"Pain a l'pugliese"

Made another round of pain a l'ancienne, this time shaped as "pugliese" including 2 folds of the doughs starting from after it first doubled and warmed up after the overnight in the refigerator. The dough, even at 80% water, came together to be moderately handleable especially after the second round of folding.

"Pain a l'pugliese"
Made "quick" 2 hr fermentation using the same flour, yeast, and salt at 70% water to show to the class the striking flavor differences that can be generated simply altering the fermentation protocol with plain old commercial yeast. The boules though hit the spot big time with the crust, which crackled and cracked beautifully when cooling. I got the steam better in the oven: turned off the fan fort he first 6 minutes, started the oven at 500 F and let it drift down to 425 F, added lava rocks to my cast iron griddle plate for more surface area to volume ratio [read the idea in one of my books; not mine] to generate more-more-more steam, as well as spraying the walls every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Seemed to do the trick.


Had to wait a few minutes for the oven to heat back up, the conventional straight dough boules got a bit excitable... but they still worked
Boules cooling before the cracking
Boule crumb
Anyway; the class were able to detect differences in flavor, texture, crumb structure, and crust [color, flavor, texture] although not all preferred the pain a l'ancienne batards.