Peter Reinhart's Pain a l'Ancienne: A Mere Babe in The Bread Kitchen

My finished Pain a l'Ancienne looked amazing straight from the oven and smelled heavenly. My crust on this bread was surprisingly chewy, much like the traditional ciabatta, but this bread had a more nutty flavor, a moister crumb--perfect bread for paninis.

When I cut this loaf in half, I noticed the crumb inside did appear tighter than the crumb from my first ciabatta loaf. However, upon closer inspection, I was surprised to learn that I'd captured a great deal more air than I thought as shown in the photo below.

The slice here shows the air bubbles a bit better. The crust was amazing!

This is my dough the night I had mixed the ingredients together with the ice cold water. You can see from this photo how wet the dough is. I transferred it to another bowl for the night.

After a night in the fridge--this is how the dough looked. It had expanded to about a third of its original size.

Take a closer look at the dough and how much it had  risen after sitting at room temperature for about three hours. Quite a difference from the photo above. But again, not a lot of work in handling time here.

The dough is so wet that I only folded it once in thirds--vs. stretching and pulling as you would normally do for a traditional ciabatta. It was too airy and too lovely, I didn't want to push much air from it. After my first tri-fold, I then used my pastry cutter and divided it into three loaves. I then carefully moved the loaves to an inverted cookie sheet covered in parchment paper and dusted with flour for an additional hour before baking. Again, little-to-no manipulation of this dough in its final proofing stages.

Yesterday, I let myself tank. I just became sad. I knew I'd hit this low mark at some point. I had been waiting for this like I wait for tornadoes in Spring (dread, holding of breath and hunkering down). Don't worry, I kicked the blues out this morning. I am not going to let anything keep me down. I have to get up, go for a jog (after my noon IV antibiotics run their course), touch up my roots--god love my blonde hair (and gray, too)--I am: Desperately Seeking Clairol! Lucky for me I had prepared a fermentation for some bread the night before. I felt the need for dough and a good fresh loaf of bread--Peter Reinhart to the rescue.


Speaking of Peter. The other night, I caught up with a very dear friend--like over twenty years we've known each other. The sort of friend that I will never, ever part with. I introduced her to her husband. (She is eternally linked to my soul.) Well, her hubby is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy. He was an inspiration for many of my early cooking exploits--before my vegan ways. Anyhow, after graduation he did some serious chef stuff--like opening his own place, then going on to another eatery, then another--until finally he just burnt out. But, in terms of chef-know-how, he is the tops and about as close as I'll ever be to having the real deal in my life. He's always been willing to answer my questions. But I try not to speak food with him all the time--it's like having a doctor in the family--Does your bursitis really need analyzing right now? Anyway, he knows about the blog and stuff and finally we got to talking about VT and how it was going? Said he'd read about the "incident" and was so sorry. Then, we turned to the important stuff: all things cooking. Now, I was happy! I said bread baking was my latest endeavor. I said I am no good in math, but was pretty high in verbal, so am carefully walking myself through Peter Reinhart's bread books. He stopped me. Did you say Peter Reinhart? Yes, I said. How do you know Peter Reinhart? Well, J, I don't know him per se, I have a few of his cookbooks is all--he is like, a bread god in the the yeast world. Kelly, I know Peter Reinhart, he was my instructor at CCA. . . I learned to bake bread from him. WHAT? This is probably not registering for some of you--this whole star struck moment I was experiencing over a bread cookbook author. J laughed at me. I was like, seriously, he taught you bread baking? I had to be nosy: What's he like, did you like him, was he nice, do you keep in touch, blah, blah, blah. I then shared my last bread catastrophe--my multigrain struan--how it could have been used as a door stop, how I tried to manipulate the multigrain portion by adding teff flour and amarnth flour vs. adding the grains themselves. (Well, I didn't happen to have the wholegrains lying around--I had Bob's Red Mill instead!) Then, here comes the lecture part (I was waiting as J likes to set things straight)--Kelly, bread baking--it's all ratios, darling, pretty simple really. Oh, is it now?! And thus, we talked more bread stuff and it was a fabulous distraction.

So Tuesday evening I pulled Peter down from the wall of cookbooks and thumbed through the Bread Baker's Apprentice for my next dough experience. I thought I'd go for something requiring a little less kneading. (I am only allowed to lift ten pounds of weight with my IV--kneading might be pushing it). I landed on Pain a l'Ancienne (the link here takes you to the recipe)--however you pronounce this. This bread takes an entirely different tack in terms of its fermentation. It ferments on a cold cycle. Meaning, and I will only speak in layman's terms here: The entire dough recipe (yeast and all) is mixed with ice cold water, then placed in the fridge over night. It is a very wet dough. The next day, you simply remove the dough from the fridge, bring it to room temp for about two hours. The dough will again, double in size. This second day allows the yeast to "wake up" as Peter describes--thereby allowing the yeast to begin feeding on sugars that were not there the day before during its cold process. According to Peter, this cold fermentation method evokes a full flavor from the wheat beyond any he's ever encounered. He likened the experimentation with this process to ancient folks standing on the edge of the unexplored world stating: Unknown Kingdoms Be Here. I loved that quote. Peter can write.

I took this recipe and turned it into a ciabatta--Peter said it would be fine to do so. The wetter dough lends itself to many other interpretations and bread outcomes, a baguette, pugliese, stirato or pizza and focaccia, for instance. (I know you think I know what all of those bread words mean, but I don't--my only claim can be for the pizza and focaccia--I'm still a babe in the bread kitchen). But in this house, anything that can become a sandwich bread works well. Thus the ciabatta form. I mixed my dough competely by hand. I like the old fashioned approach to bread making. Plus, my ex-chef friend J said, you have to keep working with the dough, Kelly, then you will know simply by feel what goes in and how much is needed to make it perfect. I agree--the more I experiment, the greater my confidence. 

We had paninis last night. They rocked. I made a side of potato fries to go with them. I was so out of it, I forgot to take a photo of the sammiches. Maybe next time. For now, I have my step-by-step photos of me and Pain a l'Ancienne!