One more time, this time with more feelings...

Recipe time!

Today was our bread evaluation day. We had to develop a bread recipe (from a standard bread recipe) using our knowledge of the science of dough development and of the interconnectivity of the ingredients. Up until today, I was extremely optimistic about my bread making ability. In a week and a half I feel that I've learned so much and applied it well. As my pictures can attest, my bread has not always turned out flawless but I feel that with each new loaf I have gained a better perspective on the process and become more adept at 'reading' the dough.

That is why I was somewhat surprised (and yet not surprised) when I could not shake this feeling of impending doom when it came to my recipe. I agonized over the measurements, cringed throughout the entire mixing. I examined my gluten window (a test of the gluten development) easily three or four times and when I finally deigned it acceptable, I stared at my incorporations and my heart started racing again.

Despite all of the emotional histrionics, Chef said my scoring was beautiful, my loaf was correctly shaped and proofed and that my flavour combination was 'amazing'. Not bad.

Luckily, the recipe is nowhere near as difficult as I'm making it sound. But my love of artisan bread and insatiable performance driven personality made the exercise more stressful than it needed to be. This is an easy loaf. You could even remove the incorporations and come out with a great bread for soup or a crusty sandwich. And how cool is it that I'm posting my first recipe?

This recipe is written according to weight not volume. But I will add notations for imperial measurements where I can.

Fig, Walnut and Anise Parisienne
164 g (2/3 C + 1 T) Bread Flour
61 g (1/4 C) Whole Wheat Flour
74 g (5 Tbsp) 100% hydration starter
135 g (1/2 C + 2 tsp) Water + fig steeping liquid
3 g (1/2 tsp) Fresh Yeast**
1 g (1/4 tsp) Malt Powder
6 g (1 tsp) Salt
22 g (about two mission figs) dried Figs, chopped
22 g (1 Tbsp + 1 tsp) Walnuts
**Instant yeast can be used as well but you will only need about 1/8 tsp of it.

Process
Preheat oven @ 350. Place a roasted pan or cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven to preheat.
Cover the chopped dried figs in boiling water and allow to soak until cool. Strain the figs, squeeze the excess moisture and set aside, reserving liquid. Dust the figs with bread flour and toss to coat. Add enough water to the reserved fig water to come to 135 g.
Combine the two flours, the malt powder and the salt. Whisk to combine. Then add the yeast.
In a separate bowl, combine the starter and fig water. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. If you are kneading by hand, turn out onto a counter top with flour and knead until the surface looks smooth and elastic, 5-6 minutes. If using a machine with a dough hook, mix on first speed until the dough has picked up all the flour. Continue until the surface of the dough is smooth and elastic, about four minutes.
Gently flatten the dough into a disk with your fingers. Take a third of the additions and sprinkle them onto the loaf. Fold in the four sides to enclose the additions and knead until incorporated. Continue until all the additions are incorporated. Let rest, covered for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size. Form into preferred shape and let rest for another half hour.
*If you can use your microwave as a proofer your bread dough will bake up so nice and preeetay. Fill a microwave-safe bowl with water and heat on high until water is boiling. Remove the bowl and replace with your shaped loaf covered with a towel. Let rest for a half hour.*
Place loaf on middle rack in oven and dump a half cup of ice cubes into the baking tray at the bottom of the oven. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until nice and brown on top. When knocked on the bottom, the loaf should sound hollow.
Allow to cool! This will be hard but it makes for a less gummy loaf.
Slice. Slather with butter, jam or cheese. Eat. Repeat.

We got our primer on brioche today. I'm not gonna lie, it blew my doors off. I had only ever had stale brioche in the past and thus I thought it was simply an overrated, froofy French bread. And then I had some made by an Italian, singing "Somebody call 911. Pastry chef is on the dance floor." Because it is rather involved, as is ANYTHING French, he demo'd the brioche for us today and we prepped our dough to make our own brioche tomorrow. Doubtful mine will look quite like this. But we also prepped some sticky bun glaze, presumably to go with the brioche. So methinks tomorrow is going to go just fine.