French Country Loaf

This post assumes you have a viable starter. There are two steps to making this loaf. First you make your production leaven and once that has risen you make your final loaf.

Refreshing the leaven

Adapted from Andrew Whitley's Bread Matters

• 160g wheat leaven starter
• 50g stoneground wholemeal wheat flour
• 150g strong white flour
• 120g water

• Mix all ingredients together and leave in your warm place for 4 hours. The production leaven is ready when it has risen appreciably and not collapsed.

Use as the production leaven for French Country Bread.

French Country Loaf

Adapted from Andrew Whitley's Bread Matters

• 100g stoneground wholemeal wheat flour
• 300g strong white flour
• 7g sea salt
• 300g water
• 300g production leaven

• Mix all ingredients together except the production leaven. The dough formed will be quite soft. Turn dough out onto clean (not floured) work surface and knead for 10 minutes to develop the gluten. The dough is going to stick both to your hands and to the work surface. Resist the urge to add flour. After a few minutes your dough will firm up a bit. Add the production leaven and knead for a few more minutes, adjusting the softness by adding either water or flour. Your dough should become quite smooth, although it will stick a bit to your hands and the work top.
• Smear a clean area of work surface with water. Place your dough on the watered area and cover with a clean bowl whose rim as been moistened with water. Leave it to relax (both you and your dough) for one hour.
• Wet your hands and two plastic scrapers and stretch and fold your dough. Get ahold of the dough between your scrapers and pull it toward yourself, stretching it as far as you can without forcing it. Then fold it back on itself and pile it up on the main body of the dough. Repeat this from the back and left and right sides of the dough. You should be left with a tighter more vertical dough. Andrew says the point of this is "to thin the gluten membrane by stretching it, allowing a greater subsequent expansion of the dough, at the same time squeezing as little gas out of it as possible."
• Put some wholemeal flour in a bowl. Pick up your dough and dip it in the flour, making sure it gets completely covered. Place in a proving basket with what will become the bottom facing up. Cover basket with a plastic bag and put in a warm place to prove for 3-5 hours.
• Test the dough with your finger after it has expanded a fair amount. It is ready to be baked when an indentation made by your finger disappears slowly, "indicating that the pressure of gas in the dough may be passing its peak."
• Turn your dough out CAREFULLY onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you're too rough with it you may hear a puff and a sigh as gas escapes from your loaf. Make a few cuts in the top and put in a oven preheated to about 450°F. After 10 minutes reduce heat to 400°F and bake for another half hour or until done.

Feel free to experiment with wholemeal to white flour proportion and different proving techniques.

I am still learning and each week my bread turns out differently (though always edible). It is fascinating to watch the evolution. I limit myself to doing only one thing differently from week to week so I can track the changes and try to make sense of them.