Stress Baking II: Pane francese

Having sung the praises of Peter Reinhart, I now need to give credit to Ciril Hitz. My sister Susan gave me a copy of his Baking Artisan Bread: 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home back in 2008. Until today, I’ve made exactly one of the recipes out of it, but it’s one I make regularly. I chose his croissant recipe over others’ mainly because this book has lots of step-by-step pictures, and it was easier to understand what to do next. Why I never tried the other nine recipes before now I can’t say, though I think the full-time job at a big Madison law firm may have had something to do with it.

With all this time on my hands to bake bread and avoid the brain work I really should be doing instead, I thought I’d give his Pane francese a try. The square rolls look like something between a ciabatta roll and some of the better morning rolls I’ve had for many a German breakfast. The name means “French bread” in Italian. (Perhaps next I will see if I can find a pain italien to see what the French think Italian bread should taste like.)

This is a two-day process, starting with a firm biga that sits in the fridge overnight for best results. The recipe can be found here; click on the link for pane francese in the table of contents. I used the measurements by weight using grams to be as precise as possible. Then I ended up adding more water, because my dough didn’t look nearly as wet as the one Hinz poured out for his first proof. For flour, I used the King Arthur Artisan Bread Flour that I was lucky enough to snag a few weeks ago.

Here’s my dough after the proof, as I started cutting the individual rolls: a puffy, fluffy pillow that looks a lot like ciabatta, but without the stretch-and-fold maneuvers:

Ooh, baby, show me that gluten!

The dough is cut up into two-inch square blocks and set to rise one last time on a bed of flour, or, better yet, seeds. I used the King Arthur Harvest Grains Blend for some and a mixture of black and white sesame seeds for others.

Then after forty-five minutes, I baked them on baking stones in the “hearth” baking style of Peter Reinhart that I wrote about for the Ciabatta recipe. In other words: pan of boiling water on the stove, steam pan full of old nuts and bolts in the oven, baking stones preheating with the oven.

There was a moment of doubt as to how to get them in the actual oven, since logically they should go “seeds up.” Sliding the pan in wasn’t an option. I gently flipped them over onto parchment paper and then slid that onto my baking stones. Fifteen minutes later, perfection!

I mean it. This relatively simple bread is one of the best tasting ones I have had, inside or outside of Europe. It has a satisfying, slightly crispy crust with a soft, nutty crumb, delicious with or without butter. I promised a few of the rolls to my friends with a flock of chickens in exchange for some fresh eggs, but I will have to hide them so the family doesn’t eat them all first.

Enjoy! Now I’ll have to tackle another recipe from Hitz’s book. Maybe a head-to-head with Peter Reinhart’s pane siciliano?

Inside