It's been a few weeks, thanks to the annual Anchorage Folk Festival (which is tons of fun, by the way!), but I am back with BBA! The fifteenth bread is Italian bread. This bread is very similar to the previous French bread, but the dough is enhanced with a bit of sugar, a bit of olive oil, and a bit of malt powder.
I started with a biga, which is a preferment very similar to last time's pate fermente. Refrigerated overnight and everything. My biga came out of the fridge with several large bubbles - I don't know if that was supposed to happen!After letting the biga warm for an hour or so, I chopped it into bits and mixed it with the rest of the ingredients.
I found this dough to be fairly stiff. After 16 minutes and no windowpane test, I gave up and set it to rise. It doubled very quickly, so I split it in half and shaped each half into a batard and left it to proof again on my nifty bread thingy while I got the oven ready. Once the bread was ready, I slashed it - fairly awkwardly, I might add; I need to work on that - and popped it in the oven.
The bread browned nicely and is quite soft. The holes in the crumb are tiny, at least on the loaf I sliced open. I have higher hopes for the other loaf - it looks puffier!
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