It's Spring Break at culinary school, which gives me time to fling flour and try out a few ideas worthy of play-dough. I love the tip from the book Tartine Bread to try baking loaves in a Dutch oven. Author Chad Robertson said the cast iron would give the bread a soft interior and a crunchy exterior - it's just the right vehicle so you can preserve moisture inside the baking loaf. This means you no longer have to use the cast iron skillet under the baking loaves, throwing water in the hot skillet to create a sort of steaming effect. Pfish. The steam always seems to escape before I can what-ho the oven door.
To use the Dutch oven in an oven, all you do is plop the dough in the vessel, slash the loaf top and cover with lid. What could be simpler?
The boule comes out with a marvelous shape, too. It looks like this.
I have another pile of dough rising right now that's headed for the Dutch oven, Pain de Campaigne Poilane, Poilane's Peasant Bread. Nothing has ever compared with Poilane bread from Paris. I don't know if they still do this, but there was a time that you could have a loaf FedExed from Europe France to your house. And I did. It's that good. This is not the place for me to go into the history of Poilane, but suffice it to say that when an author claims to have a recipe of Poilane's, I like to give it a go.
This particular version comes from a book published a few centuries back, 1978-ish. The book is called "The Breads of France" by Bernard Clayton Jr., which appears to have been updated for release in 2004 with Patricia Wells. Good for you, Bernard! I'm working from the old version and having a decided run of luck. The author spent time traveling the byways of France and digging out bread recipes the rest of us have no access to. For instance, he writes about the use of old ship blankets to cover the French rolls aboard the passenger liner the S.S. France, which is no longer seaworthy. Unless you got aboard and worked with the boulangers as monsieur did, then you have no access to the petits pains or stories about rolls cloaked in old woolen blankets. I made the rolls, and they are good as golden. The ship is no longer working, but the rolls do.
Another recipe in the book, called Pain Brie Normande, is a must-do this week, because when would I feel like beating dough with a rolling pin for 10 minutes while in school? You beat the dough. You hit it firmly and repeatedly with authority. It's a pummeling sort of process that requires a striking repose. I must know how this turns out. I also want to try the Gatueau Basque - not a bread, not a cake nor a pie, but something of all three with pastry cream and cherries, too. Who has time for such baking romance when human resources management is next up at school, in a class called "hospitality"? All in good time.
Meanwhile, you know those chocolates twists they have at Amy's Bread in The Village, NYC, USA? They can be yours if you venture inside "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread." I did as part of Spring Break, and have been guzzling them ever since, though they're secured in the freezer under leftover crepes from International Patisserie class and my final practical loaf of nuts, cheese and cranberry from breads class. I recommend that you choose a good high-quality chocolate instead of the bittersweet baking chocolate I found lurking in the pantry, masquerading as a staple.
Heavens, I've just eaten one twist too many. Hoist the rolling pin! Bring out the Normandy dough!
