Sun Food / pane di sole

Hello everyone, 
Continuing to be inspired by Beth Hensperger’s beautiful book, Bread For All Seasons…
the next chapter begins with June and is titled ‘Sun Food’.

I’ve baked three breads of Italian origin over the last while, using ‘yellow-colored’ flours -
thinking about 'sun food' (sun bread), I wanted to call these breads ‘pane di sole’ :^)


Micca di enkir e buratto
A dear friend generously gave me some beautiful softly-yellow-colored Italian einkorn flour:
  
Searching on TFL yielded Giovanni’s amazing post about his visit to Mulino Marino, and finding einkorn (enkir) flour there.
(loved how Giovanni’s post featured six millers, whose names all began with the letter ‘f’ –
this group of men seemed like a brotherhood, or  fratellanza, to me :^)   )

                                                               

In place of buratto flour, I used 85% high-extraction flour, as one of Giovanni’s comments noted buratto flour might be comparable to a French T80 which may be a light whole wheat?
The einkorn levain was slower to ferment than the wheat levain, so I placed the einkorn levain in a warm ( 90F or so?) proofer for awhile, to let it catch up – I’m not sure if it was the warmer, wetter levain, or the einkorn flour, or both, but when baked, this bread was the sourest bread I’ve ever tasted – and I’m not complaining! It was amazing to taste - been meaning to bake this bread again, to see if I can re-create that flavor.

The crumb is not as astonishingly beautiful as with Giovanni’s loaf...
 
  ...but I was happy with the oven spring :^)

This bread was baked back in March, and I’m pretty sure at that time of the year, I was still dreaming of the sun. 
Many thanks to Giovanni, for his inspiring and informative post about these millers and their flours – and for baking that beautiful, perfect ‘micca’ – it was wonderful to see!

Focaccia al pomodori

This focaccia is based on Mr. Leader’s formula for Grape Harvest Focaccia in his lovely book, Local Breads.  
There are so many incredible, captivating photos in Mr. Leader’s book – including his photo of ‘Individual Focaccias with Cherry Tomatoes’ – the breads look like they’ve been wood-fired – gorgeous!
When I saw a colorful mix of hothouse tomatoes at the store – these breads came to mind.
After baking, these tomatoes were sweet and flavorful, almost beyond belief – it’s been many months since I’ve tasted tomatoes like these.
It’s as if they’d been vine-ripened in the sun, but it’s still too early here for that! The flavor was an amazing surprise :^)

In making the focaccia, I pre-fermented 21% of the flour in a 80% hydration sponge (used only all-purpose flour in the sponge), then used 40% all-purpose, 30% soft whole wheat, and 30% extra-fancy durum (nice and yellow) flour in the final dough, with 60% hydration overall.

                                                           ...before baking

Sun shots :^)  



Pane tipo di Altamura

Franko embarked on a journey to bake pane tipo di Altamura last year – I haven’t forgotten the lovely bread he baked!
There have been so many other enticing bakes of this bread by Varda and others. Consistently, these 100% durum breads have had vibrant orange-colored crusts, and yellow crumb...
I was intimidated by this bread, and found the courage to try making a version of it this week, having some extra time and having just seen Jeremy’s post of a beautiful and bright-yellow semola remacinata bread. Jeremy included a link to his friend Ibán Yarza's blog where there was yet another beauty! of a bake.
I'm very grateful for the tips and guidance in these posts, including tips on how to build the levain (thanks!, codruta, for your question – if you see this).  I tried to keep the levain quantity  and hydration, and dough hydration to that recommended by Mr. Yarza, and do a multiple-stage durum levain build at varying hydrations (formula below). Mr. Yarza called the levain masa madre, but I wanted to call this levain pasta madre, in honor of durum flour, and Italy  :^)

 

I used 100% extra-fancy durum flour for this bake, so this bread might be a pane tipo di Altamura?
Whatever it’s called, it was one of the most delicious breads I’ve ever tasted, with a very moist and almost sweet, crumb –
a complex flavor I won’t forget, just like the image of that first beautiful Altamura bread Franko baked :^)

Here are some crumb shots (slices from the loaf on the right, the loaf on the left was given as a gift)


 
                                                                      close-up:

My adaptation of Mr. Yarza's formula:





Baker's %'s:







Just one last link - can't help thinking about Sofie’s absolutely beautiful ‘ray of sunshine’ French Country Bread!  :^)

 Wishing everyone a happy, and sunny!, month of June -
                                                                                  :^) breadsong


Submitted to Susan @ YeastSpotting