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Found along Memorial Drive today
Aug. 27th, 2009 07:08 pm
Aug. 27th, 2009
A person on my flist has been baking a lot of bread recently, which has been making me think about baking bread, and when some friends moved away this week, I decided that this was a sign I should give them homemade bread (along with non-homemade salt) for a housewarming gift. And since I've been wanting to make the Baking With Julia pain de campagne recipe for years – literally, since I got the book more than 10 years ago – I thought now was the time.
It's actually a very simple recipe, although it does take an incredibly long time. You make a starter out of whole wheat flour and warm water, and let that sit for two days to gather yeast. Remove the crust on top of the starter, mix in more flour and warm water, let stand for 18-24 hours. Do that again, but this time let stand for a paltry 5-8 hours. And once more, for a final rise of 4 hours.
Everything went perfectly. The starter had tripled in size by the end of the first rise, and smelled foul and fermented, as it was supposed to. It bulked up again after its second rise, and smelled even fouler, again as it was supposed to. Finally, I got it to the point where it was ready for its last rise, but since waiting four hours would have meant baking bread at midnight, I decided to put it in the fridge to rise more slowly overnight.
( The results, after the cut. )
It's actually a very simple recipe, although it does take an incredibly long time. You make a starter out of whole wheat flour and warm water, and let that sit for two days to gather yeast. Remove the crust on top of the starter, mix in more flour and warm water, let stand for 18-24 hours. Do that again, but this time let stand for a paltry 5-8 hours. And once more, for a final rise of 4 hours.
Everything went perfectly. The starter had tripled in size by the end of the first rise, and smelled foul and fermented, as it was supposed to. It bulked up again after its second rise, and smelled even fouler, again as it was supposed to. Finally, I got it to the point where it was ready for its last rise, but since waiting four hours would have meant baking bread at midnight, I decided to put it in the fridge to rise more slowly overnight.
( The results, after the cut. )