Pain á l'ancienne

Unfortunately, availability of good bread is extremely scarce in Singapore, or should we say non existent. This is of course an issue that is not just limited to this island, due to accelerated times for industrial and mass production, but at least in places like Italy or France, you can find good bread if you know where to shop.
Walking into a Bread Talk or a Cedele branch doesn't quite give you the same sensory emotions as you would get from a proper bakery. The smells and colors aren't quite the same, and in any case you won't find bread with the traditional flavours and textures that can only be achieved through the natural, long leavening times of the classic recipes.

Pain a l'ancienne is perhaps my favourite bread I have produced so far. I love its colour, texture and flavour. The golden brown cracking crust, the white airy crumb, the sweetness that is released as you chew it. I like having this straight out of the oven (after a 15 minutes resting period), soaked in quality olive oil. It doesn't need much more to keep you eating it!

I would like to share my recipe, which is a mix of the baguette recipe I found in my bread book, and some tips from the master baker.
Following, the ingredients for about 4 loaves:

Poolish:
Bread Flour   120g
Water         120ml
Dry Yeast     0.1g (a pinch)
Dough:
Bread Flour   244g
Water         120ml
Dry yeast     1g
Salt          7g

Two days in advance (I usually start Friday night for bread that I bake on Sunday morning), mix the flour and water (in which you will dissolve the yeast first) for the poolish in a small plastic container that you can hermetically seal. Also, mix the flour and water for the main dough (244g flour and 120ml water), knead until fully incorporated, shape into a ball, wrap it in cling film, and store in a separate tightly sealed plastic container. Put both containers it in a wine cellar at about 12-14C, and let ferment for about 18-24 hours. The poolish should look very bubbly and airy through the plastic container.

The next evening:

1. Pull out the two doughs from the fridge 30 minutes in advance, and prepare the remaining yeast, which you will have dissolved into a tiny amount of water, and the salt.
2. Put the stiff dough in the mixer at the lowest speed, then add the water and yeast mixture, then gradually, spoon by spoon, the poolish. Let the stiff dough incorporate the added poolish, perhaps helping it a bit using a spatula, then add more of it, until it's all incorporated.
3. Add the salt, then bring the mixer to a higher speed and knead for another 5 minutes.
4. Put the dough into a large plastic container, and let it ferment at ambient temperature (30C) for 1 hour.
5. Take the dough out of the container on a lightly floured surface, then stretch it and fold it onto itself. Place it back into the container for another hour.
6. Take the dough out again (it should have doubled in size), then divide it into 4 equal pieces, possibly elongated. Flatten them out, then let them rest for 5 minutes. Note that you will need to dust this dough with flour, since it's quite lose.
7. Now shape the baguettes by folding the flattened squares, like in this video. Do the folding twice. Note that the dough in this recipe is a bit more lose than the one in the video. If you are not comfortable with the shaping, you can just fold the dough once and elongate it and roll it a bit. You will still get good bread.
8. Place all the loaves onto a large piece of baking paper, then enclose them into a large plastic box for raising. It's important that you keep them enclosed so that they don't dry out during the raising process. I place them into a wine cellar overnight, and they will be ready the next morning. Alternatively, if in a rush, they will be ready if you let them ferment at ambient temperature for 2 to 2-1/2 hours.

The next morning, take the box out of the cellar 60 minutes in advance, and switch on the oven at 270C. I highly recommend you have a baking stone (I purchased a lava stone from Hup Kiong cut to exactly the size of my oven, and it works wonders). Make sure that the stone is fully heated, and that will take at least 40 minutes of pre-heating at maximum temperature before you insert the bread. I also insert a pan full of boiling water about 10 minutes before inserting the bread, to ensure appropriate steaming in the oven.
Before inserting the bread in the oven score the loaves and spray them with a very fine water spray. insert them in the oven, and bake until ready (time varies, depending on the oven). You will know when they are ready, as the color of the crust speaks for itself.
Once out of the oven, try to be patient and let the bread rest for 15-30 minutes before cracking it open!

Mozza dough recipe

I blogged in the past about Mozza, the new pizza phenomenon. I love their pizza with that phenomenal crunchy crust, despite it's not Italian pizza. There are endless debates such as this one, on whether Mozza's product is actually pizza. I think this is pretty simple to clarify: Mozza is Mozza pizza. It is not Neapolitan pizza, and it's not Pizza Hut either. Even in Italy, we have different styles of pizza, which are quite apart from Neapolitan pizza, but we still call them pizza.

Getting to the more meaty part of the story, I like the dough that Nancy Silverton has created. Without a doubt, she has come up with an innovative, unique crust. Mario Batali, on the other hand, has complemented that with some American-Italian toppings. My favourite of all is the one with slow roasted tomatoes and burrata cheese, which I made replacing burrata with ricotta (se picture above) due to unavailability of burrata.

As into bread making as I am, it is only logical that I wanted to try to reproduce this delicacy, and so I did. The real problem was that a proper recipe cannot be found. After searching through the net multiple times, I came to the conclusion that there is only one recipe published (2 posts with the same recipe: Pizza School, and Scuola di pizza), and it just doesn't work. I tried that recipe and it was nowhere near what you would have at Mozza. So I did further research, and watched numerous videos by Peter Reinhart on the quest for the perfect pizza. About 3 or 4 of them are dedicated to Mozza, and although there is no mentioning of the recipe which is of course a very well protected secret, I worked it out myself by combining bits of information from the Mozza pizza school, and the process used by the factory to produce Mozza's dough.

I must say that the end result is closer than I imagined I could get to, factoring in the fact that we use different flour. My recipe isn't the most simple and it takes some time to execute, but then again if you want a perfect result, you have to go through the pain!
This dough contains a small amount of rye flour and wheat germ, which contribute to its distinct taste.


The following doses will produce 3 crusts:

POOLISH:

• 125g Bread Flour (in Singapore, I used Prima bread flour)
• 125ml Water
• 1 tiny pinch of dried yeast (about 0.5 grams)

FINAL DOUGH:

• 250g bread flour
• 150ml Water
• 3g Brown rye flour
• 3g Wheat Germ (this can be found in organic products shops)
• 7g Kosher salt

Start with making a poolish (pre-ferment) by combining the bread flour, water and dried yeast. Once well incorporated (mixing the ingredients for a minute or so should suffice), cover the bowl with cling film, tighten it with a rubber band, and let it rest at 15C for about 12-16 hours. You will know when the ferment is ready once you see lots of bubbles on the surface. It will be over-ripened if you will notice signs of the dough receding within the bowl. I kept my dough in a wine cellar, which maintained a constant temperature. Depending on the amount of yeast and environment temperature, your poolish might take longer or shorter to mature, so you will need to check it until you can tell it's ready, and before it over-ripens.

In a bowl, mix 150ml water together with all the flours, but do not add the salt. Once roughly combined, incorporate the poolish into the mixture, and knead using a dough mixer until gluten is almost fully developed. Then add the salt, dissolved into a very small amount of water (10ml will be sufficient) and continue to mix until you reach full gluten development. Use the windowpane technique to check.

Once completed, pull the dough out of the mixer and place it into a bowl. Let it rest for 15 -30 minutes, and it will be ready for shaping. Divide it into three chunks, and shape each one by dusting it into a very small amount of flour (just as much as you need for it not to stick to your fingers), and shape it into a ball by pulling the sides and folding them underneath it then pushing them into it. This operation must be repeated 5-6 times, and it is important to trap bubbles of air into your dough ball, so that you will get a nicely bloated crust once you bake your pizza.

Put the dough balls into a container and tightly seal to prevent air from drying the surface. Place the dough balls in a cold area of your refrigerator and let them rest overnight. 12 to 24 hours later, pull the dough balls out of the fridge and let them rest outside for about 1 to 2 hours. Now they are ready for use. Shape them into a pizza by following the technique shown in this Mozza video. I recommend you finally place the stretched pizza on baking paper and put it into the oven with the paper, or else you will be likely to mess it up unless you have the right tools. In the video below, I filmed the shaping part and the condiment technique for the fennel and spring onions pizza. My video might help you see how this recipe's dough is supposed to behave during the stretching phase.


When it comes to the topping, needless to say that the combinations are unlimited. I made the first one with one of the Mozza classic toppings: cream, onions and spring onions, fennel, and mozzarella (I omitted the sausage as I didn't have one handy).

The second was my favourite Mozza's topping, the slow roasted tomatoes and burrata one. I roasted the tomatoes for about 6 hours at 90C with some salt, thyme and oregano sprinkled on top.

I prepared a base tomato sauce to dress the pizza so that the slow roasted tomatoes could be placed on top of it. To prepare the sauce, I heated some olive oil, added a tin of chopped Italian tomatoes, then cooked them for about 5 minutes with some salt, pepper and fresh basil.

Finally, the cooking stage. The huge advantage of Mozza's pizza is that, unlike the classic Neapolitan pizza, it doesn't require an incredibly hot oven, and works well with longer cooking times. If your oven can reach about 250C, then you can cook this. Of course, you must have a refractive stone in order to have a crispy bottom like the one below (I purchased a lava stone from Hup Kiong cut to exactly the size of my oven, and it works wonders). Make sure that the stone is fully heated, and that will take at least 30 minutes of pre-heating at maximum temperature before you insert the pizza.


Now it's time to sit in front of your oven and watch the crust slowly blow and brown until ready!

La focaccia di Recco

Once you've tried it, you won't forget it. I had my first focaccia di Recco at Manuelina, in Recco. Ever since, I wished to have the chance to eat this delicacy back home, in Singapore, but I just couldn't get hold of the cheese. Leaving aside the fact that in Recco they use a special cheese called prescinseua, which would be completely impossible to find in Singapore, you can obtain superb results with crescenza or stracchino. I made an order of crescenza from Giorgio Ferrari, and 2 weeks later I finally got it. And here I am, now making the so awaited Focaccia di Recco. I must say that it came out as good as I remembered it, and although it came close to Manuelina, it was definitely miles better than the one I had at "Pizzeria al Ponte" in Recco.

 

This is my recipe:

• 500 gr. Manitoba flour
• 250 ml. water
• 100 ml. extra virgin olive oil
• 8 gr. salt

Stir water, olive oil and salt, then gradually incorporate the flour. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth, then divide into 4 round balls (this will make 2 focaccias for the first round) and wrap them tightly into cling film. Set aside for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature, or 2 hours in the fridge and one out at room temperature.

 

Now the dough is ready for stretching. Remove the cling film, pat some flour around the dough and flatten it by pushing it with your fingers, until you obtain a flat "pizza" like shape. Do not stretch it or pull it at this point. Now lift the dough, and let it stretch naturally with its own weight, supporting it with your fists (like in the picture above). Keep stretching it, until you lave a large section in the middle that is paper-thin and transparent.

 

Now the sheet is ready for laying on the tray. I used a non-stick pizza tray I bought in Cold Storage.

 

Slowly fit it onto the tray, then cut the crescenza cheese into small pieces and scatter them around the perimeter and in the middle. I used about 100gr of crescenza for each focaccia. Repeat the same stretching exercise on a second piece of dough, then lay it on top of the other, and make the two stick around the edges.

 

Pinch the upper layer with your hands, making holes more or less where you placed the cheese, to allow the trapped air to escape during the baking process.

 

Finally, with the help of a rolling pin, cut the focaccia around the edges, and recollect the residual dough into a ball. It can be reused after resting for 2-3 hours in cling film to prevent it from drying out.

Drizzle with a cap of extra vergine olive oil and some freshly ground black pepper, and it's ready to bake. The focaccia will need to cook in a very hot oven (250C and above), on a hot stone that you will have placed far in advance to ensure maximum heat from below and a perfect crispy base. I used a Ferrari Pizza Oven which gives perfect results.

I must say the 2 weeks wait for the crescenza was well worth waiting for!

Fougasse Provençale

In my quest for bread making, I fell in love with Fougasse Provençale. It's rustic, it's flavourful, it's crusty, it looks beautiful, it can be paired with tasty ingredients. It has everything I like about bread!

I tried this recipes a couple of times, and although the first attempt was already pretty good, it got better and better. At my third attempt, it came out so well that it was devoured in no time by my guests. In a way, it put the rest of the meal to shy :(

I decided to make 2 different fougasses, one with anchovies and capers, and one with sun dried tomatoes. Following, the recipe I used, which I derived from the great book "Bread", by Jeffrey Hamelman. I do all my kneading by hand as I don't have a kitchen aid, but also because there is a certain fulfillment in handling the dough and feeling it develop between your hands. It's messy, especially with wet doughs such as this one, but once you practice it a few times, it's easy enough to do. If you use a robot you will have to adjust the recipe for that.

Ingredients for the Pâte Frementée:

Bread Flour (I used Prima)....160g
Water.........................100ml
Salt..........................3g
Dry Yeast.....................a small pinch (1g)

• Start by making a pâte feementée a couple of days in advance. This is a small amount of dough, which you can ferment slowly in the fridge, in order to give flavour to the bread. Mix flour and salt into a bowl, and tepid water and yeast in a glass, then combine and knead for a while, until smooth.
• Keep it in a large bowl, covered by a cling film (I usually rubber-band the film around the bowl, to keep it tight). Leave at ambient temperature for a couple of hour or so, until it starts to rise, then put it in the fridge at about 3-5 degrees overnight.
• The next day, remove from the fridge, and let the dough raise slightly (about 50-60% increase in volume).

Ingredients for the main dough:

Bread Flour (I used Prima)....390g
Whole-wheat flour.............70g
Water.........................320ml
Salt..........................6g
Dry Yeast.....................6g
Extra virgin olive oil........30g
Anchovies.....................50g
Sun dried tomatoes............6-7 tomatoes

• Now it's time to make the main dough. Follow a similar process as before. Mix both the flours and salt in a bowl. In a separate container, mix tepid water with the yeast and the olive oil. Combine the two and start folding in the dough, until it reaches a certain consistency and the flour is almost all incorporated.
• You can then add the pâte fermentée chopped into little chunks. Keep mixing and then kneading with your hands. Since the dough is so wet, don't even try to keep your hands neat. I actually get them both dirty. I lift the whole dough with my hands, and keeping them both horizontal, I roll the dough in between them, rolling one around the other at the right momentum, so that the dough doesn't fall. It will take probably 5-10 minutes of kneading this way before you reach the right level of stretchiness. At that point, you can spend another 10 minutes scraping the dough off your hands with a spatula, collecting it all into a large bowl.
• Let it rest for about an hour or so, then give it a stretch & fold and put it in the fridge to let it rest for another 12 hours.  

• Pull the dough out of the fridge, and let it rest at ambient temperature and raise until it double its original size. Pull it out of the bowl onto a floured surface and flatten it with a rolling pin into a round shape. If it's too nervous, let it rest for 10 minutes and then stretch it again.
• Dry the anchovies from the olive oil, using some kitchen paper to absorb it. Alternatively, if the anchovies were preserved in salt, wash them first from the excess salt and then dry them with kitchen paper. Arrange them onto half of the flattened dough, all parallel, in the same direction. Add a few capers here and there. Fold the other half of the dough on top of the anchovies, make it stick, and then flatten the dough again into the final, desired shape.
• Using a pizza cutter, make incisions on the flat dough, cutting across the anchovies or sun dried tomatoes. Finally, stretch the dough to enhance the incisions, sprinkle some semolina flour on top, cover with a cloth and let it raise for an hour.
• Now the dough is ready for baking. I like to have my fougasse with a nice golden crust, so I suggest that you spread a thin layer of extra virgin olive oil on top of it using a very soft brush (I bought mine at Sia Huat). Sprinkle again with some semolina, some crushed peppercorns, and some salt flakes. I used Murray river salt flakes, which you can buy from some Cold Storage branches.
• Bake the bread in a fully heated oven at 230C for about 20 minutes. It is imperative that the dough is placed on a hot tray or preferably on a hot baking stone. Transferring this onto the hot surface is not easy due to its stickiness. I use a pizza peel, but alternatively you can put yours onto some floured baking paper and then slide it directly onto the surface.
• Spray some water into the oven just before inserting the dough, directly on the sides, and repeat the operation a few seconds after the baking starts.
• Once the crust is nice and golden, the bread is ready. Remove it from the oven, and let it rest on a grill (don't put it in direct contact with a solid surface, to prevent the steam from making the crust soggy. 

Optionally, you might want to brush additional extra virgin olive oil while the bread is cooling. You must refrain from cutting and eating the bread while still hot, since its fragrance greatly improves 30 minutes to an hour after baking.
It is indeed a lot of work, but the result is incredibly rewarding!

Focaccia Genovese revisited

Last week I posted a recipe to make Focaccia Genovese, and this week I made it again with the intent to try a different, much stronger type of flour given to me by a friend. The stronger flour made the kneading process tougher, as the dough was even stickier and harder to manage.



This time I made two trays of it, one with mini plum tomatoes and Rosemary, and the other one with red onions and Rosemary. I blanched and peeled the cherry tomatoes, then oven dried them for an hour or so to enhance the flavour.



I cooked the plum tomatoes focaccia at a slightly higher temperature than usual (245C), which resulted in a thicker, crispier surface. An interesting result, although next time I will stick to 230C and I will wet the oven dried tomatoes to prevent them from slight burns.


The color contrast of red onions looks beautiful on bread both before and after baking. While red onions look better than white ones, their sweetness doesn't particularly suit this type of bread. I will go back to regular white onions going forward, since they have a more distinct onion taste.


I could without a doubt tell the difference between the two flours (Prima bread flour and my friend's strong Italian flour). I personally prefer the strong flour, which resulted in a more airy and spongy dough, with bigger bubbles through the section. Unfortunately I am not sure where you can source strong flour in Singapore, but a visit at the more exotic culinary shops might be worthwile.

Focaccia Genovese

Focaccia Genovese is my favourite type of Italian bread: flavourful, soft and crispy. Note that this focaccia is about 2 cm high (it's not the very thick type), and must be crispy on top. Unfortunately, it's one type of bread that must be eaten freshly baked, straight out of the oven, and you can't buy the original "Genovese" here in Singapore. For this reason, I decided to make it myself, and after a bit of research I got to this wonderful recipe by an Italian guy whose grandfather used to own a bakery in Genova: http://vivalafocaccia.com/2009/09/21/la-video-ricetta/

His recipe exceeded expectations, so I will include it here in English since his website and video are both in Italian.

Making focaccia Genovese is a bit involving, since it requires the dough to raise 4 times and you MUST stick to the given timings, so you must be around it and you can't "leave and forget it". On the other hand, the result is amazing and well worth a try!

The ingredients are:
• 200 ml water at room temperature (30C)
• 20 g extra virgin olive oil
• 7 g salt
• 3 g (1 teaspoon) of Malt (or alternatively honey or sugar)
• 340 g of bread flour (I use Prima bread flour)
• 7-8g dry yeast

Put the water, the malt, olive oil, salt and half of the flour into a large bowl. Kneed it well until homogeneous. Completely dissolve the yeast into a bit of water (temperature @ 30C), then pour it into the dough, and kneed until fully incorporated. Then proceed with the rest of the flour and kneed until the dough is smooth and not excessively sticky. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes at room temperature (about 30C).

Fold the dough twice by slightly stretching it and then folding the two sides into the middle, once in each direction, first horizontally, then vertically. This is to strengthen it. You should end up with the dough shaped more or less rectangular as your oven tray (although smaller in size)
Pour some olive oil into an oven tray, place the dough onto it, oil it and change side so that both sides are well covered in oil (with the help of your fingers you can brush the oil all around it). Let the dough rest for 40-60 minutes, and it should have doubled in size by then.

Press the dough with your hands onto the tray, flattening it until it covers the whole tray. You should try not to stretch it in order to maintain a regular thickness throughout. You might find that it's quite elastic and that it needs a little bit of work to stabilise and cover the entire tray. Sprinkle abundant salt on top to give flavour to the focaccia and also to prevent the formation of a dried crust. Let the dough rest a 3rd time, for about 30 minutes.

Now it's time to make the classic depressions into the focaccia. Cover the dough with a few tablespoons of tepid water and some olive oil, then with your palms, massage the liquid on top of the dough to mix it and spread it uniformly. Now, with your fingers push into the dough with energy top to bottom, forming depressions as in the picture above. The oil and water should sink into the depressions, forming softer areas that will create the interesting different textures that are typical of focaccia Genovese.


At this point you can top your focaccia with your favourite toppings, such as cherry tomatoes, olives, rosemary or onions. In my recipe, I used sliced onions and rosemary. I would make the onion slices about 3-4mm thick to prevent them from burning.

Let the focaccia raise a 4th time, for about 60-75 minutes. Now it's finally ready for cooking. Put the tray into the oven at about 220-240C for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven, lift from the tray and let it slide onto a grate, or any surface that will let the focaccia breathe underneath. This is because if you keep it in close contact with the tray, the steam from underneath will make the base soggy instead of evaporating.

Let the focaccia rest for a couple of minutes, brush with some olive oil on top, slice and serve while still warm. The crust should be salty and crispy, while the inside must be soft and porous.