Authors: Andy King
Baking by Hand (12 page)
Once your dough is ready to cut, turn it out onto your floured work surface. Using your bench knife and scale, divide into four 12 ounce/350-g pieces. Gently shape the dough into cylinders (see
here
), being careful not to compress the dough too much, and place seam side down on your work surface. Cover and rest for 20 minutes to build a bit more strength into the loaf before final shaping. Set up a board and couche to receive baguettes (see
here
).
When the 20-minute rest is up, shape the whole wheat dough into four baguettes (see
here
). Be careful not to stretch these shapes out too much, as the nature of whole wheat doughs is that they’re structurally weaker than white flour doughs. Think of those bits of bran and germ as sharp little knives that like to chop at any nice gluten structure you’ve developed with your folding technique. The final baguettes should be 12 inches to 15 inches/30 to 40-cm long, and nice and tapered at the ends. Couche them snugly, seam side up, and place in your warm spot for about 45 minutes.
While your dough is proofing, place your baking stone on the lowest rack in your oven, and your cast-iron pan on the highest rack. Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C. Check in on your bread periodically; if the surface feels dried out, spray it with a bit of water to allow for maximum expansion. If it feels cold, make it warmer. This may take up to 2 hours, depending on the conditions of your kitchen. The loaf is ready to go in when it feels very airy and holds a fingerprint when pressed into the surface.
Flip the loaves over onto your peel. It might take a couple of batches to bake all your bread, depending on your oven size. You want to make sure not to crowd the baguettes, so two at a time should work just fine. Slash the baguettes with three or four traditional baguette slashes. Now, grab three ice cubes from the freezer. Being careful to not keep the oven door open too long and let the heat out, open the oven, slide your loaf onto the stone, throw the three ice cubes into the cast-iron pan and close the door. After 5 minutes, quickly open the door and spray the interior of the oven with water. Continue baking until the loaf is evenly browned, about 25 minutes, and has a nice hollow thump when you tap it on the bottom. Let cool for at least 3 hours before cutting.
MORNING BREADS AND FLATBREADS
“What time do you have to get up?” It’s one of the most common questions you are asked when people find out you’re a baker, and it’s generally the first one. Arriving at work with, or way before, the sunrise is as much a hallmark of bakery work as floury jeans, broad shoulders and white lung. But, as you have read, we have night bakers, afternoon bakers, daytime bakers. We have shifts for all types, and all types work those shifts.
But it is undeniable that the bakery must have employees who are ready, willing and able to have the bread shelves properly stocked when retail opens the doors. When we first opened A&J King, I could get away with coming in at 3 a.m. That was before wholesale, and before anyone had ever heard of us. These days, you’ll regularly see our morning bread bakers shaping baguettes and traying up cookies at 2:30 a.m. And Saturdays in the summer we come in at 1:30 a.m., and who knows what the future holds.
Before I was forced into being an AM baker, I was a self-diagnosed “night person” and never worked anything but a PM shift. What I quickly discovered was that getting up to an alarm just after midnight is really no more difficult than getting up to an alarm at 6 a.m., 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. Even if it’s one of those clocks that plays “whale songs” or “rain on a tin roof,” being taken out of a nice dream sucks at any time.
“The superlatives heaped on the act of baking often stray into hyperbole. Spiritual, empowering, meditative … While I appreciate the sentiment, nothing rends a veil like doing it at 3 a.m. for a living. And, while I have, on occasion, genuflected in front of the oven, the gesture has been more profane than pious. Despite this crustiness, the satisfaction gained from baking is undeniable. The yeast is the life; the dough is clay to be shaped. You (and even I) may mutter a prayer when the loaves enter the oven, and shout a hosanna when they emerge. And if you ever wanted to give frankincense and myrrh a run for their money, the smell of cooling loaves is hard to beat.”
JOHN THIBODEAU
AM Baker
But once you’re awake, and that first notion that there’s a walk-in full of bread to bake hits your brain, you couldn’t head back to sleep even if you wanted to. I’ve known bakers out of the industry for years who still wake up at midnight, paranoid they’ve overslept. Once the AM baker schedule gets its claws into you, it’s there for a long time. Unlike the PM baker, the AM baker has a hard-and-fast deadline. A couple of them, actually. Bread has to be out and cooled for the wholesale driver to bag, and wholesale drivers will, in the most profane of terms usually, let you know if they’ve been set behind because you hit the snooze button once. And, once the breads are taken care of, retail needs to pack the shelves, and they’re not going to be pleased if you lounged in bed for an extra 5 minutes because we
open
in 5 minutes.
If the PM baker experiences the daily pace of the line cook, the AM baker experiences the urgency.
If done properly, however, the shift runs like clockwork and the satisfied, unperturbed baker gets to watch wave after wave of his or her beautifully baked product leave the baking room and enter the arms of grateful customers. If there’s time, a brief hobnob with a couple of regulars while getting that first cup of coffee for the day (5 hours into his shift), perhaps a stolen Pain au Chocolat off the pastry display, and then it’s on to tomorrow’s mix. Gotta get that French in the bowl.
THE CLASSIC
We call this our “French” dough because we make baguettes and epi out of it, which are synonymous with Parisian bakeries. The baguette is easily our biggest-selling bread item at the bakery. It takes a bit of trying to nail this one down, and it’s the bread that will expose the flaws in your style (and equipment) more than any other. Like anything worth doing right, it will try your patience and reward your tenacity. Keep in mind:
This dough is mixed significantly cooler than any of the others in the book.
We also make a little extra every time we make this dough, and keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge or freezer. It makes nice pizza dough in a pinch, grilled bread in the summer (just flatten and toss on the grill for a few minutes on each side) and rolls when you need them. It’s handy!
• Yield: Six 8-oz/250-g baguettes and 1 lb/450 g left over for experimenting
• Desired Dough Temperature: 75°F/20°C
• Mixing Time: 40 minutes
• Bulk Fermentation: ~2 hours
• Proofing Time: ~45 minutes
• Baking Time: ~25 minutes
• Cooling Time: ~15 minutes
Mix your poolish (see
here
).
7.5 oz/200 ml 75°F/20°C water
7.5 oz/210 g white bread flour
¼ tsp/1 g instant yeast
15 oz/425 g poolish
1 lb 2.5 oz/525 ml 75°F/20°C water
1 lb 13.75 oz/840 g white bread flour
3 ¼ tsp/23 g fine sea salt
1 tsp/4 g instant yeast
In a large mixing bowl, combine your poolish and water, and remember to keep that water at 75°F/20°C to give your yeast a comfortable atmosphere to grow, but not grow too fast. Then, dump your flour on top of the liquid ingredients, and mix it by hand for about 30 seconds, until it comes together in a shaggy mass. Don’t forget to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl regularly; you want all of that flour hydrated and don’t want to see any dry spots. Set aside in a warm place, at least 80°F/25°C, for 30 minutes. If you’re having trouble finding your warm place, it’s time to use your trusty heat lamp.
Sprinkle the salt and yeast on top of the dough and grab a four-finger pinch of the dough and pull. It should stretch out like chunky taffy rather than just tear off. Incorporate the salt and yeast into the dough, continuously pushing the sides of the dough into the middle while turning the bowl. After a minute of this, the dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl and developing a bit of a sheen, and you shouldn’t feel any crunchy salt crystals. Cover the bowl, and put it in your warm place for 30 minutes.
Turn your dough onto a lightly floured surface and give it your four-fold (see
here
). It should make a tight little package and after every fold the dough’s volume should increase. It should consistently feel warm and active. Roll the dough over and place it, seam side down, back into the bowl. Repeat every 30 minutes (you’ll fold the dough three times in total) until the dough is strong but puffy, warm to the touch and holds a fingerprint when pressed into the surface. The whole process will take about 2 hours.
Once your dough is ready to cut, turn it out onto your floured work surface. Using your bench knife and scale, divide into six 8-ounce/250-g pieces. Gently preround the dough into cylinders (see
here
), being careful not to compress the dough too much, and place seam side down on your work surface. To make the shaping a bit easier, it’s advisable to let the preshaped baguettes cool down before shaping. Place them on a sheet tray and cover with a moist towel. Up to an hour in the refrigerator or on a cold porch should do the trick. While they’re resting, set up your couche and your board to receive baguettes (see
here
).
Shape the dough into six 12-inch to 15-inch/30 to 40-cm tapered baguettes (see
here
). Couche them snugly, seam side up, and place in your warm spot for about 45 minutes.
While your dough is proofing, place your baking stone on the lowest rack in your oven, and your cast-iron pan on the highest rack. Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C. Check in on your bread periodically; if the surface feels dried out, spray it with a bit of water to allow for maximum expansion. If it feels cold, make it warmer. This may take up to 1 hour, depending on the conditions of your kitchen. The loaf is ready to go in when it feels very airy and holds a fingerprint when pressed into the surface.
Flip the loaves over onto your peel. It might take a couple of batches to bake all your bread, depending on your oven size. You want to make sure not to crowd the baguettes, so two or three at a time should work just fine. Slash the baguettes with three or four traditional baguette slashes. Now, grab three ice cubes from the freezer. Being careful to not keep the oven door open too long and let the heat out, open the oven, slide your loaf onto the stone, throw the three ice cubes into the cast-iron pan and close the door. After 5 minutes, quickly open the door and spray the interior of the oven with water. Continue baking until the loaf is evenly browned, about 25 minutes, and has a nice hollow thump when you tap it on the bottom. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting. Warm, crispy baguettes are the best.
BREAD AS CANVAS
Like the baguette or ciabatta, focaccia is so universally made that almost every cook has some sort of recipe for it kicking around the kitchen. Its simple list of ingredients—flour, water, olive oil, salt, yeast—makes it attractive to the casual baker, and more power to the folks who use a handed-down recipe. We humbly submit our formula here, and we not-so-humbly think that ours is pretty darn amazing. We think a great focaccia should be crispy, with a wide-open crumb; that the dough should never take a backseat to the toppings; and that if you’re not baking it directly on a stone, you’re missing out on the soul of this bread. We’ve suggested several toppings; you can, of course, also devour it plain or concoct your own.
• Yield: Six 1-lb/450-g slabs focaccia
• Desired Dough Temperature: 85°F/30°C
• Mixing Time: 40 minutes
• Bulk Fermentation: ~3 hours
• Proofing Time: ~1.5 hours
• Baking Time: ~25 minutes
• Cooling Time: ~15 minutes
Mix your poolish (see
here
).
12.5 oz/350 ml 75°F/20°C water
12.5 oz/350 g white bread flour
½ tsp/2 g instant yeast
1 lb 8.75 oz/700 g poolish
1 lb 10.5 oz/740 ml 90°F/32°C water
5 oz/155 ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 lb 4.5 oz/1 kg white bread flour 4 tsp/28 g fine sea salt
1 ¼ tsp/5 g instant yeast
In a large mixing bowl, combine your poolish, water and olive oil, and remember to keep that water warm to give your yeast a comfortable atmosphere to grow. Then, dump your flour on top of the liquid ingredients, and mix it by hand for about 30 seconds, until it comes together in a shaggy mass. Don’t forget to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl regularly; you want all of that flour hydrated and don’t want to see any dry spots. Set aside in a warm place, at least 80°F/25°C, for 30 minutes. If you’re having trouble finding your warm place, it’s time to use your trusty heat lamp.
Sprinkle the salt and yeast on top of the dough and grab a four-finger pinch of the dough and pull. It should stretch out like chunky taffy rather than just tear off. Incorporate the salt and yeast into the dough, continuously pushing the sides of the dough into the middle while turning the bowl. After a minute of this, the dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl and developing a bit of a sheen, and you shouldn’t feel any crunchy salt crystals. This dough will be significantly looser, or wetter, than other recipes in this book. Cover the bowl, and put it in your warm place for 30 minutes.
Turn your dough onto a lightly floured surface and give it your four-fold (see
here
). It should make a tight little package and after every fold the dough’s volume should increase. It should consistently feel warm and active. Roll the dough over and place it, seam side down, back into the bowl. Repeat every 30 minutes (you’ll fold the dough four times in total). After the fourth fold, leave the dough alone to develop volume for the last hour; those bubbles are what will make up the nice, open crumb of your focaccia. You’re looking for the dough to be strong but puffy, warm to the touch and able to hold a fingerprint when pressed into the surface. The whole process will take about 3 hours.
When the dough is ready to divide, turn it out onto a well-floured work surface—this dough is a bit sticky, so some extra flour is necessary here. Divide it into six 1-pound/450-g pieces, and gently preshape each one into a stubby batard (see
here
). You’ll want to keep those edges squared rather than tapered off so you can get a nice rectangular final shape to your focaccia. Let these pieces rest, covered with a cloth, for at least 1 hour.