For the second week in a row, I did not have the forethought to prepare a bread starter prior to Sunday morning. And while I have a jar of funky looking levain stewing in the back of my refrigerator, I can’t remember when I last refreshed it with flour to make it usable.
You can hardly blame me for forgetfulness though; I was too excited about getting to see The Pixies to contemplate poolishes and bigas on Saturday morning.
Of course, if I wanted to bake bread still, I had to choose something that would be leavened only by yeast and time. Lucky for me, I had one such loaf ear-marked from the last time I went through Local Breads to find recipes that interested me.
The bread I chose was a pane alla ricotta, which was a bit of a departure from the breads I’ve been baking of late, in that it contained both a soft cheese and butter instead of olive oil. Being the fan of ricotta that I am (I could eat the stuff by the spoonful, and when we have it in the house, I often do) I was intrigued by the potential of this bread. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it would live up to my expectations…
The dough process on this one was pretty simple. Everything was added at the same time, and the magic of the stand mixer took over and did the rest. After about 12 minutes, the dough I was left with was silky soft, and smooth as a freshly made ball of mozzarella. Had I not known what it was, I would’ve taken it for cheese and probably bitten right in.
Next was the resting process, so for 2 hours the dough ball sat in a slightly oiled bowl in my kitchen window, covered by a tea towel. The gentle heat of the spring-like day helped the dough to rise, and I like to think that the fresh air exposed the bread to wild yeasts, but that’s probably just romantic-sounding hogwash.
Once the dough had significantly risen, it was eased out of the bowl onto a pizza peel, and split into equal portions. Next, I got to practise my boule-making technique, and once perfectly formed and rounded, the boules were left to rise for another 2 hours under cover of plastic wrap.
After 2 hours I realized I hadn’t floured the top of the loaves enough, when the plastic wrap adhered to the top of the bread and deflated all of the bubbles once I peeled it off. That didn’t seem acceptable, so I re-formed the loaves, dusted the tops with copious amounts of flour, and left them to rise again.
After another hour and a half, the bread had not quite attained the pillowy stature that it originally had, but it seemed proofed enough to go through the oven, so I gently shook it off the peel and onto the pre-heated baking stone. A quick burst of steam escaped from a handful of ice cubes I’d tossed in the pan, and the bread immediately perked up. After 25 minutes it was golden as honey and hollow when tapped so I removed it from the oven and allowed it to cool.
Despite the slight mishap with the plastic wrap, the loaves managed to exhibit a fluffy soft crumb, and a sweet, buttery flavour.
I suppose we can add this to the list of awesome things to do with ricotta!
Until next time…
Tags: Baking, bread, Daniel Leader, Local Breads, New Projects, ricotta
