Rustic Pain de Pecan for BBD#69

The theme for Bread Baking Day #69 is Regionale Brote / Local breads. The host of this month’s challenge, Thomas from Der Gourmet, invited us to bake modern breads with adventurous names, or old classics, or perhaps breads that have been forgotten.

He reminded us that each region has its own charm and this brings with it great breads. He mentioned breads like Paderborner, Basel bread, Munich house bread, and SF Sourdough as examples. 

None of those breads are from my region. In the Southern region of the U.S., we are known for biscuits and cornbread, both charming in their own rite, but not too adventurous, or yeasted for that matter. It was time to get creative.

As I was pondering what bread to make for this challenge, I remembered that Pain de Pecan was the BOM (Bread of the Month) for the Artisan Bread Bread Bakers FB Group. Well now, if there is anything more local to Georgia than pecans, I don’t know what it is, except maybe peaches.

I grew up in metro Atlanta, but both of my parents are from South Georgia. My grandparents on my dad’s side had huge pecan trees growing in their yard. When we visited them, we would gather the nuts that were scattered around the yard and bring home big brown grocery bags full of pecans. They were whole pecans so we had to shell them, but that was part of the fun. We didn’t know how good we had it back then getting loads of pecans so cheaply.

Rustic Pain de Pecan with Homemade Spicy Peach Butter

 

I wanted this loaf to be a truly local/regional bread so in addition to the pecans, I used Bolted Red Fife Bread Flour milled at Anson Mills in South Carolina, and Hard Red Spring Wheat milled in my kitchen. I think flour milled in your own kitchen is about as local as you can get unless of course, I grew the wheat myself.

 

Rustic Pain de Pecan

Makes: One Loaf

Adapted from: David of Hearthbakedtunes 75% hydration loaf

Sourdough Build:

• 120g Water *
• 114g Home-milled whole wheat flour (from Hard Red Spring Wheat)
• 22g Levain (sourdough) **

Final Dough:

• 277g Water, hold back 25g for mixing with salt after autolyse *
• 228g Red Fife Wheat Bread Flour (hand milled style rustic)
• 114g Home-milled Whole Wheat Flour
• 9g Salt
• 90g Pecans, toasted until fragrant
  

* Home-milled flour absorbs more water so if you make this bread using commercially-milled whole wheat and bread flour, you’ll probably need less water.  The original recipe is 75% hydration, my version is more like 87% hydration.

** I used my apple starter, but you can use any kind of sourdough starter for this bread. Just make sure it’s been fed and ready to go.  Refer to this post on how to activate a starter or feed your starter according to your feeding schedule.

 

Make the Sourdough Build:

Combine the water and levain and mix until combined, add the whole wheat flour and mix again until a single consistency is formed. Cover, and allow to rest in a warm place 8-10 hours.

It can take up to 12 hours for the sourdough build to be ready to use. To test for doneness, take a spoonful of the levain and drop it in a glass of water.  If it floats, it’s ready, if it sinks to the bottom, let it ferment a little longer.

Autolyse:

Combine the flour and water and starter and stir until combined but still somewhat shaggy. Allow to rest for 30-40 minutes.

Add the salt and 25 grams water. Knead it into the dough by hand for about 8-10 minutes. After about 6-7 minutes add the pecans and knead until combined. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover and let rest for 2.5 hours. Fold the dough in thirty minutes increments (four folds total).

Proof the Loaf

Ease the dough out of the bowl onto a floured working surface. Preshape the dough into a boule, let it rest 30 minutes. Then shape the dough into a tight round loaf and place it seam side up in a lined or unlined floured banneton basket. Allow the loaf to proof for two hours.

 

Score and Bake the Loaf

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. for 40 minutes with the Emile Henry Bread Cloche on the bottom rack.

Take the cloche (lid and bottom) out of the oven and place them both on surfaces where they won’t crack. I use cloth-covered bread boards for this purpose.

Sprinkle the bottom of the cloche heavily with corn meal or corn flour. Gently flip the loaf out of the basket and onto the bottom of the bread cloche. 

Score the loaf using the pattern of your choice. Place the cloche bottom in the oven and cover it with the lid. Immediately reduce the oven temperature to 450 degrees F.

Bake the bread with the lid on for 25 minutes. Remove the lid and finish baking 10-15 or until desired crust is produced.

Let it cool completely on a wire rack.

This bread has been Yeastspotted.

 

 

Thanks to Thomas from Der Gourmet, for choosing Regionale Brote / Local breads as the theme for Bread Baking Day #69.  And many thanks to Zorra for creating this event many years ago.

Happy Baking!

Cathy

 

2012 Asheville Bread Festival

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the eighth annual Asheville Bread Festival. Asheville is a neat place nestled in the mountains of North Carolina. I love Asheville and when you add bread to the mix, it just doesn’t get much better than that. Even though Asheville has a small population, they have more artisan bakeries than most states. For bread enthusiasts, the place and the event is just awesome!

The theme of this year’s festival was “Local Grain, Local Flour, and Local Bread”.  It featured experts on local grain production, milling, and baking with local and heirloom wheat. It was a fun event!

The festival started with the bakers’ showcase where 20 local, artisan bakeries displayed their breads. I met some really neat bakers and tasted some of their wonderful breads. I lot of beautiful and delicious bread was sold and eaten that day.

 

I particularly liked these Bavarian Pretzels.  My friend and I enjoyed some pretzel balls (pictured on the left) with spicy mustard. They were so good I kept going back and getting more. I even took some home. Yum!

Bavarian Pretzels

Beulah’s Bavarian Pretzels

During the bakers’ showcase, I met Emily Buehler, the author of Bread Science. She did an experiment with some sourdough bread. I will be conducting this experiment myself and posting about it soon so stay tuned for that. Emily also led a “Hand Kneading for Beginners” class which I didn’t attend, but I’m sure it was fun!  I did get her book, and I’m excited to learn more about the science of bread.

There were so many breads and so little time to enjoy them all. Believe me, I tasted as many as I could, but there was only so much room, even for small bites. I took photos of the rest of the breads to enjoy later and to share with you. I wasn’t able to get photos of all of the breads on the tables because there were a lot of folks vying for those breads, but I think you’ll get a sense for the types of breads that were there. They were awesome!

Be sure to scroll down to see the rest of my recap.

 

After visiting the bakers’ showcase, we attended a couple workshops. Some of the workshops were full by the time I registered for the event, but we were able to attend a very informative session on growing wheat. This session was on Developing non-commodity wheats for local uses and flavor. I’ve had a bee in my bonnet for the past year or so to grow wheat locally and this session only heightened that desire. We’ll see if I can actually do it, or better yet, get someone else to grow it for me. More to come on that… hopefully!

As I mentioned in my previous post on Gluten-Free Waffles, I also attended a session on Milling for the Home Baker: fresh flour from local grains. Here is a shot of one of the hand mills that was demonstrated during the workshop.

The gentlemen that was supposed to lead this session was unable to attend due to a rare illness where he couldn’t be around flour for awhile. Pretty ironic, if you ask me. So, Debi Thomas, a local baker from Wildflour Bakery in Saluda, NC led the workshop.  Debi has been running her bakery for 20 years. They grind their flour daily so she has a lot of experience baking bread and milling her own flour. It was very interesting to hear her thoughts on milling. They also make some interesting breads in her bakery.  One of their signature breads is called Boogie Bread. It’s made with all kinds of grains and ingredients, including kelp and molasses. It’s from an old recipe that I hope to obtain someday.

Several other workshops went on that day that I didn’t get the opportunity to attend.

• Peter Reinhart hosted a workshop on New Frontiers in Baking: Gluten-Free and Sugar-Free.  He has a new book coming out this summer (with his co-author, Denece Wallace) that addresses these techniques.
• Dave Bauer, of Farm & Sparrow Bakery did a workshop on Baking with Southern Rye: From Milling to Bread, Pastry, and Pasta.  They milled locally grown wheat and baked pasta in a brick oven.
• Lionel Vatinet held a session on Ciabatta and Pizza. He covered some Old World methods for making Ciabatta and pizza. I would’ve loved to attend this session. I attended one of his sessions last year and he is a hoot.
• Sharon Burns-Leader did a workshop on making pretzels and English Muffins using local and whole grain flours.
• One workshop demonstrated the Carolina Ground Flour Mill in action.  It was the same time as another session so I couldn’t attend.  I’ll have to go back and visit so I can see the mill.

All in all, it was a very informative day. I learned a lot of new things and met a lot of interesting people.  I look forward to going back next year.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy