Week Three of Bread Making

Our bread/doughs class works on a rotation of 6 stations, which I outlined in a previous post, where each student works on each station for three days straight. This is a great way to learn each method of bread making and work through the challenges of each. My first assignment this week was focaccia. Each day we experimented with different flavors. Above shows two of the most popular flavors--focaccia pizza with mozzarella and pepperoni and the other was fig, walnut and goat cheese (this was my favorite).


These are fresh mozzarella, tomato with fresh basil (back) and apple with blue cheese and walnuts, another delicious combination!

Along with the focaccia our special projects included Rye bread (not pictured, but looked same as above photo), as well as an Onion Rye (pictured above). I was interested to learn that in using different types of flours in bread, a portion still must be white bread flour because the bread will not hold up with many of the other flours. This is why we don't see 100% whole wheat or other whole grain breads often. The gluten in the bread flour is very important to create a desirable texture.


Another project was Jalapeno cheddar rolls, which were filled with jalapenos, red bell peppers and cheddar cheese. They had a beautiful color, but the texture was gummy (maybe not baked long enough) and the flavor was not my favorite.



This is Pane Siciliano, a bread made with semolina. Of course this comes from Sicily, an Italian town that knows semolina well because of all of the pasta they make! This bread has a wonderful crumb and texture.

The last project of the week was pizza! Our chef instructor called it "student appreciation day" as we all made 2-3 pizzas and ate them for lunch! Considering the quality of the cafeteria food we are served (terrible!) we were really excited about today's lunch! Above are two pieces of my cheese pizza. We were required to make one with cheese only and the other pizzas could be topped as we liked. I am typically not a huge fan of cheese only, but the quality of the dough and sauce were so good that no other toppings were needed!

The end of the week we moved to the Levain production station. Levain is a bread that uses a natural leavener in the place of yeast. The natural leavener is a starter, which was initially made by Peter Reinhart, the author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice, 14 years ago while he was a chef instructor at CCA. Each day the starter has to be fed (flour and water) and changed, just like a baby!!!

Levain is a great bread made with a little whole wheat flour, but overall it has a slight sour taste. The interior is soft and chewy and the crust is hard--a perfect combination of textures. The dough is formed in a banneton, which is a reed basket that makes the beautiful lines on the bread. It is then baked directly on the deck of the oven making a thick, dark, semolina coated bottom. In one batch we added raisins and walnuts to the dough and the result was delicious and beautiful purple colored bread due to the reaction of the dough with the walnuts.