Dude, seriously...

"This f-ing bread is incredible."  -  The words I spoke when I tasted my first loaf out of a new book I picked up this weekend: Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson.  I came across it at the bookstore admits a few hundred other baking books.  The loaf on the cover caught my eye.  It looked legit, so I started flipping through.  First thing I noticed, TONS of step-by-step photography. To me, this is key in the success of repeating someone's process.  The next thing, the formulas are in grams instead of cups, which won me over immediately.  This dude and his wife's bakery have been around for some time now, so he's got cred.  I've never heard of the bakery before, then again, I don't live in San Francisco.  They have it good over there.  In CT we lack certain legit/authentic/doing-it-the-right-way type places.  Not to say there aren't, we just lack them.

So, I tried the country bread formula.  I have a good understanding of artisan bread baking, but this book opened up my eyes a bit more to traditional methods.  The "no knead" books out there that do use old-school methods always annoyed me.  Instead of marketing the book to be full of good formulas, it was marketed to be convenient.  This book does not knead either (minus the brioche recipe), but for better reason.  The final texture, or "crumb", is what I haven't ever gotten before in my own formulas.  I was so convinced that it was a mixing thing, when it was really just a method thing.  A series of folds rather than kneading and resting.  Gluten development is what gives bread its structure, so I always assumed that the bread wouldn't be able to hold onto as many gas bubbles without proper development.  The gas stayed in just fine.  So, no-knead seems to be a good idea for this style of bread.

Baking the bread is where I think people mess up the most and end up with shitty results.  I use a baking stone for everything.  In fact, it never leaves my oven.  For hearth baking it's awesome.  For promoting even temperature, it's reliable.  I figured that this book would be all about it.  I was wrong.  The methods suggest a combo cooker.  Pretty much an upside-down dutch oven.  The reason is to trap in steam, which is completely necessary for crunchy, well risen bread.  Professional deck ovens use steam injection for this, but we all don't have those, so we must improvise.  My previous method was to pour water into the bottom of the oven, but not much of it would stay in. Instead it would just spit out like a boiling tea kettle.  The combo cooker traps in the inherit steam coming off of the loaf... to say the least I was surprised, if not embarrassed.  I have seen this method in another book, but I passed it off as silly and too much trouble.  After 18 minutes, I removed the lid and baked it another 15-20 and it was pretty fucking awesome to see such a wonderfully baked loaf come out of my conventional electric oven.

My loaf, first attempt at this string of methods, came out perfect.  Impressively perfect.  I seriously need to start altering my formulas and not use my mixer so much.  My kitchen-aid is a work horse.  I use it constantly, but I think I should give it a break and have a go at hand mixing my doughs.

Check out the holes developed in this bread ("cell wall definition" ... I heard some douche judge say that on food network once).  It's from the slow, slow, slow... ( did I say slow? ) rising.  I started mixing the dough at 8:30 AM, it didn't go in the oven until 6:30 PM.  After mixing, resting, and folding the loaf is formed, and then it rises for 4 hours.  Why so long?  Well I didn't use any commercial yeast.  You absolutely could and get an OK loaf, but we're talking the real deal here.  The flavor developed over the long rise is borderline sourdough, but not as much acidity.  The time also allows for large pockets of gas to form in the dough, which contributes to the big ass holes in it.  This is characteristically desirable for some artisan loaf.

Dude, seriously, get the book.     TARTINE BREAD



What else can you make with bread once it's baked?


How 'bout a mac n' cheese sandwich with crispy prosciutto? Ok let's do it.

Take some prosciutto (bacon, tofurkey, slices of lamb testicles... whatever you want) and render out the fat until crispy and tasty looking.  Save the fat.

Take leftover mac n' cheese from the fridge (make sure it's wicked cold) and cut it into a shape that is relevant in size to the slices of bread you have.  Crispy artisan style loaf is key here.  Coat the noodle blocks in flour and pan fry in the reserved fat over medium-high heat on both sides (optionally you can bread these things like chicken and deep fry them.)

Place on the bread and top with more cheese.  Add crispies and proceed like making grilled cheese.  Use butter for this.  I like to brown one side, flip, then finish in a 450* oven.

Total mind-f!@k.  Cook-Eat-Live dudes.