Pain Facon Beaucaire

[acbova]

I made these twice this weekend. I started all this baking stuff with "Dough" by Richard Bertinet. I love rolls and this was the first book I found that had the types of stuff I was looking for. Now I've largely moved beyond it, since it's somewhat a beginner book.

Anyway I had not tried these yet and they looked pretty good. They turned out pretty good also.

[AnnieMacD]

Re: Pain Facon Beaucaire

These look fabulous. Did you use sourdough? I looked Bertinet's book up and there they are so I'll try them. I'm with you about RB so don't consult his books very much. However, I know some people who took his classes and they have only good things to say about him.

Annie

[acbova]

Re: Pain Facon Beaucaire

Thanks Annie!

I'm glad you about the sourdough because I had a question. I used his "ferment" where I took a piece of dough a few months ago and added some extra flour and water (50%) and kept swapping a 7oz piece when I made dough.

I left the ferment for about 3-4 weeks while I had fun with the Ciabatta. I was afraid it might have been pretty dead, but when I added the 7oz of fresh dough, it puffed right up.
I used it to make the two batches of rolls and the flavor was great.

Is that sourdough?

[AnnieMacD]

Re: Pain Facon Beaucaire

I assume that the ferment was originally made using commercial yeast?? If so, then it's not strictly sourdough. You make a sourdough 'mother' or chef by just mixing unbleached flour and water (nothing else in my book, but some people use grapes or yoghurt or ...) and allow it to ferment and then feed it with more flour and water on a regular schedule. Then it can rest in the fridge when you are not using it.

However, you probably have a close approximation as the amount of commercial yeast gets diluted every time you use some and feed it again. Without having more information, I'm not sure what you have. Do you ever add commercial yeast to it?

Joe Ortiz's book "The Village Baker" has great instructions for getting a sourdough going.

Annie