BOB — White Free-Form Loaf

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This was my fifth loaf from Beard on Bread. (A con­tin­u­a­tion of my sil­ly lit­tle project that involves try­ing every recipe in this clas­sic cook­book. I start­ed doc­u­ment­ing my tri­als and tribu­la­tions after my fourth loaf.)

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The prep

In the recipe’s head­note Beard explains that this type of bread is known as a “sponge loaf,” which means that you “make a soft yeast mix­ture and let it refrig­er­ate one or two nights to start fer­men­ta­tion before you con­tin­ue with the recipe.” I’ve nev­er real­ly tried a sponge loaf before so I did­n’t know what to expect. Here’s what the sponge looked like after an overnight stay in the fridge:

I had a lot of fun punch­ing down the sponge; it cer­tain­ly had a mind of it’s own and put up a bit of an unex­pect­ed fight.

NB: There are FOUR RISINGS required for this bread if you count the overnight ris­ing of the sponge. Two of these are in-bowl ris­ings, the final ris­ing is the shaped loaf in the pan. Not count­ing the sponge rest­ing in the fridge, the total time required for the oth­er three ris­ings is 3½ hours to 5¾ hours. My ris­ings might have totaled 4½ hours total because I had a bak­ing deadline.

I knead­ed this bread in my KitchenAid mix­er before the first in-bowl rise, after that, I knead­ed by hand. Beard spec­i­fies knead­ing before the first in-bowl rise until the dough is “smooth, elas­tic, and resilient to the pres­sure of your fin­gers,” which for me was hard to assess, espe­cial­ly when the dough was hang­ing from the dough hook. I bit of resis­tance when poked seemed good enough. 

Any­who: here’s how the ris­ings looked:

I did­n’t have a razor blade nor, appar­ent­ly, a suf­fi­cient­ly sharp knife, because slash­ing the loaf in sev­er­al places to about 1/2 inch deep did not go very well. 

Also in the recipe’s head­note, Beard men­tions that this bread is best “baked in an oven in which the racks are lined with tiles,” a tech­nique he explains ear­li­er in the book. For the bak­ing of my loaf, I put a piz­za stone on the top rack of the oven before pre­heat­ing the oven; I then baked the loaf direct­ly on the stone. In hopes of mak­ing the mov­ing of the raw formed dough from the pan to the stone eas­i­er, I used a sheet with­out edges on three sides to which I added what I thought was a suf­fi­cient amount of corn­meal to help get the soon-to-be-recal­ci­trant loaf onto the hot stone. The corn­meal I used was insuf­fi­cient: With each push, the soft blob took on a new shape. Final­ly, after ten or so such push­es, it land­ed ful­ly on the stone look­ing a lit­tle like a triangle:

The last head-scratch­er offered by Beard in this recipe: ” Bake … until the bread is a deli­cious-look­ing dark col­or …” Wow; that’s a tad sub­jec­tive, no? The bread reached a dark hon­ey brown before I took it out of the oven at the upper end of Beard’s pre­scribed bak­ing time.

The result

Oy, the ill-made slash­es all but dis­ap­peared dur­ing baking.

Clear­ly this was not a sand­wich loaf, due to its squat pro­file and that fact that same-size slices are near impos­si­ble to achieve. Because I baked this in a steamy oven on the piz­za stone, I was expect­ing a crusti­er bread than I got, but that was­n’t a big deal; the loaf was easy to cut with a ser­rat­ed knife and the toast­ed slices were plen­ty crusty. (That said, it was a tad chal­leng­ing to cut the loaf across its widest part.)

Some of the slices had lit­tle yel­low-col­ored swirls at the bot­tom; I’m assum­ing this was caused by mov­ing the blob of dough around too much after plac­ing it on the corn­meal. Also, the tex­ture of the slices seems very slight­ly denser at the bot­tom of the loaf; I won­der if this means it could have risen a bit more before bak­ing? If so, though, dur­ing which rising?

The loaf was a bit bland, but when sliced and toast­ed with a lit­tle jam or but­ter, it was delight­ful with a nice crust and chew. I would make this again.

The aftermath

I have almost a full quart of but­ter­milk left over. What to do … what to do … How about Beard’s Irish Whole-Wheat Soda Bread? (It’s only a week or two after St. Pat­ty’s Day!) Stay tuned …

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White Free-Form Loaf

[1 free-form loaf]

FOR THE SPONGE:
2 pack­ages active dry yeast (I used ½ ounce SAF Red Instant Yeast.)
½ cup warm water (100° to 115°, approx­i­mate­ly)
2 cups flour, prefer­ably hard wheat (I used King Arthur’s Bread Flour.)
¾ to 1 cup water, approximately

Dis­solve the yeast in the warm water, let it proof in a large mix­ing bowl, and start adding enough water to make quite a soft dough. When the sponge is well mixed, cov­er it with a plate or plas­tic wrap and refrig­er­ate it 12 to 36 hours — one or two nights.

FOR THE BREAD:
3 table­spoons olive or oth­er veg­etable oil
½ cup but­ter­milk (I end­ed up using ¾ cup.)
2 cups flour, plus ½ cup for knead­ing
1 table­spoon coarse salt
Corn­meal

When ready to make the bread, remove the sponge from the refrig­er­a­tor, punch down, and place in a large mix­ing bowl. Add the oil, then grad­u­al­ly add the but­ter­milk and 2 cups of flour, mixed with the salt, to make a soft dough. Turn this out onto a light­ly floured board, using anoth­er ½ cup flour or more, if need be, and knead for a good 10 min­utes, until the dough is smooth, elas­tic, and resilient to the pres­sure of your fin­gers. Shape into a ball, and place in a but­tered or oiled bowl, turn­ing to light­ly coat with the fat. Let rise until dou­bled in bulk at ordi­nary room tem­per­a­ture. (Because the sponge is cold when it comes out of the refrig­er­a­tor, ris­ing will prob­a­bly take from 1½ to 2 hours, or even a lit­tle more.) When it has risen, punch down and let rest for a few min­utes, then remove to a floured board and knead for 3 to 4 min­utes. Place back in the bowl and let rise a sec­ond time until dou­bled in bulk, 1 to 1¼ hours.

Punch the dough down again and let rest for 2 or 3 min­utes on the floured board, then shape into an oval, round, or oblong loaf and place on an ungreased sheet coat­ed with corn­meal. Let rise in a warm, draft-free place until dou­bled in size, 1 to 2 hours—don’t wor­ry if it’s slow. (If the dough seems to have spread a lot, resist the temp­ta­tion to reshape it; it will make a good loaf any­way.) Pre­heat the oven to 425°, and set a pan of boil­ing water on the low­er rack. Brush the loaf with cold water and slash about ½ inch deep with a razor blade or very sharp knife. Let rest at room tem­per­a­ture for about 5 more min­utes, then place the bak­ing sheet in the oven, on the upper rack. Imme­di­ate­ly low­er the tem­per­a­ture to 375°, bake for 20 min­utes, then brush again with cold water. Con­tin­ue to bake for 40 or 50 min­utes longer, until the bread is a deli­cious-look­ing dark col­or and makes a hol­low sound when tapped on top and bot­tom. Cool thor­ough­ly before slicing.

Beard on Bread, James Beard, Knopf, 1974, p.37–39

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White Free-form Loaf recipe from Beard on Bread by James Beard. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1974, p.37–39.