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Category Archive for 'Lean Doughs'

Pain de Beaucaire

I’ve always been fascinated by how the different regions of France have managed to maintain their unique cultural identities.  These regional identities can be evident even in the type and shape of the local bread.  For example, in Auvergne, bread is often baked in the Auvergnat form, a shape that is evocative of a type of hat worn by residents of the region.  In Beaucaire, bread is traditionally shaped through a folding process […]

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Learning or creating new bread shapes has always been great fun for me. Yes, my goal is to always bake bread with a seductive aroma, flavor and texture, but as someone obsessed with trying to bake the best possible bread that I can at home, visual appeal is also a big part of the story. […]

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40% Rye Bread with Caraway Seed

As a young boy growing up in Brooklyn, NY, it was always a rare treat to enjoy a meal at one of the many area restaurants.   I remember particularly looking forward to eating at the local pizzeria (hence my attempt at recreating New York-style pizza), the not-so-local Chinese restaurant (my foray into Chinese cuisine can be the topic […]

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Pain au Levain (Sourdough Bread)

When it comes to pain au levain, I have to admit that I am a bit of a snob. Why else would I call it pain au levain rather than sourdough bread, as most people do? I’ve never much cared for the name “sourdough”. Once something carries that moniker, all sorts of lip-puckering, eye-watering attributes are […]

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Pain de Campagne

Pain de campagne, or “country bread”, is bread baked in the style of the rustic loaves found throughout the French countryside.  There really is no one correct way to bake a pain de campagne loaf; the formulae are as varied as the traditional ways of shaping the loaves.  Pain de campagne can be made with a natural leaven […]

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Baguettes with Poolish

It’s been said that the baguette, although one of the simplest breads (being comprised of only flour, water, yeast and salt), is perhaps the most difficult bread to make well. A good baguette has a thin, crisp crust, a light and airy crumb having a distribution of both large and small air pockets (alveoli), and a slightly […]

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