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Essential Sweet Perrin (Pear Bread)

Si vous préférez lire ce billet en français, cliquer ici

Those of you who have access to Maggie Glezer’s excellent book, Artisan Baking Across America, where I got the recipe, will realize right away that this isn’t the way the bread is supposed to look.
For those who have no way of checking it out, here is the way it is (or was) made at Essential Bakery in Seattle – the bakery which contributed the recipe to the book :


(photo scanned from the book, frame and text added by me)

I love their presentation too and I’ll probably make the Sweet Perrin that way one day, especially around the holidays when it would make a lovely present to bring to someone’s house. But for this once, I wanted to give the bread a pear shape.

Except for the shaping and the use of pureed canned pears in lieu of a jar of pear baby food (which would have required a trip to the supermarket), I pretty much followed the recipe as indicated.
When I make it again though, I may skip the cinnamon as we are not huge fans of that particular spice (maybe because the taste of cinnamon as we know it in the United States is more assertive than the one we grew up with in Europe).
Save this restriction, the bread is truly lovely. The raw pear bakes inside the bread and when you bite into it, it yields an explosion of sweet and fragrant juice in your mouth. The hazelnuts add a welcome crunch. The figs contribute a marvelous depth of flavor. The cracked rye gives the crumb a chewy texture and the white whole wheat and high-extraction flour make it tastier and more wholesome. A good bread for the Man to bring to the office as a snack, which is why I made it!
Ingredients:
For the pre-ferment

  • 175 g unbleached bread flour
  • 175 g water
  • 1 tiny pinch of instant yeast

For the soaker

  • 17 g cracked rye
  • 17 g water

For the final dough

  • 300 g hi-extraction flour or unbleached bread flour
  • 40 g white whole wheat flour 
  • 1/4 tsp instant yeast
    all of the pre-ferment
    all of the soaked rye
  • 120 g water (I had 34 g leftover)
  • 80 g pear baby food or pureed steamed or canned pears (if canned, preferably with no added sugar)
  • 12 g salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 115 g very hard crisp pear such as Bosc or Anjou, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch cubes
  • 60 g dried figs, stemmed and cut in 1/2-inch pieces (the recipe calls for Calimyrna figs but I used the regular Trader Joe’s ones as it was all we had on hand)
  • 60 g hazelnuts (lightly toasted and skinned) (to toast the hazelnuts, put them in a small baking pan in a 350 F/177 F oven for about 15 minutes, then rub the warm nuts in a paper towel to remove the skins)

Method: (Glezer gives instructions for 3 different mixing methods, by hand, by stand mixer and by food processor. I used a mixer with a dough hook). This bread is made over 2 days.

  1. The day before, scale the yeast and the flour for the pre-ferment, add water and stir well. Cover and let ferment overnight or about 12 hours (Glezer says to use instant yeast and to mix it in water before adding it to the flour/water mixture but I wonder if that’s not a typo as, from what I understood, only fresh and active dry yeast should be added to water. So I just proceeded as usual and mixed the instant yeast with the flour before adding the water)
  2. Also the day before, combine the cracked rye and the water in a small bowl until well combined , cover well with plastic wrap and let soak overnight for 12 hours
  3. The day of the baking, combine the flours and yeast in the mixing bowl, add the pre-ferment, soaked rye, water (I saved about 20%, some of which I managed to add later in the mixing and some of it I just couldn’t use as the dough looked already very hydrated. Of course the raw pear made it even wetter. If I had used all the water indicated in the recipe, I probably wouldn’t have been able to give the loaf the shape I wanted) and pear puree and mix just until smooth
  4. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest (autolyse) for 20 to 30 minutes
  5. Add the salt and the spices to the dough and knead on medium speed until very smooth (about 5 minutes)
  6. Remove the dough from the mixer and incorporate the figs and hazelnuts by hand until evenly distributed
  7. Incorporate the raw pear pieces (I did that last as the dough becomes very wet and pretty tricky to handle once you do it. Maybe the pear I used was too juicy even though it felt really hard to the touch)
  8. Place the dough in a bowl as least 3 times its size and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let it ferment until airy and well expanded (but not yet doubled in bulk), about 3 hours
  9. Flour the surface of the dough and the worktable and turn the dough out
  10. Pre-shape lightly in a ball (Glezer says that at this point, you should cut the dough in half and make two loaves but I had drawn a rather large pear stencil, so I didn’t divide the dough for fear that my stencil would end up being too big)
  11. Let the dough relax about 15 minutes
  12. Give it a pear shape (click here to see a photo tutorial of the shaping method)
  13. Let proof about 1 1/2 hour minutes in a large well-sealed clear plastic bag, or until the dough is well expanded but still springs back when gently pressed with a finger
  14. At least 45 minutes before the dough is fully proofed, arrange a rack onto the oven’s second-to-top shelf and place a baking stone on it as well as a shallow metal pan on the shelf below
  15. Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C at least 45 minutes before baking time
  16. Remove the loaf from the bag, and stencil it if/as desired
  17. Make small vertical cuts all around it
  18. Just before baking, pour a cup of water in the baking pan (taking care to protect your face and hands)
  19. Put the loaf in the oven, spray the oven walls with water to create more steam
  20. Bake until the bread is evenly browned, about 40 minutes, rotating it halfway into the bake
  21. Let cool on a rack.

The Sweet Perrin goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting .

Millet Bread

By now, you must have decided that I love bread, right? I mean, why would I bake all the time and blog about it if I didn’t? Well, I don’t love this millet bread which I baked for the first time this spring on Day 2 of the Whole Grains workshop at the San Francisco Baking Institute, I positively adore it! Not only is it a lot of fun to make but it is deliciously crunchy and tasty.
It is also a healthful bread. I just read in The Village Baker by Joe Ortiz that, according to a baker he met in Germany who describes himself as “an organic grain madman”, millet seeds and poppy seeds when eaten together make it easier to digest protein. If all these seeds were not such energy powerhouses, I would have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and maybe for a snack in the afternoon too.
Two pre-ferments go into the making of it, levain and pre-fermented dough (a.k.a. “old dough”). You add to that some flour, some pre-soaked seeds, some yeast, some salt, some water and here you are, with your finished loaves that look almost like golden galettes.
Their shape reminds me of the bérets my grandfather used to wear (so French!) Another reason for me to have a deep affection for this bread…

I froze one, gave away two and felt incredibly virtuous (and lucky) to save the last one for us. Believe me, you need to try it. Once you do, there’s no looking back!

Ingredients: (for 4 loaves)
For the levain

  • 30 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 30 g water
  • 50 g starter 100% hydration

For the pre-fermented dough

  • 278 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 181 g water
  • 5.5 g salt
  • 1.6 g instant yeast

For the soaker

  • 100 g millet seeds (+ more for the top cover)
  • 100 g sesame seeds
  • 39 g poppy seeds
  • 39 g pumpkin seeds
  • 109 g water

For the final dough

  • 155 g whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat but regular whole wheat is fine)
  • 486 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 360 g water
  • 37 g canola oil
  • 74.5 g levain
  • 466 g pre-fermented dough
  • 2.5 g instant yeast
  • 20 g salt
  • 326 g soaker

Method:

  1. The day before, mix the pre-fermented dough, leave it at room temperature for one hour or so and put it in the refrigerator for the night
  2. Also the day before, mix the levain and leave it at room temperature for the night
  3. Do the same for the soaker
  4. On the day of the baking, mix the final dough using all the ingredients except the soaker until proper consistency is reached (improved mix)
  5. When proper consistency is reached, add the soaker and mix at low speed until incorporated
  6. Transfer the dough to a covered oil container and set it to ferment for 2 hours
  7. Divide the dough in four pieces and pre-shape each of the pieces in a ball
  8. Let them rest 30 minutes
  9. Then flatten each ball into a galette (on both sides) and wet the top
  10. Dip wet side in millet seeds

  11. Let proof 1 hour and 30 minutes at room temperature millet side up (a bit longer if the room is cool)
  12. Score them in a criss-cross pattern
  13. Bake for 25 minutes at 450 F/232 C (with steam the first 15 minutes).

Please note that the original SFBI formula contains 15% honey and that I didn’t use any. If you do put it in, bake the breads at 410 F/210 C instead of 450 to avoid overbrowning.
Enjoy!

These millet loaves go to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature.

Curly Ficelles

Yep, that’s right, curly ficelles! That’s what I got for not paying attention!
Since we are trying to eat more whole grains daily, I hadn’t made our favorite baguette recipe (Nancy Silverton’s in Breads from La Brea Bakery) in quite a while when I suddenly got the urge. Unborn baguettes were calling to me from the bag of flour (just as a slab of marble calls to a sculptor, they say) and I simply had to help them out.
But I set my conditions. First, I would modify the recipe and use 30% white whole wheat (to make the bread more nutritious). Second, I would make ficelles and not baguettes as the latter are more propitious to undesirable girth expansion (ficelle means “string” in French and a ficelle is basically a skinny baguette). Eating skinny keeps you skinny, everybody knows that!
So I made the dough. The mixing was uneventful. I didn’t even have to add more water (which I thought I might have to do since I was using whole wheat). The dough was supple and slightly tacky. It smelled delicious, as usual. I set it to rise for a while on the counter then I retarded it in the refrigerator overnight.
First thing upon getting up in the morning I got it out of the refrigerator (it had risen very nicely during the night) and I set it on the counter to lose some of the chill.
Then I preshaped the ficelles into rough cylinders (for baguettes I would divide the dough in four pieces, for ficelles I divided it in eight).
Twenty minutes later or so, I started rolling out the ficelles. The dough smelled heavenly. Working it was like letting a genie out of a bottle. I was transported back to my baguette days at SFBI this winter. I could see Frank teaching us how to shape a proper baguette, feel the heat of the big ovens, hear the rumbling of eager stomachs. I folded and refolded and squeezed and pinched and rolled, rolled, rolled. The ficelles were coming to life under my fingers, basically shaping themselves, jumping onto the flour-dusted couches and begging to go proof until they were ready to dance into the oven.
So I obliged them. I shaped eight beautiful ficelles while the oven was heating up.
And the ficelles rose on the kitchen table inside two big plastic bags and then the oven was hot and I poured water in the waiting metal pan and I dusted the ficelles with flour and scored them and the first batch was going into the oven when I realized…oh no! that I had made them the size we had been taught to make at SFBI and most definitely NOT the size of my oven!
Their heads and feet were hanging on each side of the baking stone. A sorry sight if there ever was one! The only way to rescue them was to make them into curlicues. Which I did…
They came out crunchy, tasty and healthful but in a bakery environment, it would have been a hard sell to pass them off as regular ficelles!
I have been making loaves of bread to the size of my baking stone/oven for close to 20 years without this ever happening… Tell me the truth, is it age?

Ingredients:

  • 345 g white starter
  • 672 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 300 g white whole wheat flour 
  • 518 g water 
  • 52 g raw wheat germ 
  • 22 g salt 

Method:
If you have the Silverton book, please note that the recipe is the one for Country White, albeit with 26% whole wheat flour instead of all white. It can be mixed by hand, in a bread machine or with a stand mixer. I used my old stand mixer with the dough hook.

  1. Put the flours, most of the water (remember to set some aside in case all of it would be too much), the wheat germ and the starter in the bowl of the mixer
  2. Mix on low for speed for 5 minutes. If the dough needs more water, let it dribble in slowly
  3. Stop the mixer, cover the bowl with a towel or proofing cloth and let the dough rest for 20 minutes (autolyse)
  4. Add the salt and mix at medium/low speed about 5 more minutes. The dough should feel smooth and resilient and it should pass the window-pane test (wet your hands, pull a piece of dough from the mass and gently turn and stretch it. If you manage to create a “window” in the dough without tearing it, it is ready)
  5. Transfer the dough to a slightly oiled dough bucket or big bowl, oover it and let it ferment at room temperature for 3 1/2 to 4 hours (when the dough is ready, if you press it with your fingertip, a slight indentation will linger). In my case, as described above, since it was late and I was tired, I let it rise about 1 1/2 hour at room temp before putting it in the refrigerator for the night
  6. In the morning, after it had lost some of its chill, I divided it into 8 pieces which I pre-shaped as cylinders and let rest about 20 minutes
  7. Then I did the shaping proper (for a photo tutorial on how to shape baguettes, please click here)
  8. When the baguettes or ficelles are shaped, let them proof seam-side up on their floured couche inside an tied plastic bag for about 1 hour (if, instead of retarding the first fermentation, as I did this time, you decide to retard the proofing, as I usually do, then you need to put the baguettes/ficelles inside the refrigerator at this point and let them rest overnight. In the morning, you would take them out, leave them at room temp in the plastic bag for about 2 hours and proceed with the scoring and the baking)
  9. About 1 hour before baking, preheat the oven to 500 degrees F/260 C after placing in it a baking stone and an empty metal pan
  10. When the baguettes or ficelles are ready, take them out of the plastic bags and slightly dust them with flour
  11. Flip each of them gently seamside down onto a a half-sheet pan covered with semolina-dusted parchment paper (I can fit about 4 on my baking stone. It is best to avoid crowding to maximize even heat distribution and prevent “oven-kisses”) and beginning about 1/2 inch from the end of the baguette, just to the left of center, make straight cuts (not diagonal ones) about 5 inches long and 1/2 deep at a 45 degree angle (each one starting 1/4 of an inch below the center of the previous one)
    (photo taken at SFBI this winter)
  12. Pour one cup of water into the empty metal pan inside the oven (taking care to protect your hands and your face)
  13. Slide the baguettes – still on their parchment paper – right onto the baking stone
  14. Spray the inside of the oven a couple of times with a mister, close the door and reduce the temperature to 450 F/232 C
  15. After 10 minutes (ficelles) or 15 minutes (baguettes), check the loaves and rotate them if necessary to ensure even baking. Baguettes bake for a total of about 30 to 35 minutes, ficelles for a total of 15 to 20 minutes
  16. Remove to a cooling rack and enjoy with your favorite pâté, cheese, jam or honey!

These curly ficelles have been submitted to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature. Yeastspotting turns one this Thursday. Thank you, Susan, for being such a gracious host to all of us bakers and for inspiring us with your beautiful, fun and instructive blog. Happy Birthday, Yeastspotting!