french bread boule

Year of Bread: French Bread

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Last January, I started my 2015 bread baking challenge with an attempt at one of the most basic recipes in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: classic French bread. French bread is practically ubiquitous in Western restaurants and households. It’s one of the most standard, basic accompaniment to practically any dish.  It’s the wheat-eating world’s answer to a bowl of white rice. But basic doesn’t mean easy, and out of all the recipes that I’ve tried my hand at this year, this recipe one is the one wherein success seems to evade me the most. But it’s just flour, salt, yeast and water. How hard could it be?

So much of the reason why good French bread is so well-regarded is that it’s not the ingredients that make it good. Of course using higher quality of flour or filtered water might make a bit of a difference when it comes to flavor and texture, but in my baking experience, 90% of what separates a good loaf of French bread from a bad one is execution.

french bread cross section

Air is an Ingredient!

This sounds silly, but what makes leavened bread what it is is an airy, porous texture. Baking bread is an interesting practice in capturing empty space– bakers coax dough to rise with just the right amount of yeast and heat, and a measure of agitation to provide a gluten structure that can withstand a bit of stretchings. They wait until the dough has reached just the right amount of loftiness — and not too long, so it won’t collapse– and then bake it to solidify those glutinous structures like the vaulted arches of a Gothic cathedral in tiny, edible miniature. Is bread really a micromonument of the human drive to build? Maybe that’s just me waxing poetic about gluten.

Learning to “Feel” the Bread

Tactile things are really hard to learn from a book. Learning to use cues like the windowpane test and taking the temperature of the dough periodically help give quantifiable benchmarks to gauge how long to knead the dough. But a big part of it is just learning what “done” feels like at different stages. Ultimately, you just have to get comfortable with different textures and consistencies, and understand that every recipe (in fact, every batch) will probably end up having its own quirks and eccentricities.

french bread pate fermentee

Timing is Important

Yeast waits for no baker, so it’s important to let it have its way and accommodate the whims of the dough. It can be easy to get excited or impatient and try to rush the process, but ultimately the dough will rise at the rate it rises. For a complex rising schedule, I like to go backwards from the time I want the bread to be done and figure out when to start each stage. As much as patience is key for a good rise, being quick and confident when it comes to shaping and slicing loaves and transferring them to the oven is also important.

french bread slice

I haven’t tweaked Reinhart’s recipe for French bread much at all, apart from shaping it into boules (round loaves) rather than the suggested baguettes. As you can see above, I got a nice, crusty exterior this time around, and a passably “holey” crumb. This is an extremely lean bread (no fat at all in the dough), so it’s best consumed within a day of baking. Fortunately, it’s great by itself, with a smear of butter or for sopping up pasta sauce, so it isn’t hard to eat it quickly.

Peter Reinhart’s French Bread Recipe

Taken from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Yields 3 small baguettes, 2 medium round loaves, or an indeterminate number of other shapes.

Ingredients

Pâte Fermentée:

  • 5 ounces bread flour
  • 5 ounces AP flour
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp instant yeast
  • 3/4 cup water, room temperature

French Bread:

  • 16 ounces pâte fermentée (see above)
  • 5 ounces bread flour
  • 5 ounces AP flour
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp instant yeast
  • 3/4 cup water, lukewarm (90-100°F)
  1. To make pâte fermentée: The night before or up to 3 days before you want to make the dough, mix flour, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Add water and mix until ingredients form a ball. Add a few tablespoons more water if necessary; erring on the wetter side as it’s easier to firm up a dough than it is to add water once you start kneading. Turn dough out onto a floured counter and knead for 5-6 minutes, adding flour as necessary. The dough should be pliable and feel tacky, but not sticky.
  2. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover, then let sit at room temperature for about an hour. The dough should swell significantly but won’t quite double. Knead dough lightly to degas, then re-cover and place in refrigerator until ready to make French Bread dough.
  3. To make french bread dough: Remove pâte from the refrigerator at least an hour before to dechill; cutting it up into 8 or so pieces helps speed this process. Mix flour, salt, yeast in a bowl, then add pâte fermentée pieces. Begin to knead the pâte fermentée pieces into the flour (it won’t work well), then add water and continue mixing until the dough comes together. Add extra water if necessary.
  4. Turn dough out onto a floured counter and knead for about 10 minutes. The pâte fermentée pieces should be entirely incorporated with the “new” dough. The dough should pass the windowpane test and register about 77-81°F.
  5. Shape the dough into a smooth ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise for 2 hours, or until the dough has doubled in bulk.
  6. Shaping the loaves: Turn the proofed dough onto a floured counter. Being careful to degas the dough as little as possible, use a pastry cutter or sharp knife to divide the dough into two or three pieces, depending on how many loaves you are making. I simply made round boules — check out the man himself, Peter Reinhart, shaping loaves on YouTube for a more in-depth tutorial.
  7. Let the loaves rest for at least 45 minutes, or until 1.5x starting size.
  8. Baking the loaves: Preheat oven to 500°F. If you’re using a baking stone (I use one by Old Stone Oven and I love it, but they’re entirely necessary), place the stone on the center rack before you turn the oven on. Place a metal or cast iron (not glass) pan in the bottom of the oven now, regardless of whether you’re using a stone or not; this will be your steam pan. A few minutes before you’re ready to bake the bread, heat up about half a cup of water — it doesn’t have to be boiling, but very hot is best.
  9. If using the baking stone, liberally dust a cutting board or pizza peel with semolina flour or cornmeal. Carefully transfer one of the loaves to the peel, then slide it into the preheated oven. Repeat for remaining loaves, then pour the hot half cup of water into the steam pan and shut the oven. After 30 seconds, open the door and mist the walls of the oven with water (or sprinkle some in with your hand). Repeat twice more, then turn the oven down to 450°F. If the whole misting process is too much fuss for you, you can skip it. It makes a difference in the crust’s texture, but it won’t ruin the bread if you don’t do it.
  10. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the loaves 180° for even baking. Bake for another 10-15 minutes, then remove and place loaves on a cooling rack. The finished loaves should be golden brown and will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
  11. Let rest for at least an hour before slicing and consuming.

 

Year of Bread: Garlic Herb Focaccia

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Focaccia is the fun cousin of ciabatta; it has a wet, long-fermenting dough that bakes up to a light, somewhat flat but very bubbly bread — plus a healthy dose of herb-infused olive oil. It doesn’t look neat and tidy, but bakes into a landscape of olive-oil filled valleys and air bubble peaks. Flavor-wise, focaccia plays second fiddle to no one. It’s great for dipping in oils and sauces, but it’s baked with so much rich olive oil flavor that it holds its own as well. Olive oil plays a huge part in making this focaccia recipe great. A healthy coating pools in the divots on the top side of the bread, and runs down the sides and sizzles underneath during baking for a thick, crispy bottom crust. If you’re looking for a great base for a deep dish pizza crust, this might be the perfect recipe.

focaccia2

A Slow Fermentation Masterpiece

This focaccia feels like the epitome of Reinhart’s slow fermentation baking philosophy. Be forewarned that a significant amount of proofing time is required on both days of the bread’s preparation.When all is accounted for, it requires a bit over 5 hours of room temperature proofing and a long night in the refrigerator. The time it takes for the dough to reach bubbly perfection is worth it, however; the final product has a fantastically complex taste and really lets the flavor of the yeast stand out. Much like ciabatta, a very wet poolish-style starter is the foundation of this loaf. In this case, the poolish is all that’s used, as no other ingredients are added on day 2.

Any number of toppings can be used to dress up this loaf, but I used a simple olive oil infused with herbs and garlic. I found that an extra sprinkling of salt over the top of the focaccia after baking immensely improved the overall balance of the flavor. I had a really hard time leaving the fresh, warm slices alone long enough to take photos.

focaccia1

Focaccia with Basil Garlic Oil

Yields one very large focaccia loaf. Slightly adapted from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. 

Focaccia Ingredients

  • 5 cups (22.5 oz) bread flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp instant yeast
  • 6 T olive oil
  • 2 cups water, room temp
  • Extra olive oil for drizzling

Herb Oil Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup olive oil (doesn’t have to be extra virgin)
  • 1 large garlic clove, smashed
  • 2 T fresh basil leaves
  • 1 tsp fresh marjoram
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme
  • A few pinches each of salt and pepper

Note: Any combination of fresh herbs will do for this, depending on your flavor preference.

Instructions

  1. Preparing the Dough: The day before you want to bake the focaccia, assemble the dough. Stir together the flour, salt, and yeast in a large mixing bowl, then add the water and olive oil. Stir with a wooden spoon (or your hand) until the dough comes together. continue mixing or kneading for about 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and loose, but not too sticky. It will stick to the bottom of the bowl, but should clear the sides as you mix.
  2. Sprinkle flour on a counter to make an 8×8-inch bed for the dough. Transfer the dough into the bed and dust liberally with flour, patting (as best you can– the dough will be very loose and uncooperative) into a rectangle. Wait 5 minutes for the dough to rest.
  3. Pulling the dough from either side, gently stretch it to about twice its length, then fold it over itself into thirds, as if you were folding a piece of paper to put in an envelope. Mist with spray oil and dust with flour, then cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.
  4. After 30 minutes, repeat process. Let sit again for 30 minutes.
  5. After the second 30 minute period, repeat the stretching one last time and then let sit for an hour. It won’t rise, but it will swell and spread significantly (Just to recap, that’s 3 “stretches” total).focaccia poolish
  6. Proceed with shaping; line a baking sheet with parchment, then drizzle some olive oil over the parchment. spread it around with a spatula (or your fingers) so that most of the parchment is covered. Shape the dough into a rough rectangle, spray lightly with oil, and cover with plastic wrap.
  7. Refrigerate overnight.
  8. Making the Herb Oil: You can do this the night you make the dough, or right before you prepare the dough for its final proofing. Heat the olive oil to about 100°F in a small saucepan, and stir in chopped herbs and garlic clove. Keep over low heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then remove the garlic clove and discard (if you prefer, mince the garlic before adding it to the oil and leave it in. You can double the recipe if you wish, and keep the extra oil in the refrigerator.herb oil
  9. Baking the Focaccia: The next day, remove the dough from the fridge 3 hours before you’re ready to bake. Right after removing the pan from the fridge, drizzle half the herb oil over the bread, then press down with your fingers to create dimples. It’s important not to depress the entire loaf; you want to retain some of those air bubbles to get the desired texture (see below). Drizzle the rest of the herb oil over the bread, before re-covering (loosely) with plastic wrap. Let rise for 3 hours at room temperature.focaccia dough
  10. About 20-30 minutes before you want to bake the loaf, preheat the oven to 500°F.
  11. When you’re ready to bake, uncover the bread carefully. It will probably spread to cover most of the pan, but don’t worry if it doesn’t. Place the pan in the oven and turn the heat down to 450°F. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate pan 180° and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown (I baked mine for about 7 minutes after turning).

Year of Bread: Cranberry Walnut Bread

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cranberry bread ingredientsWhile I love a good piece of whole grain toast slathered with peanut butter for breakfast, there’s something to be said for stuffing your toast full of flavor before you bake it. It makes for a much easier get-out-the-door-fast kind of breakfast (or snack) that way.

the cranberry bread doughThe Dough

Here’s the thing: I dig a good, flavorful filling for bread, oftentimes they end up being very fussy during the kneading stage. By itself, this is a perfectly nice dough. It’s lightly orangey and slightly sweet, and it’s easy to handle. Without any additions at all it would make a great little twist on your average white toast bread.

But to get a good flavor dispersion, you really have to jam in a ton of cranberries and walnuts. These tend to ruin the smooth consistency of the dough, and can be hard to incorporate evenly. Chunky add-ins can make it hard to form a good crust, and just serve as an obstacle to keeping the dough in one piece until they’re set during baking.

cranberries and the dough

The Braid

The other slightly annoying thing about this bread is Reinhart’s suggested shaping — the dramatic double braid. It’s one braid on top of the other. My first braid looked great — tight and uniform, tucked together neatly. The second, smaller braid refused to stay perched atop the big braid during the final rise, opting instead to slowly unravel and slide down the side, and forcing me to continually reposition it, trying very carefully not to deflate it. Argh.

Luckily, the final effect looked a bit more rustic and freeform than I anticipated, but still appetizing. If I make this bread again, I’ll probably stick to a single braid, or use a loaf pan, eliminating the stress of shaping and braiding altogether.

braided cranberry loaf

Mixing It Up…Next Time

But you know what I really want to try with this recipe? Incorporating the flavorings into the cornbread recipe from last week’s post, getting it even closer to being a Thanksgiving flavor menagerie. Would topping that with french fried onions be taking it too far?

This cranberry walnut bread comes together relatively quickly, and stays pretty soft and tasty for a few days. Make one on Sunday night for a Monday morning toast that’ll make your weekday breakfast a little more flavorful.

finished cranberry walnut bread

Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread

Adapted (very slightly) from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Yields 1 large braided loaf.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 3 1/2 tsp instant yeast
  • 1 1/2 orange or lemon zest
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 1/2 cup milk + 1/2 tablespoon vinegar, room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup water, room temperature
  • 1 cup sweetened, dried cranberries
  • 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
  • 1 egg, whisked until frothy, for egg wash

Cranbery Walnut Bread Instructions

  1. Stir together flour, sugar, salt, yeast and zest in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk and butter. Stir, slowly adding water to make a soft, pliable dough.
  2. Transfer dough to a floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough should smooth and soft. Add water or flour as needed to adjust consistency. Add cranberries and knead for another 2 minutes, then add walnuts and gently knead in until evenly distributed.
    1. A method that works well for me when it comes to incorporating large chunks of ingredients such as cranberries is to start by flattening the dough out into a rough rectangle. Place a scoop of cranberries to one side of the dough, and fold the other side over. Flatten and fold a few more times, then repeat with the rest of the cranberries.
  3. Transfer to an oiled bowl and cover in plastic wrap. Let rise for 1.5-2 hours, or until dough doubles in size.
  4. Transfer to a counter and deflate slightly. Either transfer to a greased loaf pan or divide into 3 pieces and braid. Place pan or loaf on a sheet pan and brush with half of the egg wash.
  5. Proof uncovered at room temperature for about 90 minutes, or until dough nearly doubles. Brush the loaf a second time with the rest of the egg wash. Preheat the oven to 325F when you’ve got about 30 minutes left to rise.
  6. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, then rotate pan and continue baking for another 25-30 minutes. The loaf should be a deep golden brown and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
  7. Remove the cranberry walnut bread from the pan and transfer it to a cooling rack. Allow the loaf to cool for at least an hour before slicing and serving.

Year of Bread: Bacon Cornbread

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bacon cornbread sliceIf you love bacon, this bacon cornbread is your new best friend. Because — bacon! It’s arguably an ingredient that can do no wrong in the culinary pop culture. Bacon-wrapped scallops, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, bacon burgers, bacon ice cream (that one might have been a misstep)– is there no food frontier that bacon hasn’t paid a visit? In any case, this cornbread does not skimp on bacon whatsoever. Let me tell you how it goes down:

  1. Fry bacon in a skillet, reserve rendered bacon fat.
  2.  While batter is in progress, heat a healthy (haha) dose of fat in a cake pan in the oven.
  3. Pour batter over the sizzling hot bacon grease into the cake pan.
  4. You didn’t think it would end there, did you? As soon as the batter fills the pan, the bacon fat begins oozing up the sides of the pan, pooling along the edge of the batter, baking into a slightly crispy, bacony crust.
  5. Sprinkle crumbled bacon on top of batter, because any attempt at salvaging the nutritional quality of this particular cornbread died when you poured the batter directly into a pool of crackling hot bacon fat.

Reinhart’s bacon cornbread rivals his brioche recipe in terms of unrestrained, fully saturated decadence among the recipes in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  I would absolutely recommend this recipe to anyone tasked with bringing cornbread to a potluck or BBQ, as a way to make everyone involved hate and love you simultaneously. Even without the bacon the cornbread itself is a solid dish– dense, rich, and buttery. Realistically, this is not a bread recipe, but rather a savory sort of dessert in the brownie family. You could probably serve it for dessert with a scoop of vanilla and no one would question your decision. In the future, for non-special occasions, I’d probably reduce to just a crumble of bacon on top, and decrease the sugar and butter content overall.

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Insanely Bacon Cornbread Recipe

Yield 1 (thick) 10-inch round loaf of bacon cornbread. Based on original recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup coarse cornmeal
  • 2 cups buttermilk (or 2 cups milk – 2 T, + 2 T vinegar)
  • 8 ounces of bacon
  • 1 3/4 cups (8oz) AP flour
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels
  • 2 Tbsp bacon fat or vegetable oil

Procedure

  1. The night before (or in the morning, if you’re baking for dinner), soak the cornmeal in the buttermilk. Cover and leave at room temperature for at least 6 hours.
  2. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. Fry the bacon until crisp, then remove to a plate lined with a paper towel to cool. Reserve the fat if you are using it to grease the bread pan! Or just reserve it for other things. Fry your turkey burgers in bacon fat to make them more delicious.
  3. Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugars) in a mixing bowl.
  4. In a separate bowl, dissolve the honey in the melted butter, then beat in the eggs one at a time (make sure the melted butter isn’t TOO hot at this point, or you’ll cook them. Add the cornmeal-buttermilk mixture.
  5. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a large spoon until batter is smooth and well-blended. Stir in the corn kernels until evenly distributed (You could also stir in some crumbled bacon at this point, if you’d like to skip the bacon topping).
  6. Place 2 Tbsp of rendered bacon fat in a 10-in round cake pan (or 9×13 baking pan), and place the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove very carefully and roll the pan around a bit to make sure that the fat covers the pan and gets into any corners. If you’re not down for the bacon fat-puddle that is about to happen, skip this step and grease the pan with butter, vegetable oil, or a very thin layer of bacon fat, applied with a paper towel or pastry brush.
  7. Sprinkle crumbled bacon pieces on the top.
  8. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow bread to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing it into squares, wedges, or just eating it straight from the pan. bacon cornbread in pan

Year of Bread: Ciabatta

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ciabatta - folded

Looks like it’s time to get back to multi-day recipes again! Ciabatta has long been a favorite of mine — it’s tender and floury and makes a solid canvas for all sorts of dipping, topping, and filling combos. Reinhart gives several suggestions for flavoring the dough, I decided to make one plain ciabatta and one mushroom ciabatta. I like this recipe so much that I’m included an abbreviated version of Peter Reinhart’s original recipe — for more notes and variations, I absolutely recommend checking out his books!

The Process

Ciabatta dough is quite loose and wet compared to many bread doughs, and it seems to take a delicate touch to keep it from falling apart or losing its shape as it comes together. While most recipes I’ve tried thus far don’t have the bread takes shape or come out of the mixing bowl until the last stages, this one comes out almost immediately and gets squished into a rough rectangle and stretched repeatedly.

ciabatta doughsA huge amount of flour goes into the stretching and shaping process of this floppy dough. This shouldn’t come as a surprise — even store-bought ciabatta is usually dusted with a healthy coating of flour. Some of the mushrooms are incorporated with the other ingredients, but the majority are folded into the “completed” dough during the folding process.

mushroom ciabatta

Baking

Ciabatta is baked on the baking stone (or a preheated cookie sheet), slid from a cutting board or pizza peel directly into the oven. From terrible past experiences, the best tip I know for doing this is to liberally coat the cutting board under the bread with semolina flour or cornmeal — otherwise your dough will not transfer smoothly into the oven, losing precious heat and probably misshaping your poor loaf.

I was successful this time though, and my loaves baked up beautifully in about 15 minutes. The indentations in the plain loaf were a result of my failing to stretch the dough immediately before sliding it into the oven, and attempting to rectify the situation slightly afterwards. Oops.

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Results

The bread was delicious — it was moist and tender, with a soft wheaty taste. The mushroom version was especially moist and flavorful, although I might want to play with the mushrooms types a bit in the future.

The crumb wasn’t quite right, however. A trademark of good ciabatta is the presence nice big holes in the crumb, and mine was pretty tight and uniform. The loaves turned out tasty enough that I don’t mind the texture “issue,” but I did have the chance to make the same recipe again over the weekend. This time I kept the dough much wetter, and while the sticky dough was a little more difficult to handle, the texture of the crumb was much better. All goes to show that practice does make perfect!

ciabatta crumb

Peter Reinhart’s Mushroom Ciabatta Recipe

Makes two 1-pound loaves

  • 3.25 cups (22.75 oz) poolish* (must prepare the day before!)
  • 3 cups (13.5 oz) unbleached bread flour
  • 1 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/5 tsp instant yeast
  • 6 tablespoons water
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 5 dried porcini mushrooms, broken into pieces
  • 6 tablespoons warm water
  • 1 pound fresh button or shiitake mushrooms (I used shiitake)
  • 4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
  • Salt and pepper

*How to Make a Poolish: The day before you bake your bread, mix 11.25 ounces bread flour, 12 oz water and 1/4 tsp instant yeast until flour is fully hydrated. Let sit at room temperature for 3-4 hours until the mixture is nice and bubbly, then immediately refrigerate until the next day.

  1. Remove the poolish from the refrigerator for at least an hour to bring it to room temp. While the poolish is warming up, prep the mushrooms.
    1. Soak the dried mushrooms in the warm water for at least 30 minutes. Drain and set aside.
    2. Sautee the fresh mushrooms and garlic with 1/4 cup olive oil until soft. Strain off pan juices and add to dried mushrooms. Salt and pepper rest of the mushrooms to taste.
  2. Mix flour, salt and yeast together in a large bowl. Add poolish, water and 1/4 cup olive oil and mix until the ingredients form a sticky ball. Add dried mushrooms and pan juices. If you’re mixing by hand, go ahead and get your hands dirty for this one — dip you hand in a bowl of water and use it to knead the dough in the bowl, rotating the bowl with your other hand (don’t worry if this sounds confusing, it makes more sense in action). The dough should be very sticky but have a smooth consistency, and while it will stick to the bottom of the bowl, it should clear the sides of the bowl pretty well by the time it’s done.
  3. To prepare the dough for resting, sprinkle a cookie sheet liberally with flour to make a bed  8 inches square. Scrape the dough onto the bed of flour, then use the “stretch and fold” method, incorporating half the fresh mushrooms into the dough as you fold it.
    1. Stretch and Fold:  Dust the dough liberally with flour, then pat into a rectangle. Wait 2 minutes for dough to relax, then pull the short ends of the rectangle outward until dough is about twice as long. Fold the dough into thirds, then press back into a rectangle. Mist with spray oil and dust with flour.
  4. Cover the dough and let rest (it may puff up, but probably won’t rise very much) for 30 minutes, then repeat stretch and fold movement again, incorporating the rest of the fresh mushrooms into the dough. Cover and let ferment for 1 1/2-2 hours.
  5. Set up a couche (clean, floured kitchen towel) for two loaves. Carefully divide the dough into two equal pieces and use the stretch and fold method to give the dough its final shape (a rough rectangle). Mist the dough with spray oil and dust with flour, then cover with a towel and let rise for 45-60 minutes. The dough should swell noticeably.
  6. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 500F, making sure to place an empty metal or cast iron pan on the lowest rack. If you’re using a pizza stone like I did, make sure to stick that in the oven during preheating too!
  7. When the oven and the dough are ready, carefully lift the loaves one at a time onto a pizza peel or wooden cutting board that has been very liberally dusted in semolina flour or cornmeal. As you set them down, stretch them to be 9-12 inches long. They might spring back a bit, but that’s okay.
  8. Pour a cup of hot water into the steam pan right before you close the oven. It will, as the name suggests, immediately steam up the oven. Now for the fussy part: wait 30 seconds, then open the oven and spritz or sprinkle a bit of water on the sides of the oven. Do this two more times, then close the oven and turn the temperature down to 450F.
  9. Back for 15-20 minutes, until light golden (They will register 205F inside). The loaves will be hard at first, but will soften once they cool down. Cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing and eating!