A bit of Italian Baking

Profile picture for user Juergen Krauss
Juergen Krauss on

Over a year ago I received my copy of Carol Field's "The Italian Baker". 

Until today I only used the recipes for Pugliese and the Chocolate And Milk Bread, both being among our favourite breads.

I wanted to explore this great book more in depth for a while, and took y first step today - making the white Pane Di Como, and the 50% rye Pane Nero Di Bolzano.

Both came out very nice, the Pane Nero with an amazing and surprising note of almond.

Both are highly recommended.

Here some photos:

Here the crumb (along with two breads baked earlier):

Pane Nero and Pane Di Como are in the middle; the left slices are from a Whole-Wheat Levain (from Hamelman's "Bread"), the slices to the right are from my Russian Rye.

Cheers,

Juergen

 

 

Nice group of breads Juergen.

I like you scoring patterns and nice and dark crust.

I have a ton of bread books and I might even have the Carol Fields one, so I have to go and check now so I can try it!  :)

Thank you very much for your comment.

Carol Field's book is an interesting one indeed, although all the breads in there are yeasted. But I find that the methods used yield breads very different from the usual white breads.

Both breads above use a sponge. The book says to leave the sponge ferment for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight - which I chose to do.

In the morning the sponges had risen and fallen, and had it been a poolish I would have thrown it out. But out came these lovely breads!

 

 

has to offer some great formulas - and from time to time I enjoy baking with yeasted doughs very much. 

Over the past couple of Months I looked into a few recipes for yeasted rye breads, and so far the Pane Nero is the most exciting one of those - very different from sourdough.

Thanks a lot,

Juergen

 

And yet another bread baking book worth having?

Karin

Juergen.  From what I can tell, almost every town in Italy has their own kind or type of bread so baking Italian must be a life long quest.  Amazing how consistent all of your crumbs turn out.

Nice baking.

Hi Brownman,

We love variety, and the yeasted rye is a nice addition to the repertoire.

The flours I use are weak in comparison to American bread flours - I now use stoneground organic flour from Bacheldre.

I am very happy about the crumb consistency of my breads, although I don't get those big holes in some of them; but I feel I know the reasons:

1. The weak flour - I won't change that; it tastes too good

2. My oven is quite imited. I think I have a good handle on what it can do.

Thanks a lot,

Juergen

 

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ananda on Sun, 09/16/2012 - 23:49

Lovely work Juergen,

So you've made the switch from Shipton to Bacheldre flour?   Very interesting!!!

All good wishes

Andy

Thank you, Andy. 

Yes, to do the switch is very interesting.

The white organic flours by Shipton and Bacheldre are not vastly different, but I like the more stoneground feel of the Bacheldre - more tiny bits of bran. When I first used it my wife thought I had picked up some dust from somewhere in the kitchen ...

Now, the rye, that's an entirely different matter. The batches I recieved from Shipton (25Kg sacks) where somewhat changeable. The Bacheldre would be called fine rye meal in Germany, and it doesn't do too well in the Honey Cake from ITJB - but the sourdoughs are a lot more flavorful, and I feel the performance is more consistent.

Best Wishes,

Juergen

 

little extra WW and rye in our Pulgliese breads especially David Snyder's Capriosso version  to give them additional and more ecomplex flavors.  It is one of our favorite breads.  Your Bigio must be just as tasty!

Nice baking