Italian Bakery Bread by ancameni

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Italian Bakery Bread
Submitted by ancameni on August 14, 2010 at 1:16 pm

DESCRIPTION
About This Bread

The crust on this loaf I created has just enough crispy chewiness against a beautifully white crumb that stretches the length of the bread before the final rise for a great surface area to slather in garlic butter, freshly cracked pepper and parmeggiano/reggiano, then run under grill to lightly brown. It is an excellent sandwich bread and has no trouble being frozen.
I developed this bread entirely by accident. I had some starter that didn't look very promising and wanted to see what would happen if I added it to a bread machine recipe. I used two books to help me concoct this recipe. Tony Lacalamita's Sourdough White Bread from The All-New Ultimate Bread Machine Book, offered by KA in their catalog, and Peter Reinhart's directions for basic levain from Crust & Crumb, available from Amazon and other booksellers.
David Lee set the stage by wishing a bread machine would feature the autolyse, custom knead cycles, rise periods.
I toyed with the buttons on my last loaf and figured out that I could just start the knead process, turn off the machine, come back and start again with the kneading, then let the dough rise in the fridge before shaping for the oven. There's little of conventionality here, but this bread is so good and it is really easy to make.
Also check Pete's Version. He used his stand mixer for his version and says his family is crazy about this bread. He very graciously agreed to help me develop this bread, which I appreciate greatly.

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SUMMARY
Yield 0 Source ibbibud File under ibbibud
INGREDIENTS
Getting Started

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup starter
• 2 TBS unsalted butter
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 4 tsp sugar
• 4 cups KA French Flour
• 1/3 cup KA Italian bread improver
• 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast

• NOTES
• This makes a 2 pound loaf.
• The French flour can be ordered from the catalog or online. It has a different effect in a bread recipe and if you wish to try a different flour, that is probably okay, but I think it's a key factor in this bread. Please check out the description for French flour in the KA catalog.. The Italian bread improver is a blend of Pumpernickel flour, nonfat dry milk and potato flour for a nice moistness and superb texture. Yeast is added as the starter's role was not to leaven, but to flavor. This is a key step in a good rye bread and it makes this bread a step above the ordinary in many ways. Just make sure to watch the dough so as to not let it overproof in case the starter does kick in.

INSTRUCTIONS
Making the Dough

Place the starter in a mixing bowl. Add the water, butter and stir to blend. Pour into the bread machine. Add salt, then dry ingredients. Start machine on any setting that will allow the dough to be kneaded for 18 minutes. Dough will appear very wet and sticky. Do NOT add more flour, this is desirable.
After 18 minutes, turn the machine off. My machine has an off button that will interrupt the cycle if held down for 2 seconds. An alternative is to simply unplug the machine.
Let the dough rest 10 minutes, then start the machine up again so it will knead for another 18 minutes..it should now be nicely smooth. Then stop it again. Remove pan from machine and place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set in fridge until doubled. Carefully remove the dough from the fridge and turn out dough onto work surface that is very lightly dusted.
Now that the dough is on the board, very lightly pull the dough between your hands to elongate it, then fold the right side to the center followed by the left side. Rotate the dough so the sides are at the top, stretch again and fold. Gently poke your fingers into the folded dough just until you have filled the top with little dents. Try to avoid overworking as much as possible. This is how the very tender crumb is created.
Let the dough rest covered by a damp cloth for 5 minutes, then cut the dough into as many pieces as you'll need for your baguette pan or divide into quarters for excellent buns of the hoagy style. Shape your dough gently. I like to hold it by one end and gently stretch it by its own weight. It seems to make a fuller loaf than using the usual baguette forming methods. Let it rest when it starts resisting, gradually getting the length you need. Once it's long enough, rest it for 5 minutes, then gently press down the middle for the whole length, roll the outsides into the middle and pinch well. This gives surface tension for the baking process. When loaves are ready, place in your pan, apply a light coating of oil, cover in plastic wrap and refridgerate.

Oven Prep and Baking

As soon as the dough's taken care of, I prep the oven. I have two stones. One goes above on the top rack and the other is on the lowest rack. I put an iron skillet on the oven floor, then turn the oven up to 500 degrees. When the oven is ready, remove pan from fridge, slash 3 slightly diagonal lines into the surface and place pan on bottom stone. Pour 1 cup of water into the skillet. It should be hot as cold water or ice cubes reduce the oven temp too much.
In 2 minutes, open door and spray loaves with water, taking care not to aim at the lightbulb. Turn oven down to 450 degrees and bake 15 minutes, then rotate loaves to bake another 15 minutes. Cool on rack for an hour before slicing.

NOTE: These loaves should be chilled when going into oven. You do not need to let them sit out at all and slashing cold loaves is very easy. Be sure the slashes do not go straight into the dough but angle in a bit. These loaves will explode with a huge oven spring and the "ears" will keep the sides from blowing if they are deep enough and the proper angle.

Bud's Starter Methods

1)Start with 1 cup of bread flour, first clear or rye flour and 1/2 cup of cool water. Place in a container or bowl and mix well. Let sit out on counter, loosely covered. Next day, add another cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water. Mix well, then divide. You can freeze the starter at this point and then use it to build whenever you want. Just divide it and place each portion in a freezer bag.
2)When you want to make this Italian bread with freezer starter, get one packet out of the freezer and remove the wrapping. Let thaw at room temperature in a bowl loosely covered with a towel or plastic wrap. When it is completely thawed, you start feeding. The ratio is 1 cup flour to 1/2 cup cool water. It is not necessary to wait for bubbling activity to use this. It can also be kept in the fridge once thawed so you can make bread on your schedule, not the starter's.
3) Divide this into a 1 cup portion for the recipe and another portion to go in a plastic freezer bag. Flatten this starter until the whole bag is full and seal. This has the starter freeze very quickly, it also thaws quickly.
4)Let your one cup portion for the recipe rest on the counter until the next day. Then feed as you did the day before,divide into a 1 cup portion for your recipe and freeze the extra portion. This will provide your starter for future recipes as needed and can be a good backup if your fridge or counter starter dies. They can be kept up to 3 months in the freezer.
5)Keep in mind that you are not looking for this to be very active and that it should not be too sour. Put it in the fridge if you find yourself too busy to do bread today. It'll keep nicely[we're looking for a nice flavor that's not too strong and not a lot of activity, so the fridge will help retard growth] until you can get to it.
And that's all there is to it. With this method, it isn't necessary to maintain a starter in the fridge or on the counter and you get excellent tasting bread that will be a big hit with your family and friends without all the worry about active starter.

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