Breads Part VI
Pain à l'Ancienne

    Pain à l'Ancienne is not a bread, but a way of fermenting dough.  The technique can be used with French bread, focaccia, and ciabatta, and so forth, including pizza dough.  It releases flavors in the flour no other method can produce.  I learned and adapted the method from Peter Reinhart's superb book The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  We will use the technique to make French bread.

The technique is simple.  Ice water and refrigeration are the keys to the method.  You must begin the day before baking.  You will make the dough and place it in the refrigerator to ferment over night.  You can use all-purpose or bread flour.  I prefer all-purpose because it is easier to shape.

Dry Ingredients
3 1/2 cups all-purpose (over 11% protein) or bread flour (over 12% protein)
1 tablespoon rye flour
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon dry yeast
2 teaspoons sea salt

Wet Ingredients
1 1/2 cups ice-cold spring water

The day before baking:  Place a container with 1 1/2 cups of spring water in your refrigerator and let it cool to 40º or below.  (You can also place the container in the freezer for a quicker result, or add ice to the water to get the same result.)  When the water is sufficiently cool, fit your food processor with the metal chopping blade.  Add all the dry ingredients to the food processor and pulse several times to mix.  Then pour in the water.  Pulse until the flour begins to clump together.  Then run the food processor for 20 seconds, no more, to knead.  Remove the dough to a bowl over twice the size in volume.  Knead the dough for a few minutes until it becomes smooth.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

The day of baking:  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit out so it can double from its original size.  Do not punch it down to degas it.  Simply remove the dough to a surface liberally sprinkled with flour.  If the dough is wet and sticky, sprinkle it with flour; even if not sticky, if you sprinkle it with some flour, it makes a beautiful looking crust.  Now you need to shape the dough.  

Press it into a rectangle about 8" by 6".  Cut the dough in half length wise with a metal pastry scraper, pressing straight down.   

Minimal baking equipment for bread is a baking stone and a pizza peel.  I will assume you have these.  If not, use a really sturdy sheet cake pan that will not warp under high heat.

Cut parchment paper to fit a pizza peel with a couple of inches excess; then cut it in half so the cut runs the same direction as the handle and overlap it in the middle.  Place the dough strips on the parchment paper.  Cover with a linen towel.

Place the baking stone on the middle rack in the oven; place a sturdy stainless steel pan on the bottom rack.  Heat the oven to 550º, if it goes that high.  Just before baking, heat a cup of water for 1 minute in the microwave.  

When ready to bake, with a razor blade or French bread lame, cut 3 slashes diagonally in each loaf.  Use a firm quick stroke.  Slide the dough which is on the parchment paper onto the baking stone (I grip the parchment paper where it overlaps with tongs and pull it onto the stone), and pour the cup of water in the pan on the lowest rack, keeping your head back so the steam will not burn you.  The steam will keep the crust soft for the first 10 minutes of baking, enabling the bread to fully rise.  Bake for one or two minutes, then turn the oven down to 475º.  Now bake for 8 minutes.  Then, using tongs, remove the parchment paper, pulling it out from each side, and rotate the loaves 180º, and also moving the front loaf to the back.  Remove the pan with water; you do not want any steam now.  If crust is quite brown, turn the oven down to 400º.  Bake for another 10 minutes.  Check the bread to see if the crust is getting too brown.  If it is, turn the oven down to 325º.  Bake for 5 more minutes.  It should now be done.  Check to see if it sounds hollow when tapped on the center bottom.  If you want to use a thermometer, it is done when the internal temperature is 205º.  When done, remove to a rack to cool.

Serve with olive oil for dipping or a good butter.

For ciabatta, let the dough raise on the pizza peel longer for an hour or two before baking.  See herb ingredients below for ciabatta.

Optional ingredients:

Dry Ingredients
3 tablespoons semolina flour

Wet Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Herb Ingredients (particularly good in ciabatta)
Use one herb or the other, not both.
2 tablespoons of roughly chopped fresh sage or 
3/4 to 1 tablespoon of roughly chopped fresh rosemary

For more herb flavor, use in addition to the fresh sage or rosemary.
1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon roughly chopped fresh chives
or
1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon roughly chopped fresh thyme

Pain à l'Ancienne Chemistry - Why this technique makes such good bread

As I understand it, wheat flour is primarily starch, a complex carbohydrate.  A starch molecule is essentially a mass of sugar molecules wound together.  To taste the sugar, the starch molecule has to be broken down into simple sugars, such as glucose and fructose.  Enzymes do the work of breaking down starch into simple sugars.  During fermentation, amylase and diastatic alpha-amylase do the job.  (Most flour companies add malted barley flour to bread flour to enhance the breakdown of starch because it is loaded with diastatic alpha-amylase.)  The simple sugars (1) enable the yeast to grow to leaven the dough, (2) impart flavor to the bread, and (3) caramelize during baking to give color to the crust.  The slow, extended fermentation achieved by the pain à l'ancienne technique permits a lot of starch to be broken down into sugar, a lot more sugar than the yeast can consume, which provides sugar for tremendous flavor and superb caramelization of the crust.

You do not want the yeast to eat more sugar than necessary, so it is important to shape the bread as soon as the dough has doubled in size and bake it as soon as the second raising is done, if a second raising is necessary.