Beth Hensperger's Pain de Seigle

When I was little, sometimes my father would go to the grocery store where he always indulged his wishes. He would come home not only with what my mother requested but always bought a small round loaf of thinly sliced rye bread. The diameter of the loaf was about three inches and I loved every slice of it that I got to eat (it was his treat, but he always shared with me). There's just something about caraway seeds - they really speak to me and I love rye bread.

So when I was looking through The Bread Bible, my first bread cookbook, I saw that Hensperger had a recipe for sourdough rye bread that I had never noticed before. Her book is not my go-to sourdough cookbook so I guess it had always missed my notice.

This is a three-day bread but my starter was ready to go. Her starter for this bread is made with just bread flour. I feed my starter half and half whole wheat and bread flour, so I decided to skip Day One and go with my already active starter even though it would not be purely the recipe to do this.

Day Two you make a mix of 1 cup of starter, 2 cups lukewarm water, 2 T molasses, 1 1/2 cups rye flour (I used pumpernickel since that was what I had) and 1 1/2 cups bread flour. This rises on the counter overnight.

On Day Three, you stir in 1 1/2 tsp of active dry yeast, 3 T canola oil, 2 T molasses, 4 tsp salt, 4 tsp of caraway seeds (mine were a little heaping), and 1/2 cup of rye flour (I used pumpernickel).

Beat the mixture well and then add 3 or so cups of bread flour 1/2 cup at a time.

Knead well and let bread dough rise for about an hour.

Turn the bread out of the rising bowl and shape into two long loaves on a baking sheet. Cover and let these rise for another 45 minutes to an hour.

Preheat oven to 450. I started preheating as soon as this loaf rise began. When the bread is ready, brush the surface of the loaf with beaten egg and sprinkle with more caraway seeds.

Put bread into oven and lower the temperature to 375. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool completely before slicing. It's WONDERFUL and meets my childhood memories fully.

Beth Hensperger's Pain de Campagne

Using my mother's sourdough starter paired with the deeply complex flavors generated in most of Beth Hensperger's recipes makes me very happy. In this time of the coronavirus, I, like many other people, am baking my heart out.

I give away Mother's starter frequently (about four times in a year) but now have given it to four people during the six or seven weeks so far of the stay-at-home time of the coronavirus. One young man who asked for it then drove to N Georgia to Helen to get flour ground in a local mill, the Nora Mill Granary. The grocery stores were all out of flour (as they continue to be) and he really wanted to get started with his sourdough. Generously, he brought me two huge bags - one of whole wheat and the other of high gluten bread flour.

Meanwhile I have been feeding my starter twice a day and it is really happy:

Hensperger's recipe for Pain de Campagne takes three days. The first one, though, is the making of the starter and mine is already fully functioning. So I used the equivalent amount of starter and began the recipe with Day Two of three.

On Day Two, you make a sponge with 1/2 cup of starter (from the first day) and 2 cups of lukewarm water into which you stir 1 1/2 cups of bread flour and 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour. My flours from N Georgia were perfect for this. This mixture rises overnight - it's really wet and rises as a bubbly batter, more or less.

Then on Day Three (two for me), you stir down the sponge and gradually add a cup of bread flour and 4 tsp of salt. Then you add up to 3 more cups of flour - I added about 2 1/2 but I am in Atlanta where it is really humid and I often don't need as much flour as the recipe requires. 

In her recipe, she calls for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours rising, but I left mine for 3 since I was using starter and not fresh yeast. Then I divided the dough in half and put each half in a banneton where it rose for another hour or so.

I baked it one loaf at a time in a cloche in a 500 degree oven. At 20 - 25 minutes I turned the oven down to 450 for 10 minutes. Then I took the top off for about 10 - 15 minutes more. The bread turned out beautifully:

The pictured loaf is the second one. The first one I gave away without taking its photo but it was prettier even than this one. The crust is crunchy and delicious and the bread has a nice crumb. I want to make it again and again!

Basic Sourdough Bread with Yeast

I don't have the patience for sourdough bread that rises just with the starter, so when I want basic sourdough bread, I use yeast in the recipe.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 T active dry yeast
• 1 small whisk dipped in local honey
• 1 T sugar
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 5 1/2 - 6 cups unbleached bread flour
• 1/4 cup fine cornmeal (I prefer white) for sprinkling
  

Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water, stirring it in with a whisk dipped in local honey. Allow this to stand for about 10 minutes until foamy.

In your mixer's large bowl, combine starter, the remaining water, sugar, melted butted, salt and 3 cups of flour. Beat about 1 minute. Add the yeast mixture and beat for another minute. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Switch to a dough hook and knead for a few more minutes (about 3) I always also knead a few minutes by hand.

Oil a bowl and put the dough in the container. Turn it once to coat the top and cover with a damp towel. Let rise until doubled - about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.



Gently deflate the dough. Grease two loaf pans and sprinkle with cornmeal.

Divide the dough into two parts and shape into rectangular loaves. Place these in the pans. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or a wet towel and let rise until doubled - about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 about 20 minutes before you want to bake the bread.

Place the pans in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 35 - 40 minutes, until the tops are golden brown (sourdough bread never gets as brown as other types).

Cool on a rack and enjoy!

Sourdough French Bread

I haven't used my starter in about a month so it needed to be kneaded! I decided to make sourdough French bread to go with my Sunday family dinner of red beans and rice, fruit salad, green salad. Doesn't sourdough French bread sound just right with that menu?

Here's the recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 T yeast
• 1 tiny whisk dipped in honey
• 1 cup starter
• 4 cups bread flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• About 1/2 tsp soda
• 2 more cups unsifted bread flour
  

Pour warm water into mixing bowl and stir in the yeast, using a whisk dipped in honey. Add the starter. Mix the 4 cups flour, sugar and salt together and stir into the yeast mixture. Mix vigorously for about 3 minutes. Turn this mixture into a greased bowl.


Cover with a wet towel (a much greener solution than using plastic wrap) and allow to rise until double (2 hours about)


Stir the soda into the remaining cup of flour. Add to the dough gradually - about a T or so at a time. Dough will be very stiff. Knead (if using machine dough hook or by hand) for 8 minutes until satiny and dough can't absorb any more flour.

Shape into 2 oblong loaves and place on lightly greased cookie sheet. I have this perforated device designed for French bread, so I used it.

Cover with a wet towel and let rise again until doubled (about another 1 1/2 - 2 hours). I made the mistake of not re-wetting my towel from rise number one and it stuck to the bread - see the wrinkles in the risen loaves below? So when I removed the towel, I did cover it with plastic for a short 20 minute rise to help with the damage from removing the towel (and thus collapsing some of the rise).



Preheat oven to 400 degrees. When you put the bread in, spray the bread with water and spray the oven about three times in the first 10 minutes. Bake overall for about 45 minutes.



We had this delicious bread with our Sunday dinner but I have been eating it sliced thin for pimento cheese sandwiches and for the past two mornings have used it to make Toad in the Hole - anyone remember that from growing up?

Toad in the Hole:

• Take a biscuit cutter and cut a circle out of the center of a one inch thick slice of bread.
• Butter the bread and warm up the iron skillet.
  
• Place the bread buttered side down (I put the holes in the skillet too) and
  
• crack a farm egg into the hole in the bread slice.
  
• When the egg looks ready, flip it over.
  
• When done you have a delicious egg fried inside the delicious skillet toasted bread
  

Fabulous.

Ciabatta Bread

This weekend Dylan and I baked a lot. We made sourdough French bread, but I'm not thrilled with it and will wait to post about French bread. We baked a sweet orange flavored focaccia. And we baked chocolate chip cookies.

We baked the rustic Ciabatta bread in the March/April 09 issue of Cooks Illustrated. It's pictured above. I'm posting a link but unless you subscribe to Cooks Illustrated online, you'll not be able to access this recipe (and their video) after April.

It turned out great and both loaves were eaten in two days!

Instead of the Biga (1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1/8 tsp of instant yeast, and 1/2 cup water at room temperature, I used 1 cup of my sourdough starter mixed with 1/8 tsp of yeast.)

The dough:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp table salt
3/4 cup water at room temperature
1/4 cup milk at room temperature.

Place the Biga and dough ingredients in the mixing bowl. Use the paddle attachment to mix on low until a shaggy dough forms at about one minute of mixing. Then mix on medium-low until the dough becomes a uniform mass on the paddle - about 4 - 6 minutes. Change to dough hook and knead on medium about 10 minutes.

Put dough in a bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise about an hour, until doubled.

When dough has doubled, spray cooking spray on a bowl scraper and fold the dough over itself, turning the bowl 90 degrees each time for 8 folding operations. Cover again with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 more minutes. Repeat the folding and turning, replace the wrap and let rise yet another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450, preferably with a baking stone in it.

Cut two 12 X 6 inch pieces of parchment paper and flour them well. Flour counter well and turn dough out onto it. Cut dough into two parts with a bench knife. Flour hands well and press dough into 12 X 6 inch shape. Fold the shorter sides of the dough toward center, overlapping them like a letter to form a 7X4 inch loaf. Repeat with other half of the dough.

Transfer each loaf seam down to parchment sheets, dust with flour, cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Slide parchment with loaves onto wooden pizza peel. Using floured fingers, poke surface of each loaf to form 10X6 rectangle. Spray the loaves with water.

Slide loaves with parchment onto baking stone and bake spraying loaves with water twice more during the first 5 minutes of baking time.

Transfer to a wire rack, discard parchment, and cool loaves to room temperature.

I liked this recipe but remember an even better ciabatta from Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery cookbook. I'm going to try it the next time I'm in the ciabatta mood.

Delicious! Dylan ate his for the rest of the afternoon. In the picture below he kept a piece going while he played trains.

Making Focaccia Bread with Rosemary

Years ago my mother got sourdough starter from San Francisco. It was supposedly over 100 years old at the time. She kept it going by feeding it and using it regularly. When I got out of college and was on my own, she gave me some of the starter. Now I'm a grandma and the starter is about 140 years old.

Today I made focaccia bread with the starter. The recipe won't be so easy to share because I can't give you the starter.

Many cookbooks today have recipes for short-term starters - such as mixing 1 tsp active dry yeast with 1/2 cup warm water and 1/4 cup of flour. Stir this together and leave it for about an hour. It should be bubbly and good to use at that time.

Here's how I made the focaccia:

• Stir 1 tsp active dry yeast into 1 cup warm water and let sit for about 10 minutes.
• Put 3/4 cup sourdough starter in the mixing bowl.
• Add the yeast mixture and 3 T olive oil. Stir together well.
• Add about 3 - 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 3 T finely chopped rosemary leaves, 2 tsp coarse sea salt.
• Change to the dough hook when needed.
• Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead a little by hand.
• Put dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 1/4 hour.
• Turn risen dough onto oiled cookie sheet with sides (11 X 17) and flatten it to fill the pan.
• Allow to rise again about another hour.
• About 30 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 425.

If you have a baking stone, that really helps this bread cook well. When bread has risen, use the tips of your fingers to dimple the dough.

Drizzle the bread with 2 T extra virgin olive oil and 1 to 1 1/4 tsp coarse sea salt.

Put sprigs of fresh rosemary all over the surface.

Put bread in oven and spray the oven walls with cold water from a spritzer bottle three times every three minutes during the first 10 minutes of baking.

Bake in total for about 20 - 25 minutes. During the last 10 minutes you can put the bread directly on the baking stone (I always forget to, but it crisps the bottom).