff.  I had to scoop it out with a pitcher and pour it onto the scale.

How did this affect my dough?  My French dough is typically like a big fluffy pillow but with the 2-day poolish it was what bakers call 'slack.'  It was more clay-like and it lacked life.  Yes, it made nice baguettes and I'm sure the day to day consumers were not aware of my blunder but I was.  My ciabatta was more like a flip-flop than a slipper.  Again, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't that good either.  I'm sure it was better than I dough with no starter at all but that's about it.

If any of my fellow bakers out there want to try to push the envelope to see what you get, don't do it with the poolish.  2-Day poolish is a failure!,  another one to chalk up on the experience board.  On the flip side, 2-Day croissants seem to be a success!