I have been making rustic french bread this winter using my own starter. I can't go in a bakery without wanting to go home and make bread like the professionals. Of course I think that the harder a recipe is the better the end product would have to be so I searched for a recipe and landed on this 3 day process that requires a starter. It is really only the 3rd day that you have to commit much time to as the other 2 days are about the starter doing all the work. So here is how I do it.
Day 1: Mix 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of tepid water with the starter. Let this set covered in a cool dry place over-night.
Day 2: Remove 1 cup of the sponge and store in a jar in the fridge. To the remaining sponge add a cup of tepid water and 2 cups of either barley, rye, whole wheat or white flour. Mix thoroughly with hands and cover to let rise in a cool dry place overnight. (I use a spoon but I should do the hands thing. I bet this is about the natural spores or something contributing to the raising!)
Day 3: Add 1.5 cups tepid water and 7 cups white flour. Knead this for at least 10 minutes before covering to raise for 2-3 hours. After first raise, punch down and divide into 3 loaves shaped anyway you like. Place these loaves on the bottom of a cookie sheet generously sprinkled with corn meal. Let this raise at least 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees with the stone in the oven from the beginning. When ready to bake, slice the loaves diagonally with a serrated knive about 1/2 an inch deep and then slide them off the back of the cookie sheet onto the stone. Bake 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to 350 degrees for 20 - 30 more minutes. I have trouble getting all 3 loaves in the oven so the 3 rd loaf usually raises longer while the other 2 are baking. When they are pretty brown I take them out. If the loaves are long french loaves it takes less time than if the loaves are round heaps.
So this is a very crusty bread. Now you can add a little salt but I don't because the recipe came from my Mediterranean cookbook and the Mediterraneans don't add the salt. It takes some getting used to after the American bread recipes but I think of it like getting use to 85% chocolate after growing up on Hershey's candy bars. I want to like this bread so I have learned to! About the sliding to the stone process... this can be nerve racking and sometimes I don't use enough cornmeal and it sticks to the back of the cookie sheet and then I push it off and I'm sure I've ruined it. I bake it anyway. After 3 days of taking care of this bread I am not going to call it a failure!
Now you need to know how to make the starter ... So the first time you make this bread you put 2 cups of very warm water in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of yeast. Add to this 2 cups of white flour and stir until mixed. Then let this set over night to rise. The next day you remove a cup of this mixture to be the starter for the next time you bake bread and follow directions for Day 2 and Day 3 above. For this batch of bread you might have slightly smaller loaves because you short yourself a little of the sponge by saving it, but in the future you will always have your starter in the fridge.
According to my book this recipe was in the New York Times in 1990 and the editor of Food & Wine magazine tried it and said it was the best bread he had ever baked. That was enough to sell me.
One thing you should know. The recipe in its NY Times version does not suggest you use white flour on the 2nd day. It just suggests the barley, rye or whole-wheat. Because it makes so much I just wanted a french bread that I could dip in oils or turn into French Toast, so I decided to use white flour and turn it into a french bread on my own. I have thought about splitting the recipe on day 2 and making 1/2 of it whole wheat or rye and the other half french but I haven't done it yet. If I ever do I will have to either make 4 small loaves or 2 very large loaves since the recipe is for 3 loaves. I guess I could also divide the sponge into 3rds on the second day. It just has seemed easier to do my own thing with it and make it french. I rarely allot much time to day 1 and 2 often mixing it up before leaving for the studio. Call me lazy or dis-organized but I challenge you to find fault with this great bread!
