New Book

I got a new book for Christmas. Its great because all of the books that I got were ones on my short list. One of the books I got is The Bread Bible. I decided to bake the bread that is on the cover. It goes well with the other food that we had last night. I have been on a huge Italian kick lately.

Pugliese

This bread takes a while to make. You need to start it early in the morning if you want it for dinner.

Starter dough -
1/2 cup flour (75 grams)
1/2 package rapid rise yeast
1/4 cup water

Combine ingredients and let rise, covered at least 6 hours.

The real dough -

1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour (71 grams)
1/2 cup durum flour (71 grams)
1/2 package instant yeast
3/4 t salt
1/2 cup water
starter dough from above

Combine ingredients for real dough and kneed in the mixer until it looks good. There are some very specific instructions in the book now that I followed but I am not sure they made a difference. I will leave them out. Instead, let the dough rise 2 hours, covered or until double in size. Shape it into a ball and put it into a collander or banneton. Cover and let rise until double in size. Preheat oven to 500. Bake according to the directions I gave for baguettes.



You might wonder how I got that nice circular pattern in the flour on top of the loaf. I have a special dough proofing bowl that I got from King Arthur Flour. I think they are having a sale right now, and if you bake a lot of bread, it might be worth it to get one of them. You can head over to King Arthur Flour and search for item number 4399 - Dough rising basket, round.