I'm working on baking a really good artisan style bread (the country loaf kind you get at Panera) and yesterday was my first attempt at 'Classic Country style Hearth Loaf' from the wonderful book Bread Alone by Daniel Leader. It's a fairly complicated process of temperature taking (everything that goes into the bread gets it's temperature taken) measuring (he prefers to weigh rather than scoop) mixing and kneading (I cheated and used the Kitchen-Aid and tho he allows for this, hand kneading is preferred - but 15minutes! ...I'm too old for that) waiting (3 rises) and finally baking (which involved 2 mistings of the oven to create steam for a crispier crust).....whew!
I've been making sandwich bread for 9 months now and that is a breeze compared to this whole process. Though I'm sure as I continue to make this style bread it will get easier (and I want to make sourdough also). I'll try to post pics of the process next time, for now I will present the final product (there were 2 loaves, this one was prettier:)
Ta Da!
And it was yummy!
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2 comments:
That looks delicious!! I'm going to start making my Swiss bread again soon, now that the weather is somewhat cooler.
Gorgeous! Back when wheat and gluten were on the menu I never got as nice as a loaf as that - though Peter Reinhart's book saved bread baking for me altogether.
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