looking for delayed fermentation recipe tonight!

Dear TFL junkies,

I was wondering if anyone here would be kind enough to share a tried-and-true delayed fermentation recipe? I need to bake some French bread Monday night for an event on Tuesday, but I won't get home from work on Monday until 7:00 pm. Since most of my recipes end up being 5 hours from start to finish, I was hoping to use delayed fermentation to get a head start and maybe get to bed before midnight!

My thought is that I could do the mixing and kneading tonight (Sunday), pop it in the fridge, ask my wife to take it out when she gets off work at 4:00, and by the time I get home, it will be warmed up and ready to go.

In the past, I have used some of Peter Reinhart's recipes from "Bread Bakers Apprentice," but I returned that to the library long ago.

I have done a bit of searching on the forums and other places, but the search engine gods are not with me tonight.

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

Joseph

Hi, Joseph. Here are links to some very good breads that use delayed fermentation: Pierre Nury's Light Rye is easy and reliable. It has a wonderful flavor. It keeps well but would benefit from crisping up in the oven before serving. Actually, so would all the other breads, if they are to be eaten the day after baking. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury%E2%80%99s-rustic-light-rye-leader A pain de campagne, based on Anis Bouabsa's award winning baguettes is next. You could make this dough into boules or baguettes, if preferred. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8454/pain-de-campagne And a pain a l'ancienne. If not comfortable shaping baguettes, I recommend the pains rustique approach. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8524/philippe-gosselin039s-pain-%C3%A0-l039ancienne-according-peter-reinhart-interpretted-dmsnyder-m Happy baking!
David

David, which books did Pierre's and Anis's recipies come from? Any idea?

And Joseph, anythind David recommends, I would heartily second. As you can see from his links he is an amazing baker.

Rudy

Hi, Rudy. Well, both recipes came from TFL, but with my own substantial modifications. Anis' recipe was given by Anis Bouabsa himself to Janedo. She and I have fiddled with it for weeks, and my recipe is the current iteration. Gosselin's recipe is one I found in a message Peter Reinhart wrote 5 years ago to the Bread-Bakers mailing list on the internet. And thanks for the compliment!
David

I understand. When I saw you quote PR's email in the other thread a few days ago I thought that you posted it after just having discovered it. I guess you have had it for a while now. :) Huge huge thanks to you and Jane for your blogs which I'll be continuing to read. Are you still maintaining your blog at Wordpress?

Now if I could only figure out which bread to start working on next. Why can't we have several stomachs?

Rudy

Actually, I just found PR's e-mail last week. We were discussing delayed fermentation with or without yeast, whether a 17 hour "autolyse" is still an autolyse and other issues of critical importance. Some one brought up that Reinhart said Gosselin did his cold retardation before adding yeast or salt to the flour and water, but the formula PR gave for "pain a l'ancienne" was different. So, I Googled "philippe gosselin baguettes" and found Peter's message on the 3rd or 4th page of the Google returns. This had enough detail for me to construct a formula and try it out. So that's what I did. Re. Blog at Wordpress: I know nothing about this. I had to look up what "Wordpress" is just now.
David P.S. Re. multiple stomaches: There are enough people having half their stomaches removed as a treatment for morbid obesity that you might find a compatible transplant donor. Eeeewwww .... On second thought .... Not one of my best ideas. David

David,

Thanks for the suggestions! I tried your Pain de Campagne recipe, which turned out very well. After seeing the picture on the TFL home page for the last two weeks, I can't believe I never actually looked at the recipe before.

I did have a problem with the dough being too wet. It bordered on being a batter,and was beyond workable. I kept adding flour to it until it was manageable. I have long suspected that my cheap kitchen scale is neither accurate nor precise, so I will blame that for now.

Anyway, it was a wonderful recipe. Thanks for sharing it!

Joseph

Hi, Joseph. Thanks for trying the formula. It is a wet dough, but, of course, if you think your scale is inaccurate, who knows what you got. The folding effectively turns the very gloppy dough into one that can be shaped and scored "normally," at least for me. If you machine mixed it, I imagine it would take a long time at a high speed to accomplish the same gluten development. I'm going to make it again myself with different flours this weekend. Wish me luck.
David

I know this is a too late for your meal but I tried Janedo's recipe for 'Mike's Bread of Three Rivers', TFL node 8503, and the timing worked great for me. I started with what she calls the first autolyse dough at 6-7 am, let it sit all day; next the poolish and the final dough were mixed up by 7-8 pm; did the required kneading, stretch + folding, and put the shaped boules in the refrigerator overnight for the delayed fermentation. The next day, I let it sit out for a while and then baked it. It turned out wonderful. Anet