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Categories:Viewed: 23 - Published at: 5 years ago
Ingredients
- 12 ounces unbleached bread flour, plus flour for dusting
- 3 ounces whole wheat flour
- 3 ounces stone-ground rye flour
- 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
- 2 3/4 teaspoons fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup active natural starter (recipe follows)
- Cornmeal for dusting
Method
- Place flours, yeast and salt in a Cuisinart food processor fitted with a metal blade, and whirl to blend.
- Using an instant-read thermometer, determine the temperature of the flour.
- Measure 1 1/4 cups water, adjusting the temperature of the water so that when its temperature and that of the flour are added together, the total is 130.
- Pour in the starter and, with the machine running, pour in the water through the feed tube and process 20 seconds.
- If the dough seems dry and does not come together to form a ball, add 2 more tablespoons water.
- Process the dough for another 25 seconds.
- Test the temperature; it should be 75 to 80 degrees.
- If it is lower, process it at 5-second intervals until it warms.
- If it is higher, refrigerate for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Place the dough in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 3 hours.
- Turn it onto a lightly floured board, shape it into a round loaf and place it, seam side up, in a well-floured round banneton or a cloth-lined basket.
- Dust with flour, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 12 to 16 hours.
- Remove the basket of dough from the refrigerator, and leave at room temperature 1 to 2 hours, until it is about 62 degrees and springs back very slowly when pressed.
- One hour before baking, place a baking stone on a low oven rack and a pan for water on the oven floor.
- Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
- Turn the loaf out, seam side down, onto a bakers' peel heavily dusted with cornmeal.
- Make four 1/2-inch-deep slashes in the top of the loaf, forming a large square.
- Dust lightly with flour.
- Pour a cup of hot water into the pan on the bottom of the oven.
- Slide the loaf directly onto the stone.
- Reduce heat to 450 degrees, and bake 2 minutes.
- Add another cup of water to the pan, and bake 15 minutes.
- Rotate the bread so it bakes evenly, and bake another 25 to 30 minutes, until the bread is a deep brown and the internal temperature has reached about 205 degrees.
- (Reduce the oven temperature to 400 degrees during the last 20 minutes if the bread is browning too fast.)
- Remove the bread from the oven, and cool completely on a rack before cutting.
