Baking bread the Daly way

Posted by Leigh Stefanski on 23 March 2009

Everyone knows the scent of freshly baked bread. It’s unmistakable, irriplacible and completely irrisistable! Check out this recipe for Trevor Daly’s artisan ciabatta.

What you need:

Flour: White bread, try to get stoneground.
Water: It’s got to be good enough to drink. Ice cold.
Salt
Yeast: Instant or “wet” (compressed).

Notes:

Dare to think about the recipe as a process relying on the manipulation of time and temperature. It may even fit into your schedule.

The “baker’s percentage” method of working with a recipe is not as scary as it sounds. It merely compares all the other ingredients to the amount of flour you choose to use. The amount of flour you choose depends how hungry you are.

Make a batch “for the week”, merely taking out of the fridge what you want to bake that day.

Sample recipe

Ambition:

I want to bake three ciabattas this week. At roughly 600g per loaf I know I will need about 1.8 kilos of dough.

Process:

I start with 1 kg flour. Everything I now add will be in relation to this fixed amount. My experience tells me that a ciabatta (which needs to be airy) takes about 75% water in relation to flour. That comes to 750g which is the same as 750ml. Make sure this water is ice cold. Don’t add it yet.

You want about 1% dry yeast (=10g) and 2% salt (=20g). Add this to your flour in a suitable bowl..

Now add the water and mix with metal spoon which you keep wet. You may also turn mixture out onto table but try to keep at least one hand clean to answer the phone which is about to ring. Much of the kneading work will magically happen overnight so don’t overdo this step. This is not that traditional recipe which calls for at least 300 strokes to develop the gluten.

Cover the dough with plastic and put into fridge.

Baking

Take out what you need for the day, give it an hour or two to “wake up”, fold like a letter, leave for while longer and bake. This part of the process is open to your experimentation. You may find the dough for later in the week is already perfectly awake and can be baked virtually from cold. Cold dough is also less sticky which is a bonus.

Your oven wants to be about 240 degrees c. You can bake these loaves on pans, pizza plates, whatever you like. While we’re on the subject of pizza, this dough is perfect for that too (you may add flour when stretching out the base). In fact, experimentation is encouraged, for example, add some mashed potato and accommodate the recipe by adding slightly more salt and flour if needed. If you’ve always wanted to bake focaccia now could also be the time.

The sweet taste in the bread comes naturally from the flour.

This recipe really built my confidence. I hope it does the same for you.

Trevor

Daly Bread bakes artisan breads that are delivered on Saturday mornings to the Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill, 373 Albert Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town (web www.theoldbiscuitmill.co.za.) and to many Melissa’s stores (www.melissas.co.za) on Wednesdays. Trevor makes potato bread, rye, ciabatta and sourdough loaves, either plain or with a combination of roasted garlic, olives and rosemary. They sell for R25 a loaf, but get there early as they ‘go down faster than brandy and Coke in Gansbaai over New Year!’ says Trevor. He also runs bread-baking courses for small groups on request at his bakery in Worcester. Contact Trevor on tel 084-585-3496 or e-mail [email protected].

Read the full story in the April 2009 issue of Getaway.

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