Oh. My. Holes.
Everyone remembers Chuck, right? It's been quite awhile since I've baked with him but I've been thinking a lot about him lately since he turns two at the end of the month! Can you believe it? He's mostly lived in my fridge the last 6 months or so, taken out for regular and not-so-regular feedings but he keeps on.
A couple of weeks ago, the library informed me over and over that my request of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson had come in and was waiting for me to pick it up. I didn't hurry to pick it up and when I finally made it in to pick it up I was huffily informed that it was supposed to go back that day. I got it just in time but my lateness did not spurn me to do anything that have it sit in a pile of books that sat in front of the fireplace because I was preoccupied with Thanksgiving and preparing to accompany Rick on a business trip to Utah. The day Tartine Bread was due back at the library I read the first little bit of it and leafed through the rest. The small bit I read was fascinating but it's a newer book and the library wouldn't let me renew it. I consoled myself that I didn't have a cast iron cooker to bake that type of bread in anyway so what was the point of reading further?
The point of reading of Tartine Bread are the holes you see above. In the beginning of the book, he describes a technique of keeping the dough extraordinarily wet--not even kneadable--and instead as the dough goes through its first rise doing a series of many folds. I usually fold 'Chuck' bread twice through the first rise to strengthen the dough but I've never started with such a wet dough that had been merely mixed and not kneaded before.
Also, in Tartine Bread, the author describes how his process as the bread ready to bake and emerging from the oven in the afternoon--just in time for dinner. This is fairly unique in the bakery world; most bakeries are pulling their loaves from the oven in the morning.
I kept the rough memory of the author's words in my mind as I worked with my dough. I wanted a dough that was ready to bake when I woke up in the morning and a bread that had lots of holes. I accomplished both thanks to the words and wisdom of Mr. Robertson. With luck, I will be able to get my hands on a copy of Tartine Bread again and a cast iron cooker and I can attempt his recipes instead of loosely using his techniques with my own.
