Pan de Horiadaki

Pan de Horiadaki

(Greek Country Bread)

based on a formula in Maggie Glazer's A Blessing of Bread

Maggie Glazer wrote that she got the recipe for this bread from Rica Sabetai, a woman fromThessaloniki who escaped the murder of the vast majority of its Jewish community by the Nazis and emigrated to the United States.

I have made at least two other versions of a Greek village bread before. Neither was really a keeper, but I learned a few things about traditional Greek breads in the process. As elsewhere, prior to the last 100 years or so, most breads used local, whole grain flours predominantly and were leavened with wild yeast. That is, they were sourdough breads. From several descriptions I have read, I strongly suspect that durum flour was used, at least as part of the flour mix.

Glezer includes a sourdough version of most of the breads in this book. That is the version I made. However, Glezer's formula calls for bread flour entirely. I substituted whole wheat flour for 25% of the bread flour. I expect to make the bread again but with the addition of at least some durum flour.

What I describe below is the formula and procedures I actually followed for this bake.

Note: The starter consists of 30g of a 50% hydration starter that had been fed with mixed flours. This is mixed with 80g of water, 99g of bread flour and 36g of whole wheat flour.

Procedures

1. The evening before mixing the final dough, make the starter by mixing 30g of active, firm starter with 80g of warm water, 99g of bread flour and 36g of whole wheat flour. Cover and ferment overnight at room temperature.

2. In the morning, mix the flours and water in the final dough to a shaggy mass. Cover and autolyse for 20-60 minutes.

3. Add the levain to the autolyse in chunks. In a stand mixer with the dough hook, mix at Speed 2 until you achieve a medium window pan. About 6-10 minutes. (Note: At this stage, I did add about 11g of water to what Glezer's formula called for. This was to achieve the desired dough consistency and was necessary because I had substituted some WW flour for some Bread flour.)

4. Add the salt, sugar, and olive oil. Mix at Speed 1 until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.

5. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board, stretch it into a rectangle and do a letter fold. Form a ball and transfer it to a lightly oiled bowl.

6. Ferment at 76ºF for 2 hours. The dough will not have expanded much, but it should be full of tiny bubbles.

7. Oil two 8 inch cake pans generously with olive oil.

8. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Preshape into rounds. Cover with a damp cloth and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

9. Form the pieces into tight boules. Roll one in each of the prepared cake pans to coat with oil.

10. Place each pan in a large, food safe plastic bag or cover with plasti-crap.

11. Proof at 76ºF until the loaves have domed over the top of the pans and the dough does not spring back when poked with a finger tip. (Note: This is a fuller proof than done for most bread, but it will not be scored. If proofed just right, there will be good oven spring but no bursting of the loaves.) This took about 3.5 hours. (Glezer says the proof should be for 5 hours, but at room temperature.)

12. Preheat the oven to 400ºF with a baking stone in place.

13. Brush the tops of the loaves lightly with olive oil. Bake in the cake pans at 400ºF for 50-55 minutes. (Note: No oven steaming is called for.) If needed, turn the loaves around to get even browning and turn down the oven if it is becoming too darkly colored. It should be a deep brown when done. The bread is done when thumping the bottom of a loaf gives a hollow sound and the internal temperature is at least 205ºF.

14. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack. Cool thoroughly before slicing.

The aroma of this bread is heavenly, I think because of the olive oil. Tasted when almost completely cooled, the crust was chewy on top and crunchy on the bottom. The crumb was pleasantly chewy. The flavor was slightly sweet, very slightly sour and quite wheaty. I liked it a lot. My wife loved it.

 This version of Pan de Horiadaki is by far the best I've made to date. But I'm going to try a few tweaks – maybe boost the whole wheat to 50%. Maybe substitute some Durum flour for some AP. Substitute honey for the sugar. How about sesame seeds?

What I will definitely keep is the procedures. The autolyse and doing most of the gluten development before adding the ingredients that can interfere with that – both salt and sugar compete with gluten for water – definitely improves the crumb structure.

I'm happy with this bread, and I'm looking forward to having it toasted tomorrow morning. I'm thinking it would be a great bread for panini. And for bruschette! Oooooh! Toasted, rubbed with garlic, floating in onion soup with a heap of melted gruyere. Sheesh! And I just finished dinner!

Happy baking!

David

Submitted to yeastspotting