Ancient Bread.
I say this is the ‘real thing?’ as there are so many iterations of this online and they often stray far from the French recipes and French Bakers argue about it too.
The recipe seems to have been developed in Paris post second world war when bakers were trying to expand the range of breads they offered. As the recipe calls for refrigeration we can conclude that this is anything, but an ancient bread.
For all of that this is the French number two loaf after the baguette and it is famed for having a delicate flavour with good aroma.
And now, the three hundred year long French baking argument. Yeast or natural leavens? Yes, even back in 1776 the great and the good were scribbling articles with flaming quills over natural leaven or Beer barm. Some bakers used both together. Now, with modern yeast the argument continues. I shall offer both recipes here in the hope that one of them will get through the French Firewall used by bakers.
The single thing with this bread that makes for the superb flavour is the way iced water and bulk Fermentation in the fridge is used. It is not cold bulk fermented as such, the intention is that making the dough with iced water and then refrigeration is to bring the yeast fermentation to standstill allowing various other reactions to take place. These other reactions are the ones that develop flavour in bread. They are much slower than yeast fermentation, hence the need to slow the yeast down to give the dough time. This method is good for most bread recipes.
The method below, with chilling is at the heart of developing the flavour in thos bread. That is almost more important than the flour.
Method for both recipes
Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly and then add the iced water. Mix until the dough is of a constancy. Immediately place in a fridge. Remove it after 30 minutes and give the dough a few stretch and folds and then return it to the fridge. Refrigerate it for 8 – 18 hours.
Remove it from the fridge and allow the dough to come up to room temperature. That will take a couple of hours or so even at 28C 82F.
Shape it with stretch and folds. We are talking classic French envelope shaping here. Followed by a little pulling along the worktop to tension it further if needed. Try not to deflate the dough too much.
Place in a proofing basket to prove. At 24C / 75F it takes a little over an hour.
Bake in an oven at 230C / 446F either in a cloche of on a baking stone with some form of steam.
Yeast Recipe Ingredients
Ingredients:
100g of whole rye flour (typically the French would use 50g if you use 50g of rye flour add 50g to the white flour.)
400g of French T55 flour, or All-purpose flour, or 300g bread flour and 100g of cake (plain) flour
325g of iced or very cold water
½ tsp of instant yeast
10g Sea salt
Natural Leaven Recipe Ingredients
200g of Rye leaven made with with 100g of water and 100g of flour. (a white flour leaven works too, but rye is better).
400g of French T55 flour, or All-purpose flour or 100g of cake flour and 300g strong bread flour.
225g of iced, or very cold, water.
10g Sea Salt.
Tips:
Sea Salt is so much better than table salt when it comes to flavour.
I add 15g of unsalted butter. This slows the staling, but it is very untraditional. It’s not noticeable taste of crumb wise.
Scoring. The traditional shape of this loaf is either a boule or a Bâtard.
The boule is scored with three parallel cuts.
The Bâtard is scored as if a baguette with three lengthways cuts overlapping each other a little.
Here is a sample picture of my effort though in this bake I was experimenting and it does not comply to the above.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/195939682@N02/53333332977/in/pool-chainbaker/
And another here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/195939682@N02/53344297837/in/datetaken/