"Roman Meal" Bread

Twenty four hour "Roman Meal" Bread




This bread is very easy to make, and it will take some planning. It takes twenty four hours because you have to mix a short starter first on the morning of day one and then bake it on the morning of day two. All told, from mixing, kneading and baking, there is about an hour and a half of real work, so you can and must do things in between each step.

It is really good bread and makes great toast/french toast and holds up well for sandwiches. The crust is tough and the crumb is dense and chewy. It is almost a whole wheat bread, but it doesn't have that dense sawdust character of whole wheat. I have been working on this recipe for about a year. It combines techniques that I learned from a basic bread recipe and a book on world-class bread making.


INGREDIENTS

5-7 Cups of White Flour (I recommend either bread flour or all purpose unbleached flour)
1/2 Tsp. Active Dry Yeast
1/4 Cup Wheat Germ
1/4 Cup Wheat Bran
2 Tbsp. honey or sugar
1-2 Tbsp. Salt
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil

First you take the 1/4 Cup Wheat Germ and 1/4 Cup Wheat Bran and add enough White Flour to make about 2 Cups.








Then you take two cups of water about an eighth of a Tsp. of yeast and mix everything together in a bowl. You need to mix it well (for at least ten minutes), so I try to do other things while I am mixing. I usually listen to the radio or watch t.v. You should end up with something that has the consistency of loose porridge and has a glossy sheen.

Then you cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it sit out at room temperature for six to eight hours.
After sitting, the starter will look bubbly and have liquid pooling over the top of the mixture and smell very fertile. Now you are ready for the second stage of this process; the making of the bread.

Take another bowl and put in a cup of warm water and the two Tbsp. of honey. To this you add about 3/4 Tsp. of yeast. I like to sprinkle gently over the top of the water honey mixture and let it absorb a little and then mix it. It makes it easier to incorporate.

Let this mixture sit for about 10 to 15 minutes to allow the yeast to wake up and start eating the sugar water.

The biggest mistake you can make is to get this water too hot. It should feel just a little warm (about 100 degrees). If it is cooler than that, the process takes longer, but you won't be killing the yeast.


Now you add the starter, 2 Tbsp. Olive Oil, 1 to 2 Tbsp. of Salt and about 2 Cups of white flour. It should have the consistency of the starter; a loose porridge.










I have always mixed by hand, so if you have a mixer with a dough hook, good luck. You then mix in enough flour a little at a time (1/2 a Cup) until it starts pulling away from the bowl. This took me a while to get use to. I would inevitably mix in too much flour and end up with loaves that are too dry. You want it to be just dry enough to work with it. Err on the side of too moist because you can always make up for it in the kneading. It should look like this:


Then you dump it out on a clean, floured counter. and with floured hands you start kneading. Kneading stretches the dough, mixes it well and creates gluten so that as the bread rises, makes it tough enough to trap the gasses created by the yeast to make your bread light and airy.





I don't think that there is a proper way to knead bread. James Beard will back me up on this. Basically, what I do is gently push it across the counter with one or two hands, give it a three quarter turn and repeat. When the dough starts to stick to the counter, I like to have a little pile of flour on the counter so that I can easily push it into the working area or put on my fingers. Keep kneading until the dough stops feeling limp and starts to feel springy and a little taut.


Now you can put the loaf into a lightly buttered bowl and then flip it so that the whole loaf gets covered by the butter. Then take a small towel and dampen it with warm water. You want the towel to be just damp, so squeeze as much water as you can before you put it over the bowl. Let this sit until just about double in size. Depending on the weather and warmth of your kitchen, it takes about 1 or 3 hours for this first rise. A good test to see if it has risen enough is to poke your finger in the middle of it. If the depression from your finger doesn't move much, it's ready to be punched down.



I use to think that punching down meant just that. I would punch the loaf while it was in the bowl and let all the accumulated gasses out. I don't think that is such a good idea any more. What works better is to take the loaf and gently pour it out onto a lightly floured surface and using your fingers, gently pat it down, stretch and fold the dough gently and then pick up the loaf and gently gather it into a ball by stretching and gathering the dough from the bottom to make a nice, tight ball. Then you cover it with the same damp towel that you used before and let it rest for 10 to 20 minutes.










After resting, you are now ready to shape into separate loaves for the second rise which will happen over night in the fridge. At this point, you can shape the loaves any way you want. I had enough dough to make two standard loaves and one free form loaf. When I shape a loaf, I try to be as gentle as possible so that I keep as much accumulated gasses as possible in them. For pan loaves, If you are using pans, lightly butter them and gently place the loaf in the pan to get one side buttered, then you flip it, so that the other side gets buttered. It should fill the pan about half way. With the free form loaf, I just gather the dough into a ball in the same way as before, by pulling and gathering from the bottom and pinching the dough to make a tight ball, then take some cornmeal and dust either a cookie sheet, jelly roll pan or in this case, pie tin and place the loaf on the cornmeal. Then, you wrap the loaves loosely in plastic (I use plastic grocery bags) making sure that the plastic is not touching them and place them in the fridge over night.










The next morning, take the loaves out of the fridge, preheat the oven to 375, pull them out of the plastic and with a sharp knife or razor blade make a couple of cuts on the top of the loaves and let them sit for about an hour.









After an hour, use a mist sprayer or a pastry brush or your fingers and spread a small amount of water on the tops of the loaves. This hardens them up a bit and creates a nice crunchy crust. Then you bake at 375 for 30 to 35 minutes. Do not open the oven in the first 15 minutes. They need the heat. After 15 minutes, I like to take a spray bottle, set it to a steady stream as opposed to mist and spray the floor of the oven a few times to create steam. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I feel better doing it. After 30-35 minutes, take them out of the oven and cool them. If you have them, you can use cooling racks, otherwise, you can just use the grates on the oven. Let the loaves cool completely before cutting into them. Bread baking, unlike cake, cookie or quick bread baking is not an exact process. So stay loose, don't panic and enjoy.