Saturday bread adventures: Tartine Country Bread...

mariadnoca

Moderator
Well, it's the ugliest bread I ever made, but it tastes the best! It's an ugly duckling for sure (I forgot to turn the timer on when baking the 2nd loaf or didn't hear it), but I cut the first loaf and the crumb is perfect and the taste is wonderful - not as sour as I personally like, but as expected. This really had a soft crumb and was identical to commercial artisan in texture. Not chewy, great for sandwiches and well - anything. I really must redo this bread! (Oh, I retarded it in the fridge, but overslept, so it might be overproofed some - it went 16 hrs in the fridge.)

http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy163/4ebay_bucket/Food/Tartine%20Bread%20May%202014/IMG_2617_zpsabfe0633.jpg

After watching Chad's master class video, I tweaked this to update using a KA mixer:

Tartine's Country Bread

Adapted from “Tartine Bread” by Chad Robertson

TOTAL TIME About 2 weeks (or about 2 days if you already have active starter)

YIELD: 2 loaves

For the starter and leaven

1000 grams white-bread flour

1000 grams whole-wheat flour

For the bread

200 grams leaven

900 grams white-bread flour

100 grams whole-wheat flour, plus more for dusting

20 grams fine sea salt

100 grams rice flour (I'd consider this optional)

Preparation

1. Make the starter: Combine 1,000 grams white-bread flour with 1,000 grams whole-wheat flour. Put 100 grams of warm water (about 80 degrees) in a small jar or container and add 100 grams of the flour mix. Use your fingers to mix until thoroughly combined and the mixture is the consistency of thick batter. Cover with a towel and let sit at room temperature until mixture begins to bubble and puff, 2 to 3 days.

2. When starter begins to show signs of activity, begin regular feedings. Keep the starter at room temperature, and at the same time each day discard 80 percent of the starter and feed remaining starter with equal parts warm water and white-wheat flour mix (50 grams of each is fine). When starter begins to rise and fall predictably and takes on a slightly sour smell, it’s ready; this should take about 1 week.(Reserve remaining flour mix for leaven.)

3. Make the leaven: The night before baking, discard all but 1 tablespoon of the mature starter. Mix the remaining starter with 200 grams of warm water and stir with your hand to disperse. Add 200 grams of the white-wheat flour mix and combine well. Cover with a towel and let rest at room temperature for 12 hours or until aerated and puffed in appearance. To test for readiness, drop a tablespoon of leaven into a bowl of room-temperature water; if it floats it’s ready to use. If it doesn’t, allow more time to ferment. (Mine took 11 hrs to pass float test.)

4. Make the dough: In a large bowl, combine 200 grams of leaven with 700 grams of warm water and stir to disperse. (Reserve remaining leaven for future loaves; see note below.) - I just did this by hand in the KA mixing bowl.

5. Add 900 grams of white-bread flour and 100 grams of whole-wheat flour to bowl and use your hands to mix until no traces of dry flour remain. The dough will be sticky and ragged. Cover bowl with a towel and let dough rest for 25 to 40 minutes at room temperature. In a KA with a dough hook: 3-4 mins on stir. I did 3 mins.

6. Add 20 grams fine sea salt and 50 grams warm water. Use hands to integrate salt and water into dough thoroughly. The dough will begin to pull apart, but continue mixing; it will come back together. In a KA with a dough hook: 10 mins on stir.

7. Cover dough with a towel and transfer to a warm environment, 75 to 80 degrees ideally (like near a window in a sunny room, or inside a turned-off oven). Let dough rise for 30 minutes. Fold dough by dipping hand in water, taking hold of the underside of the dough at one quadrant and stretching it up over the rest of the dough. Repeat this action 3 more times, rotating bowl a quarter turn for each fold. Do this every half-hour for 2 1/2 hours more (3 hours total). The dough should be billowy and increase in volume 20 to 30 percent. If not, continue to let rise and fold for up to an hour more.

8. Transfer dough to a work surface and dust top with flour. Use a dough scraper to cut dough into 2 equal pieces and flip them over so floured sides are face down. Work dough into taut rounds, folding the cut side of each piece up onto itself so the flour on the surface remains entirely on the outside of the loaf; this will become the crust. Place the dough rounds on a work surface, cover with a towel, and let rest 30 minutes.

9. Mix 100 grams whole-wheat flour and 100 grams rice flours. Line two 10- to 12-inch bread-proofing baskets or mixing bowls with towels. Use some of the flour mixture to generously flour towels (reserve remaining mixture). - -This made waaaay more than I needed, I'd cut it by half and then you'd likely still have leftovers. I see Chad doesn't always use this mix, so I wouldn't go get rice flour just for this, but then again I'm not the pro.

10. Dust rounds with whole-wheat flour. Use a dough scraper to flip them over onto a work surface so floured sides are facing down. Take one round, and starting at the side closest to you, pull the bottom 2 corners of the dough down toward you, then fold them up into the middle third of the dough. Repeat this action on the right and left sides, pulling the edges out and folding them in over the center. Finally, lift the top corners up and fold down over previous folds. (Imagine folding a piece of paper in on itself from all 4 sides.) Roll dough over so the folded side becomes the bottom of the loaf. Shape into a smooth, taut ball. Repeat with other round.

11. Transfer rounds, seam-side up, to prepared baskets. Cover with a towel and return dough to the 75- to 80-degree environment for 3 to 4 hours. (Or let dough rise for 10 to 12 hours in the refrigerator. Bring back to room temperature before baking.)

12. About 30 minutes before baking, place a Dutch oven or lidded cast-iron pot in the oven and heat it to 500 degrees. Dust tops of dough, still in their baskets, with whole-wheat/rice-flour mixture. Very carefully remove heated pot from oven and gently turn 1 loaf into pan seam-side down. Use a lame (a baker’s blade) or razor blade to score the top of the bread a few times to allow for expansion, cover and transfer to oven. Reduce temperature to 450 degrees and cook for 20 minutes. Carefully remove lid (steam may release) and cook for 20 more minutes or until crust is a rich, golden brown color.

13. Transfer bread to a wire rack to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. The bottom of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped. Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees, clean out pot and repeat this process with the second loaf.

NOTE: The remaining leaven is your new starter. Continue to feed it if you plan to bake again soon or hold in an airtight container in the refrigerator for future use. When you want to bake again, begin feeding the starter a few days or a week beforehand until it once again behaves predictably.

http://www.nytimes.com/recipes/1016277/tartines-country-bread.html

 
I don't see the ugly. I just wish I were sitting at the end of the counter to capture a slice.

To me, it looks divine.

 
Looks like a masterpiece to me! Beautiful loaf of brerad....wish I could taste some crumbs...

 
Where do you find the will-power? I can't even let myself make the no-knead because I

can't stop eating it.

Is this your Secret Super Power?

 
Looks fantastic! Did you make a new starter like the recipe or did you use your own?

 
I fed mine the night before with KA bread/WW flour and the next night made the leaven with the same.

then the third day made the dough as written. I don't keep my starter in the fridge and I feed it (mostly) daily with AP at 100% hydration, so it was fairly active, then I fed with the new flours Wed, did the leaven with the new flours on Thurs, made the dough Friday (and only because I was tired and it got late) put it in the fridge for the final rise, and baked Sat.

(Oh and the flours I used were KA bread and WF's 365 Organic WW. The flours for dusting was the WW and Brown Rice Organic from the bulk bin at WF's.)

I'm back to feeding the leftover leaven as my starter with AP, at some point it will become all AP again on it's own. I don't worry too much about that, when my starter looks a bit unhappy I always give it a little rye - it feels like giving treats to the dog or cat...I feel like it makes it happy. smileys/smile.gif

 
Well, it doesn't look like it's suppose to....

but I learned a few things.

1) I learned that I'm suppose to slash the tops at angle instead of straight on -- I got scars on the top of one loaf vs. the "ears" one should get.

2) This was my first time using flour on the outside, my first loaf got waaay too much on it and made it a weird color, so I wasn't sure when it was done. As a result, the outside color could've gone longer, but the inside was good -- it's the cut loaf in the photo.

3) All that flour made me brush off as much as possible on the 2nd loaf, which made it look that strange sandy color with the scars on top. I should've left some instead of trying to take it all off.

4) Baskets make a big difference. I got more oven spring with the smaller one than I did with the wider one because the dough spread.

5) When retarding dough I have no idea how to test for proof because the dough is so cold, I overslept so put them in the oven first thing and got lucky.

Neither is the dark color one sees/expects with a "Tartine" loaf, but I found Chad uses other flours/etc as well, so maybe that's it. His is almost charred - caramelized sugers in the bread is suppose to do it according to him, I didn't get that.

However, I do now feel I did well given I baked with 2 online friends and one of them has a pancake as a result, so I'm thankful I didn't get that!

Oh and it IS delish, my best flavor/texture bread so far. I'm really happy with THAT!

 
a slightly modified version of this recipe is my favorite dough

I make half a recipe at a time and use 100g WW and 400g bread flour or AP for the dough. In addition to loaves, I use this dough for focaccia and pizza crust.

Your breads look great and I enjoyed your slide show. I'm glad you finally got a starter to work. I have decided that that white stuff on the rye starter was just dried flour.

 
looks awesome! Way to go!

I haven't baked sourdough in a while, but made a couple of loaves of Dan Lepard's Saffron Bread, which turned out great both times.

shall blog about it sometime soon.... too many recipes, too little time

 
Photos??? And my Tartine sure doesn't look like yours...yours looks like how it's suppose to look...

... but practice, practice, practice (this was my 3rd loaf of sourdough ever). This coming weekend the 3 of us are baking the Norwich more sour recipe together.

 
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