Misc. Recipes From Crust & Crumb by cowgirl

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Misc. Recipes From Crust & Crumb
Submitted by cowgirl on October 09, 2002 at 8:49 pm

DESCRIPTION
Misc. Recipes from Crust & Crumb

SUMMARY
Yield 0 File under sourdough

INSTRUCTIONS
Universal Rustic Bread from Peter Reinhardt’s Crust & Crumb

4 cups ( 480 grams) Biga
3-1/2 cups (480 grams) bread flour
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. instant yeast
½ cup any milk (buttermilk, skim-milk, or water)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup cool water

Mix on slow for 1 minute, turn to medium for about 8 minutes. You may have to stop and scrape the bowl. The dough will be batterlike and very sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for about 4 hours until it swells visibly.
The dough will have stiffened somewhat. Scrape it onto a floured board, flour your hands and roll it a little in the flour to coat it.
Divide it into 3 equal pieces, roll each one into a loose ball, cover it with flour (with a little flour!), then with a plastic bag and let it rise for an hour.
Prepare 3 sheetpans, line with parchment.
Gently stretch each piece into a rectangle, 8 to 12 inches long.
Don’t squeeze too hard, you don’t want to de-gas the dough. Transfer the pieces to the pans.
Dip your hands in cold water and dimple the pieces gently to break up air pockets. Place the pans in plastic bags, let rise about 2 hours until they double (at least) in size.
Heat oven to 250° (500°) 30 minutes before baking, place empty steam pan in oven bottom.
Place one pan in the oven, pour two cups of water into the steam pan, spritz oven. After 2 minutes spritz again.
After 5 minutes, lower heat to 215° (425°).
Bake bread for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Let bread in the turned-off oven for an additional 10 minutes, until it seems to overbrown. Let cool on a rack.

San Francisco Sourdough from Peter Reinhardt’s Crust & Crumb

This is the one bread I would take with me on that desert island….

25 oz. firm starter (from 2 c flour, 2 c sourdough)
810 gr bread flour (6 cups)
1 tbsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar (Peter uses only 1-1/4 tsp.)
2 cups water, cool

Mix 10-12 minutes to form dough. Let rise 4 hours, won’t swell a lot.
Punch down, divide into 3 pieces, shape.
Let rise at room temperature for about 4 hours, retard overnight (=place, covered, in refrigerator).
Take out one hour before baking, heat oven to 240° (475°F), put loaves in oven, pour in one cup hot water, spritz loaves and sides, lower heat to 225° (450°F) and bake about 30 minutes.

Bagels

this is the most awesome Bagel recipe I’ve ever made and I’ve made many because I loooove Bagels. These are how Bagels are supposed to be : chewy and close grained. I’ll try them w/o poaching soon and report how they turned out. They are from my favorite book, Crust & Crumb by Peter Reinhardt, I highly recommend that. Go, try and enjoy!

Poolish-style sponge (make one day ahead):

4 cups bread flour
4 cups water
¼ tsp. instant yeast

Combine with whisk and whisk thoroughly for one minute in large container (should hold batter once doubled). Let sit at room temperature until foamy and bubbly (3-5 hrs.), refrigerate.

Bagels:

1 cup (8oz.) poolish, set out one hour before to take off chill
½ tsp. instant yeast
½ cup lukewarm water (water needs to be lukewarm bcs the dough is very stiff and with cold
water the yeast wouldn’t dissolve properly)
3-1/2 cups bread flour
2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tbsp. honey or malt syrup

Stir yeast into water and let dissolve. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl and mix for 1 minute on slow, for 10-12 minutes on medium. You’ll feel really sorry for your machine bcs stiff doughs are hard on electric machines so you may want to finish kneading by hand.
If kneading by hand combine all ingredients (yeast dissolved) in bowl, mix till they form a ball, turn out onto kneading surface and knead about 15 minutes.
The dough should be dense and fairly dry (satiny) – this is for both machine and hand. If it’s not add a little (!) water or flour to achieve desired consistency.
I won’t describe the windowpaning method Peter uses here, but it’s coming soon, some of you will know it anyways, I guess.
Immediately cut the dough into 6 to 14 equal pieces (do yourself a favor and scale (weigh) the pieces, makes so much more uniform bagels)( I like to make 6 bagels from that recipe best bcs you have really large, like store-bought, ones).
Roll the pieces into balls as if making dinner rolls. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 5 minutes.
Line sheet pan with parchment, sprinkle with semolina or polenta (I don’t do this).
Form the bagels by poking a hole in the middle of each ball and stretching this hole gently with your fingers. Move from bagel to bagel and once you’ve finished all bagels do it again on the first one. The gluten will have relaxed and you can make the hole larger now. I have great success with widening the hole once on each bagel (hope this makes sense, if not feel free to ask me). For large bagels the hole should be about 1-1/2 inches wide.
You could also roll the dough into 6 inch ropes and connect the ends but I’ve never had success with that method.
Place shaped bagels on sheets, 2 inches apart, enclose pans in plastic bags (bagels should be sprayed with cooking spray or a tiny mist of water) and let rise for 1-1/2 hrs. or until increased in sized about 25 percent.
To test the dough drop one piece into a pan of cold water, it should float within 15 seconds. If it doesn’t let the dough rise a little longer and test again.(Return the floater to the pan with the others.)

Refrigerate the dough overnight or at least 6 hours (I don’t always do this, sometimes I let them rise 2-3 hours until a little puffy and poach and bake).

Heat oven to 475°. Line sheet with parchment and sprinkle with semolina if desired.
In a large pot bring water to a boil (the water should be 4 inches high) with a tablespoon of malt syrup or 2 tbsp. of brown sugar. This is not in the book but I find the crust gets shinier if you do so. Reduce heat until water simmers. Drop 2-4 bagels (depending on how large your pot is) in the water, don’t crowd them. After poaching one minute on one side flip to the other side and poach one more minute. Put on sheet 2 inches apart.

If you want to sprinkle them with toppings do it now, if you want them really covered press poached bagels into topping. Bake 10-12 minutes, large ones need up to 18 minutes in my oven. Cool on a rack.

Variations:
For egg bagels: replace 3 oz. of water with 2 eggs per pound of flour
For rye bagels: replace up to 1/3 of the bread flour with pumpernickel flour (I used medium rye flour which was great) and add 2 cups raisins at the end of the mixing cycle. If you have it, add 1 tbsp. of caramel coloring, looks pretty!
For chewier bagels: poach 2 additional minutes.

These freeze well!

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