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The baguette

9th April 2020 by Paul Merry

The Baguette

The light and airy baguette, such flavour, with its crisp and delicate crust encircling the creamy soft crumb, is a remarkable bread – provided it is fresh.

The baguette 1
The baguette – PANARY style

History of the baguette

The rise of the baguette as the popular Parisian bread style occurred in the 1920’s. For a long time before that the prized style of bread was called Vienna bread, which was made with the batter-like sponge called a poolish. Vienna bread involved refined white flour, and the baking in ovens with sloping floors that efficiently trapped around the bread the blanket of steam which had been injected into the oven. The crust was superb, and the bread had adequate flavour since the poolish sponge method created organic acids during the 3 to 8 hours that the baker allowed the sponge to mature. While being complex, the flavour was without the sharper acidic tang of sourdough bread (still known as French bread), which had been pushed to the background by the sweetness of the Vienna bread.

During the 1920’s the country was pulling away from the deprivations of the First World War. After years of coarse bread refined white flour was again available, and the public wanted a return to the availability of Vienna bread. But things were shaken up by the bakers, who wanted a change from the committed work and clutter in their bakeries of the sponge system. They wanted to move to the relative ease of making bread with no sponge or levain at all. Hence there was a new method born called fabrication en direct, what here in England we would call the direct “straight dough” method, also known as “scratch baking”. The baguette was fitted into this new method, and was a great success, soon to become a hallmark of Paris and the northern cities. It must be pointed out that in the early decades of fabrication en direct the bakers did a good job. Fermentation was not shamelessly rushed, lasting for several hours – at least three, sometimes five – giving flavour and character to the bread. They still had fantastic ovens, the legacy of the Vienna bread era, ovens of solid construction with steam injection.  The baguette was to remain a wondrous thing until the 1950’s when the rot set in, with instant dough and spurious chemicals – like here in Britain. But that’s another story.

My approach

My approach to the baguette is to claim that the most delightful version is achieved from the overnight poolish method. The poolish that has fermented for such a long time will have generated organic acids that assure good flavour, and you will get that appealing contrast between crust and inner crumb. Further, the long-fermenting poolish means that the bread will not stale as quickly as bread made by the scratch method. The one area where British people seem to be let down by the baguette is its proneness to dry quickly. There are several  reasons  for this rapid staling: it is a light bread, featuring an open, large-holed structure, and with Its slender shape it has a high ratio of surface to volume. Another major cause is that French flour has lower protein than the flours prepared by British millers, making the French flours weaker and softer. Bread made with flour of a low protein count always produces bread that stales quicker than bread made with strong flour which has the ability to produce higher quality gluten which retains moisture in the crumb.

Before beginning, let me draw to your attention my advice for students, and particularly beginners, that urges you to work with 1 kg of flour (or half a kilo) since it permits at a glance the budding baker to know the percentages of other components of the recipe in relation to the flour. When you are mastering these different shapes and techniques of French breads you will be glad to know exactly how much water you have used, and expressing it as a percentage of the flour is the baker’s way, and the maths is very easy when everything relates to the metric system, 1000 gm of flour.

Here are your starting guidelines:

  • In this baguette recipe we are going to settle for 70% water absorption, 700 ml to the kilo of flour. (Some breads have it higher, many have it lower).
  • It is common practice by French bakers and other devotees of the poolish system that the amount of flour taken away to be used in the overnight poolish should be 25%, being 250 gm here.
  • Nothing is rigid, but it is normal that a poolish should have equal weight of flour and water, hence for the 250 gm of flour there will be 250 ml of water.
  • For flour, do not select the strongest bread flour which has protein of 12-13%. It will be too strong to make an authentic-seeming baguette. The French baguette flour is T55, which has protein barely higher than 11%. If you only have very strong flour on hand, soften it by putting in a quarter of plain flour when you weigh up your 1 kg.
  • More yeast added when dough-making. This is one of the benefits of the sponge system of work. You can add more yeast so that the breadmaking event can be fitted into 6 – 7 hours

Baguette by poolish method

The poolish sponge

  • 250 gm flour
  • 250 ml water (room temperature)
  • ½ gm (ambient) – 1gm (refrigerator) yeast. Halve these figures if dried yeast. The ½gm of fresh yeast is about the size of a green pea. In dried yeast the amount is one-eighth of a teaspoon.

Mix together thoroughly and leave for either 12 – 15 hours (or at least overnight), allowing it to sit in a covered bowl at room temperature; or, if you favour the chilled method, use the higher amount of yeast and refrigerate after a few hours when there are surface bubbles

The dough

Add the sponge to:

  • 750 flour
  • 450 ml water – merely warm, about 20 – 25 degrees. The finished dough should be 22-24C
  • 18-20 gm salt
  • 7 -10 gm yeast (approx 1% of the new flour). Halve this for dried yeast.

Knead it thoroughly, until it has a uniform texture with easily stretched gluten.

Leave it to approximately double in size,  something like three hours. During roughly the first half of its bulk proof period, it will benefit from two folds. The first fold can occur after about half an hour, but before the first hour is up. The second fold should happen when it displays  small bubbles like tiny blisters pushing up on its surface.  If it is in a see-through  container allowing you to look sideways at its gas bubble formation, there will be myriads of tiny bubbles visible. While performing the folds, be careful not to tear gluten strands.

When it is ready (at about 3 hours) it will display larger bubbles the size of match heads dispersed throughout. Now it is ready for you to weigh the pieces, rest, shape, and prove – final proof may take a further hour. To fit them into a domestic oven, each will have to be only 150 gm. They are weighed at 300-350 gm  for full scale bakers’ ovens.

Wait for them to grow half as big again, slash them and bake at 225 degrees C (domestic oven) or in a hot commercial oven for 20 – odd minutes.

Stollen

16th December 2020 by Paul Merry

These rich tea breads are found all over northern Europe at Christmas time, having had ancient Christian religious connotations.  

They are German in origin, and come in endless regional variety, permitting a wide range of shape and finishing touches.   The rod of marzipan running down the middle is entirely optional, as is the use of spice, and the choice of liquor in which you soak the fruit.

In order to keep them fresh and attractively edible over the long Christmas season they would be repeatedly washed with melted butter.  In that way the outside of the loaf would be sealed so that it would keep well between its appearances at the table. Whenever it was put away in the pantry or in a tin, it was washed with the melted butter, whenever brought out to be served, it was dusted with icing sugar.

Stollen 2
One of these is clearly revealing its marzipan rod

Method

Begin with a ferment.  The ferment gives the yeast a flying start, so that it will cope better when it meets all the rich and greasy ingredients which, while making the stollens delicious, are heavy going for the yeast and separate it from easy access to its food.

Beforehand, best overnight: soak the fruit (raisins and sultanas) in half a cup of rum. Yeast is upset when alcoholic liquor is added directly to dough, hence it is best to deliver the flavour of rum in the fruit

The ferment

  • 350 ml. (5/8 pt.) warm milk
  • 40 gm. ( 11/2 oz ) fresh yeast
  • 15 gm (1/2 oz) sugar
  • 110 gm ( 4 oz) strong bread flour

Whisk all these together in a deep bowl and put it aside in a place which is at room temperature.  In less than an hour it will have gassed up sufficiently to be used. It is ready when gas bubbles are bursting on the surface.

The dough

Add the ferment to the rest of the ingredients, making sure that you gather the dough together BEFORE adding all the butter.

  • 2 eggs
  • 800 gm ( 1lb 12oz) strong flour
  • 15 gm (1/2oz ) salt – less if using salted butter
  • 75 gm  ( 21/2oz ) brown sugar
  • 175 gm  ( 6 oz ) butter                       

The aim is to have a moist and light dough. Adjust with more flour if it seems too sloppy, but it should remain a soft and pliable dough.   When you think it is silky and the gluten is sufficiently developed,

Add the following

The fruits

  • 350 gm ( 12oz ) sultanas/raisins/chopped cherries
  • Zest of  1 or 2 lemons

Let the dough sit, well covered, for at least an hour, longer if it is cool. It will have reached full proof when it has doubled in size, and looks so puffed up that it is almost ready to collapse.

This quantity will make two large, or four small stollens.  Divide the dough into the number you want.   Mould them by rolling and patting until you have gently expelled all the gas and got them into a neat oval shape.

They need another short rest before you flatten them out to the width of a bread and butter plate for the small ones, or a dinner plate for the large ones. Rather than having them round, try to keep them in an oval shape.  With quick and gentle movements of the rolling pin make a hollow down the length of the oval and lay the marzipan rod along the groove.   With the marzipan rod as a backbone fold the back towards the front so that the spread oval is turned into a half-circle.  Leave the edges puffy, not pressed hard together, so that they resemble a pair of lips.

Egg wash thoroughly , and prove them before baking in a moderate oven, which for most domestic ovens would be about 170 – 180 degrees C, or 330 – 350 F.  Squeeze them gently and feel their sides spring back to know that they are done.  After baking they are repeatedly washed over with melted butter.  Before serving they can be dusted with icing sugar and tied in a satin ribbon.

The marzipan, or modelling paste

  • 120 gm  ( 4oz )  ground almonds
  • 60 gm  ( 2oz )  icing sugar
  • 90 gm  ( 3oz )  castor sugar
  • 1 small egg
  • Optional – the zest of an orange

Mix all together by hand or with a wooden spoon until it is properly gathered together.   It should not stick to you when it is rolled into rods on the bench.  Add some more almonds if it seems too wet.

Fashion the marzipan into a thick rod on the bench, then cut it into four. Now roll each segment into a slender rod about as long as your handspan, to neatly fit the width of the folded stollen.

Newsletter 57 – Gift Vouchers, Christmas baking

15th December 2020 by Paul Merry

Dear Panarians,

What a year. Covid this, that, and the other.

Covid 19 cancellations meant abandoning the Christmas cooking course, so I shall make up for that here, giving a peculiar little tip for mince tart makers who are rolling their pastry, and the Baker’s Topic will be my Christmas favourite – stollen.

Look at this photo of a lovely little gadget to set the thickness of anything you are rolling out. At this time of year it will be your short crust pastry for a batch of Christmas mince tarts.

Newsletter 57 - Gift Vouchers, Christmas baking 3
Perfect thickness for bottom of typical mince pie tin, 7 to 8 cm. wide

The tool is a depth gauge. The stem, or shaft, is a skewer, and the type here is simply a common bamboo one. At its blunt end, able to slide on it firmly, is the marker, set at the exact thickness that the pastry should be rolled to. For my mince pie bottoms that is between 2mm. and 3mm . (When I’m making croissants it is set at 6 mm.) That little blue marker is a plastic button, a piece of packaging that held bags on a stake. You can use anything provided it has a central hole that meets the diameter of your skewer.

After rolling to what you think is about the correct thickness, you plunge the marker vertically into the pastry. If there is a gap underneath the marker disc, you have rolled it out a little thin. If the marker disc leaves an indentation on the paste, it is a bit thick, and you need to roll it out more.

CALENDAR

Who knows, perhaps I shall again be forced to cancel the courses set down for early in the year, since many places seem to be heading for Tier 3 restrictions. Here’s hoping with the new Calendar:

January

  • Tue 12th — 1 Day Basic Bread Baking
  • Mon 18th — 1 Day Basic British Baking (*COURSE FULL*)
  • Sat 30th — 1 Day Patisserie and Viennoiserie Course

February

  • Sat 6th — 1 Day Basic Bread Baking (*COURSE FULL*)
  • Sat 20th — 1 Day Sourdough Baking (*COURSE FULL*)

March

  • Sat 6th — 1 Day French Baking
  • Fri 12th — 4 day bread baking course, Devon
  • Sat 20th — 1 Day Sweet Doughs (Easter)
  • Sat 27th — 1 Day Nordic & Germanic Baking
  • Sun 28th — 1 Day Basic British Baking

Go to https://www.panary.co.uk/course-calendar-and-booking/

When you click on a course in Calendar, you are taken to it, with Booking facility on the right.

GIFT VOUCHERS

Nowadays more and more people give an experience or a course as a gift. Gift Vouchers are a great vehicle for this. Having chosen the broad area, the giver does not need to agonise over exactly which experience would suit best, since the choice is made by the recipient.

PANARY has gift vouchers as an entire category on the website. Visit it at

https://www.panary.co.uk/gift-vouchers/

That’s it Panarians, enjoy your Christmas cooking.

Paul

Newsletter 56 – Hot weather, students’ work, calendar, and working with stoneground flour

7th October 2020 by Paul Merry

Monday, October 5, 2020

Dear Panarians,

After the dislocation of the lockdown period, it has been a pleasant change to have gone back to teaching again. Just small classes, only three students with me in the bakery.

That hot spell of weather in August, probably called a heatwave, was very trying for dough makers. When making large doughs, it was necessary to keep water buckets in the refrigerator overnight to have any hope of finishing the dough at a respectable temperature – in the low twenties, C, when the premises are so hot. The task is very difficult when the flour is so warm.

Newsletter 56 - Hot weather, students' work, calendar, and working with stoneground flour 4
20 litres of cold water, chilled overnight, for autolyse dough-making

Students’ Work

A Panarian named Richard Deverell wrote to me about his sourdough. Richard has been to a few courses, and recently he had his fellow class members spell bound when they found out what his job was. He is the Director of Kew Gardens. Clearly Richard had a fair-sized back garden for surviving the deprivations of the lock down period.

During lock down he wrote about his sourdough:

 “I have found that my bread rises well – first rise, and second proving in the baskets.  However, when I place the proved bed on the baking tray for cooking it sort of collapses – deflates – and thus my loaf is not as airy and risen as I would like.  What am I doing wrong?”  

I offered advice on the leaven as follows, ” If it lives in the fridge I would feed it at least twice before breadmaking, to get it first acclimatised then growing to full strength. The feed that precedes breadmaking should be timed so that at the point at which you want to do the dough making it must be ripe and bubbly. 

Newsletter 56 - Hot weather, students' work, calendar, and working with stoneground flour 5
Richard Deverell looaves

After discussing adequate kneading, and the full ripening of the final leaven, I concluded my advice –  “The subsequent collapse is probably straight-forward over-proof, meaning too long in the basket.”

Richard sent photos of improved sourdough loaves. Here they are:

Newsletter 56 - Hot weather, students' work, calendar, and working with stoneground flour 6
LLoyd Phillip’s sourdough loaf

Another student, Lloyd Phillips, wrote to say that since lockdown had begun and there was the terrible shortage of flour in the shops, he had begun using Stoate’s stoneground white, a flour that he would have previously only used when he came to his PANARY course.

Here is his loaf


Calendar

October

  • Fri 16th — 3 Day Going Professional (3 places)
  • Sat 24th — 1 Day Sourdough Baking (1 places)

November

  • Sat 14th — 1 Day Sweet Doughs Christmas Baking (3 places)
  • Sat 28th — 1 Day Nordic-Germanic (*COURSE FULL*)

December

  • Sat 5th — 1 Day Basic Bread Baking (*COURSE FULL*)
  • Sun 6th — 1 Day Basic British Baking (1 places)

March 2021

  • Fri 12th — 4 day bread baking course, Devon (5 places)

Devon Residential

Now that I no longer hold the residential course in the vineyard in Provence, for students who are looking for a long bread course I can recommend this 4-day course in Devon. Regarding Covid modifications the number of students is maximum 5.

To look at it, go to:

https://www.panary.co.uk/craft-baking-courses/4-day-bread-baking-course-devon/

Good baking Panarians, from Paul

Baker’s Topic

Stoneground flour, in the vast field of flour milling, is a niche product. Although it is putting the clock back, there is an explanation for why it has not simply died out, and that explanation is found in its inherent nutrition. The stone-grinding process retains an admirable amount of vitamins …

Learn more

That’s it, Panarians.

Good baking, Paul

Working with stoneground flour

6th October 2020 by Paul Merry

Stonground flour
N R Stoates & Sons , Cann, Shaftesbury. Millers of stonground flour

Stoneground flour is a niche product

Stoneground flour, in the vast field of flour milling, is a niche product. Although it is putting the clock back, there is an explanation for why it has not simply died out, and that explanation is found in its inherent nutrition. The stone-grinding process retains an admirable amount of vitamins and minerals, leading to high nutrition when compared with industrial flour which is so refined that it would be fair to call it emaciated, hence the Flour Act makes it mandatory for it to be fortified with synthetic vitamins, iron, and calcium.

It’s more nutritious

Working with stoneground flour 7
The wheat berry

Stoneground is nutritious because it is barely refined. While its sieving mechanism may remove about 28% of its bulk as the bran is removed, a beige coloured flour results which still contains fine fragments of bran. Further, it contains significant amounts of the layers between the outer bran and the endosperm (the inner white part). These under-bran layers (particularly the aleurone layer) are highly nutritious, particularly for minerals. Regarding vitamins, not only does it contain the B group of vitamins gained from the endosperm, but more importantly it is suffused with the precious germ oil, that contains three vitamins alone.

Higher levels of enzymes

Along with all this nutrition, stoneground flour has higher levels of the enzymes that lead to brisk fermentation. These are the enzymes that convert starch into the types of sugar that yeast wants to devour. They come with the endosperm, but bigger deposits of them occur around the germ and the under-layers of bran – those layers mentioned earlier that lie between endosperm and outer bran, including the aleurone layer.

Added enzymes mean that the baker must be careful to lower the amount of yeast, and make sure the temperature of the dough is on the cool side. I aim for 22-24 deg C., and I would have yeast at 2% of flour as the upper limit.

The presence of added enzymes and minerals causes the dough to break down more rapidly, and this factor when combined with brisker fermentation activity, leads to the releasing of more water into the dough, which in time becomes softer, and sticky. Hence the baker must be careful to reduce dough water a little and make slightly tighter dough than would occur with industrial flour.

Lower loaf volume

When working with stoneground white, there will not be the same loaf volume as is yielded by industrial white flour. All those tiny fragments of bran will undermine the gluten, even cutting gluten strands, and generally inhibiting the stretchiness of the gluten.

Enhanced signs of ripeness

Finally, the signs of ripeness will be more obvious when the dough is made with stoneground flour. Rather than seeing an array of surface bubbles, at full ripeness the surface of the dough will be more generally deteriorated, looking pock-marked along with surface gas deposits. The baker must be watchful to work the dough before that deterioration is too marked, resulting in the over-proved dough, which will never make the best bread

Working with stoneground flour 8
Ripe dough, pock-marking
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panary adj [L.panis bread + - ARY] Of or pertaining to bread; p. fermentation