I’m rather fond of the letter S, having lived with it as my first initial for quite a while now. It’s probably the letter I write more than any other, especially considering I have to sign my name or initials about 100 times a day at work.

So while I wasn’t consciously setting out to make a bread whose main ingredients all share my initial, perhaps my ego was quietly asserting itself when, in an experimental frame of mind, I put a few ingredients together and came up with Semolina-Spelt-Sesame Sourdough. 4S bread.

For a bread that contains not a single nut, this bread tastes remarkably nutty. The nuttiness derives mainly from the hefty dose of sesame seeds, and also from the semolina and spelt flours. Smear it with your favorite fruit preserves and you’d swear it was a PB&J, except it doesn’t stick to the roof of your mouth. The bread is quite nice for sandwiches because the crumb is soft, thanks to the olive oil, and not too open, so you won’t get splotches of jelly all over yourself.

I tried a few different shapes with this: one simple batard, and two spiral loaves, one round and one double-ended (i.e., S-shaped). As they were about to go into the oven, my husband came into the kitchen and said, “What’s that? It looks like SOL.” It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about:

(In case you don’t know the acronym SOL, it can translate to a couple of different phrases that mean roughly the same thing. One is “Sorely Outta Luck.”)

His remark was prophetic, because only the batard turned out to look very appealing. The spirals, maybe because I coiled them too tightly, didn’t open up and lost their definition.

Spelt is an ancient cousin of modern wheat. Spelt flour is available in some retail food stores, or can be ordered from King Arthur Flour.

Semolina-Spelt-Sesame Sourdough

Yield: 1 kg (two loaves)

Time:

• Mix: 15 minutes
• First fermentation: 2 hours or more
• Divide, bench rest, and shape: 30 minutes
• Proof: 2 hours or more
• Bake: 35 minutes

Desired dough temperature: 76F

Ingredients:

• 100 g white flour
• 136 g whole spelt flour
• 236 g semolina flour (coarse)
• 288 g water
• 141 g ripe 100% hydration sourdough starter
• 1 g (1/3 t.) instant yeast (optional)
• 12 g (2 t. table) salt
• 28 g (2 T.) olive oil
• 80 g toasted sesame seeds

Method:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the flours, most of the water, starter, yeast, and salt on low speed until well combined, about four or five minutes. Adjust the water to give the dough a moderately soft consistency.
2. Continue mixing in low or medium speed until the dough reaches a low level of gluten development, and another minute past that.
3. Add the olive oil and continue mixing in low or medium speed until the gluten reaches a moderate level of development. The total mixing time may be about 10 minutes, but will depend on your mixer.
4. Add the sesame seeds and mix in low speed just until they are evenly distributed through the dough.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container (preferably a low, wide one so the dough can be folded without removing it from the container).
6. Ferment at room temperature (72F – 76F) for 2 hours (or about 2.5 hours if you have omitted the instant yeast), with a fold after one hour.
7. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Divide it into two equal pieces and preshape them into light balls.
8. Cover the balls loosely with plastic and let them rest for 25 minutes.
9. Shape into batards and place seam-side down on a semolina-dusted board or directly on your peel.
10. Slip the board into a large plastic bag or cover the loaves loosely with plastic wrap. Ferment at room temperature for 2 hours (or about 2.5 hours if no yeast was used).
11. Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with baking stone, to 475F. You will also need steam during the initial phase of baking, so prepare for this now.
12. Slash each batard with a slightly S-shaped cut that is parallel to the long axis of the loaf.
13. Once the loaves are in the oven, turn the heat down to 450F. Bake for 10 minutes with steam, and another 20 minutes or so without steam. The crust should be a deep brown. Then turn off the oven and leave the loaves in for 5 minutes longer, with the door ajar, to help them dry.
14. Cool on a wire rack.

If you’re anything like me, you may still be feeling the effects of those holiday indulgences that just kept adding up and up. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but it’s definitely time for a few changes for the healthier around here.

These 100% whole wheat pitas are not only 100% good for you, they also taste 100% better than the cardboard discs that somehow wind up in bags labeled “pita bread” on store shelves.

I adapted this easy recipe from Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, who say that in lieu of baking, the pitas can be cooked on a stovetop griddle or skillet. I’ve not tried that, but oven baking is very easy, provided you have a baking stone. If you don’t have one, either go get one or let me know how the griddle works for you.

I’ve found that rolling the pitas very thin keeps the top and bottom layers the same thickness. If you prefer a thicker pita, fine, but I’ve found that when they puff, the bottom layer ends up thicker than the top. You might or might not care about that.

And just what is it that makes pitas puff up? It’s some serious bread magic.

Whole Wheat Pitas

Yield: 8 pitas

Time:

• Mix and ferment sponge: 1 hour
• Mix final dough: 10 minutes
• Ferment: 1.5 hours
• Divide, rest, and roll out: 15 minutes
• Bake: 2 – 3 minutes per batch of 1 – 3 pitas

Sponge ingredients:

• 225 g whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat but regular is fine also)
• 2.5 g (3/4 t.) instant yeast
• 280 g lukewarm water

Final dough ingredients:

• All of the sponge
• 9 g salt (1.5 t. table salt)
• 14 g olive oil (1.5 t.)
• 185 g whole wheat flour
• More water at room temperature, as needed

Method:

1. Combine sponge ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover and let rest for one hour.
2. Stir salt and olive oil into sponge.
3. Add the 185 g flour and mix briefly to form a shaggy mass. It’s OK if not all of the flour is incorporated at this point.
4. Turn the dough and any loose flour out onto the counter. Knead to incorporate all of the flour. At this point the dough should be soft and tacky (not sticky). If it’s not tacky, add a bit more water. If it’s sticky, knead for a bit, then add a touch more flour if it’s still sticky.
5. Continue kneading for 8 – 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
6. Place the dough back in its bowl. Cover and ferment 1.5 hours or until approximately doubled in volume.
7. Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with stone, to 450F).
8. Turn the dough out onto an unfloured counter and knead it a few times to degas it.
9. Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape each into a ball. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.
10. On a lightly floured counter, roll each ball into a disc about 7″ in diameter. They will be very thin. You can roll the first two or three, and then more as the first batch is baking.
11. Using a peel lightly sprinkled with semolina, transfer two or three pitas to the baking stone. (If you don’t have a peel, place the pitas on parchment paper and slide the parchment paper onto the stone.) Bake for 2 –3 minutes, until fully puffed. Don’t overbake or the pitas will be dry. (If a few don’t puff, they’ll still be delicious.)
12. Repeat with the remaining pitas. As they come out of the oven, wrap them in a towel to keep them warm.

These are best eaten as soon as possible after baking. I like a pocket sandwich with lightly (not deep) fried falafel and assorted vegetables. I feel better already.

It’s that time of year when many of us find ourselves thinking about how to create festive dishes for our holiday gatherings. For bread bakers, creative shaping is one way to add that extra flair that can elevate a loaf from the everyday to the celebration-worthy.

This rosette looks complicated to make, but in fact it couldn’t be simpler. My loaf is a challah, but the technique can be used with any dough that’s not overly soft, and it works for rolls as well as loaves.

Divide the dough into two equal portions and roll each one out into a snake with slightly tapered ends. (For this eighteen-ounce loaf, each strand was about 24 inches long.)

Wind the strands together like rope.

Now coil the rope up into a spiral, tuck the end underneath, and you’re done!

Easy, no?

The first days of November mark Mexico’s Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), a lively and rich tradition in which departed loved ones are honored and the cycle of life is celebrated.

Although I have never had the opportunity to visit Mexico during this festive time, I wanted to try my hand at making Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead), which is traditionally sculpted in a representation of bones. I adapted this one from a recipe in Diana Kennedy’s My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients, as posted on Epicurious. My changes reflect what I discovered worked best for me as I made the recipe twice.

The bread is sweet and eggy, similar in texture to a yeasted coffee cake. This one has no anise seed, although other recipes I have seen include it. I didn’t use orange blossom water, only orange zest, and the result was a subtly citrus-scented loaf.

For a wealth of information on Day of the Dead, and some gorgeous photos, check out this lovely and educational website by journalist Mary J. Andrade.

Pan de Muerto
(adapted from this recipe)

Yield: One large loaf, about 2 pounds

Time:

• Mix and ferment sponge: 2 – 2.5 hours
• Mix final dough: 15 – 20 minutes
• First fermentation: 2 – 3 hours
• Shape: 10 minutes
• Proof: 1 – 2 hours
• Bake: 40 minutes

Sponge Ingredients:

• 227 g flour
• 74 g water
• 3.8 g (5/8 t.) salt
• 24 g sugar
• 5 g (1 5/8 t.) instant yeast
• one whole egg plus one yolk, lightly beaten

Final Dough Ingredients:

• 100 g unsalted butter, softened
• 227 g flour
• 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• 37 g water at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon orange flower water and/or grated rind of 1/2 orange
• 114 g sugar

Glaze Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon of water
• about 3 T. clarified unsalted butter
• about 3 T. superfine or regular granulated sugar

Method:

1. Combine the sponge ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with the dough hook on low speed until the ingredients are incorporated and a smooth, soft, elastic dough is formed, about 5 minutes. Transfer the sponge to a lightly oiled container. Cover and ferment at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
2. Cut the sponge into pieces and add it to the mixer bowl with all of the final dough ingredients except the sugar.
3. Mix on low speed until the ingredients are fully incorporated, about 4 minutes. (At this point the dough is rather stiff, but will loosen up considerably with the addition of the sugar.)
4. Turn the mixer to medium speed and continue mixing while very gradually adding the sugar. (About 6 additions, a minute or so apart.)
5. Continue mixing in medium speed until the gluten reaches full development (a very thin, very translucent windowpane can be coaxed from a handful of the dough). This may take about another 10 minutes, but will depend on your mixer.
6. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container. Cover and ferment at room temperature until it reaches 1.5 times its original bulk. For me this took 2.5 hours.
7. Press the dough lightly to degas it. Separate off about 1/4 of the dough.
8. Form the large dough piece into a ball and press it into a disc about 8″ in diameter, and place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
9. Divide the remaining dough into 7 pieces. Shape one piece into a ball (to represent the skull) and the other six into “bones” with knobbed ends.
10. Arrange the bones around the loaf with the skull in the center.



11. Slip the baking sheet into a large plastic bag and proof the loaf until it springs back very slowly when pressed (with a lightly moistened finger, to avoid sticking). This took about 2 hours at room temperature for me.
12. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 °F.
13. Before baking, brush the loaf lightly with the egg yolk.
14. Bake for about 25 minutes at 375 °F, then reduce the oven temperature to 325 °F and continue baking for another 10 minutes. Reduce the heat sooner if the loaf is getting too dark. The crust will be a deep, rich brown.
15. Turn off the oven and leave the loaf inside, with the door cracked open, for another 5 minutes.
16. While the loaf is still warm, brush it with melted clarified butter and sprinkle with superfine or regular granulated sugar. Brush off the excess sugar to leave the loaf with a fine coating.
17. Cool completely on a wire rack.

If you think you can’t bake bread (which is probably a false notion, by the way), grissini are a sure-fire way to fast success.

These thin bread sticks could not be simpler to make. If you love playing with dough, you’ll get plenty of opportunity here. And who doesn’t love their eminently nosh-able crunch, not to mention the visual panache a bouquet of these babies adds to the dinner table?

The recipe, adapted from Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated magazine, uses a simple pizza dough. A food processor makes very short work of the mixing, but the dough may also be mixed by hand (7 to 8 minutes) or in a stand mixer (5 minutes).

If you don’t need 64 grissini, refrigerate half the dough and make pizza for breakfast.

Grissini (Thin Bread Sticks)

Yield: 64 bread sticks

Time:

• Mix: 2 – 10 minutes
• Ferment: 1.5 – 2 hours
• Divide/shape: 10 minutes per 16 bread sticks
• Bake: 25 – 30 minutes per 16 bread sticks

Ingredients:

• 623 g flour
• 397 g water at room temperature
• 6.5 g (2 t.) instant yeast
• 9 g (1.5 t.) salt
• 28 g (2 T.) olive oil
• topping of your choice (I used a mixture of coarse Kosher salt, coarsely-ground pepper, and chopped fennel seed, as suggested by the original recipe)

Method:

1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a large food processor. Pulse a few times to combine.
2. Combine the water and olive oil in a liquid measuring cup. With the processor running, add the liquid to the dry ingredients in a steady stream.
3. Process until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 90 seconds.
4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled container. Cover the container and let the dough ferment at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1.5 – 2 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 °F. A baking stone and steam are not needed.
6. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. The steps that follow will be repeated for each of the four pieces. Keep the pieces you’re not working with covered.
8. On a floured counter, roll the dough out into a rectangle about 12 x 8 inches. The exact dimensions are not critical.
9. Cut the dough into 16 strips of equal width. A pizza cutter works very well for this.
   

   

10. Fold each strip over on itself (according to Baking Illustrated, this makes it stronger). On an unfloured surface, roll the strip into a long snake. Make it a bit longer than the length of your baking sheet, to allow for spring-back.

11. Place the snakes evenly spaced across the width of the parchment-lined baking sheet.
12. Lightly spray or brush the grissini with olive oil and sprinkle on the topping.



13. Bake at 350 °F for 25 – 30 minutes, until golden brown.
14. Cool on a wire rack.

So I convinced myself I needed my new Cuisinart Brick Oven. There were those in my household who were skeptical that another appliance would improve our quality of life, but they came around soon enough. The Cuisinart BRK-200 is not perfect, but it fills a long-empty niche in our kitchen.

Although it is classified as a “toaster oven” by almost all the online retailers that carry it, calling this thing a toaster oven is like calling your laptop computer a calculator. It is a fully functional oven that happens to sit on your countertop and can make toast, when it’s not busy with other things. With a hefty pricetag ($249) to match its hefty footprint (19.5W x 18.5D inches), it had better pull its weight, and it does.

The oven can be set to Toast, Broil, Bake, or Convection Bake. While other ovens can do all those things, what sets the BRK-200 (and its sister models, the BRK-100 and -300) apart from other countertop ovens is the included removable 12-inch square baking stone, and the side walls that are permanently lined with the same brick-like material. And, unlike many other ovens, the Cuisinart can be heated to up to 500° F degrees. I can’t say I’ve used many small ovens, nor many brick ovens, but I can say that I am very pleased with way this small brick oven performs.

While putting my oven through its initial paces I stuck with simple, familiar things, so I would know, if something went horribly awry, that the fault lay with the oven and not with me or the recipe. These paces included:

Hearth bread. My favorite sourdough baked beautifully, directly on the stone, on the regular bake setting. The crust had that rustic look as though it came from a real wood-fired brick oven. Because of the small size of the chamber (0.9 cubic feet), steaming the oven was not needed. I found the ideal baking temperature to be somewhat lower than what I use in my big oven, to prevent overbrowning.

Pizza. Again, directly on the stone. Lovely.

Banana bread. It baked perfectly on the regular bake setting, at the same temperature and time as in my big oven. Because the stone was still hot from the pizza, I left it in the oven and placed the loaf pan directly on it.

Chocolate Chip Cookies. Although the included shallow roasting/baking pan is not perfectly flat-bottomed, when lined with parchment it is serviceable as a cookie sheet for up to nine 3-inch cookies. Without the stone, the oven heats to 350° F in about four minutes.

Chicken. I roasted a whole 4-pound bird in one hour flat on the convection bake setting, and it was moist inside, crisp outside. I did have to rotate the chicken halfway through baking because I noticed that the side closest to the front of the oven was not browning as well as the rest of the bird.

Broiled salmon and red peppers (not at the same time). The broiler broils evenly. A broiler pan is included with the oven. By adjusting the position of the pan and oven rack, you can quite precisely control the distance of the pan from the broil element (between 2 and 5.5 inches).

Toast. Bread toasts reasonably (though not 100%) evenly on both top and bottom, but the analog darkness control is not wonderful and requires some experimentation. Somewhere between Light-Medium (in the photo) and Medium – which is really quite dark brown – is where I will stay for most toasting. The toast burned at halfway between Medium and Dark. The lip on the rack impedes sliding the bread out of the oven, so it’s difficult to remove the toast without burning your fingers or using a utensil.

There are a few other things I’m not crazy about. The exterior gets very hot – not so much that you’ll damage yourself if your pain receptors and reflexes are in good working order, but enough to get an “ouch!” out of you. The handles on the door and sides do stay cool, but more than once I’ve brushed my finger against the hot door while opening it with the handle. Other annoyances include the lack of a preheat indicator light, a crumb tray that is removed from the back of the oven, and an interior light that cannot be turned off when the oven is on.

Overall, I love the performance and convenience of the Cuisinart Brick Oven. From now on I will use it any time I need to bake or broil something that fits in there – and that’s a large percentage of the time. It’s wonderful not to have to heat up the big oven (and the kitchen) for small-to-medium jobs. And it doesn’t hurt that the oven is quiet, nice looking, and has a broiler pan that fits in my dishwasher.

1. A flatbread
2. More rye bread
3. A bread that doesn’t take all day (or longer) to make
4. A recipe from Daniel Leader’s new book, Local Breads
   

And the stone:

Leader’s Rye-Fennel Crackerbread from far northern Italy was absolutely painless to make, a real treat to eat, and a welcome break from boules and batards. It wasn’t quite 100% crisp, but I’m more than willing to attribute that to baker error (like maybe underbaking a little, and forgetting to pierce them before baking.) And in under two hours from start to finish, there’s just no excuse not to try it again soon.

I confess I have not read Local Breads from cover to cover yet, but that appears well worth doing. Each chapter, and each recipe, is loaded with information about traditional regional European breads, their bakers, and baking techniques that are thoughtfully explained and illustrated.

Rye-Fennel Crackerbread (Schüttelbrot)

From Daniel Leader’s Local Breads [with some notes from me]

Ingredients:

• 450 g tepid water (70° – 78° F)
• 8 g instant yeast [Leader says this equals 1.5 t., but I calculate it at about 2.5 t. I weighed out and used the 8 g, but it seemed like a lot, so maybe the 1.5 t. is more correct.]
• 250 g rye flour, preferably finely ground [I used Giusto’s organic]
• 250 g unbleached bread flour [I used Giusto’s Golden Haven organic]
• 3 g (2 t.) ground fennel
• 1.5 g (1 t.) ground anise
• 10 g (1.5 t.) sea salt

Method:

• Prepare the oven. About 15 minutes before baking, place one rack in the upper third of the oven and a second rack in the middle position. Heat the oven to 400° F. [My regular bake setting is on the fritz – it’s always something! – so I used convection at 375° F.]
• Mix the dough. By hand: Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. With a rubber spatula, stir in the yeast, rye flour, bread flour, fennel, anise, and salt to make a stiff batter. Stir vigorously until you can see strands of gluten pulling away from the spoon, 7 to 8 minutes. By machine: Pour the water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the yeast, rye flour, bread flour, fennel, anise, and salt. With the paddle attachment, stir the batter on low speed (2 on a KitchenAid mixer) until you can see strands of gluten pulling away from the paddle, 4 to 5 minutes. [I mixed a total of about 5 minutes in a KitchenAid, not including several stops to scrape the batter away from the paddle and the sides of the bowl.]
• Ferment the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature (70° to 75° F) until it puffs up slightly, 30 to 45 minutes.
• Shape the flatbreads. Dust 2 baking sheets with rye flour. Uncover the dough and scrape it onto a counter generously dusted with rye flour. With a bench scraper or chef’s knife, cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Use a heavily floured rolling pin to roll each piece into a 6-inch round about 1/8-inch thick. [In keeping with the book’s photo of the bread, I also used my fingers to poke and stretch a hole in the round, although the written instructions did not call for this.] Place the flatbreads on the floured baking sheets, at least 2 inches apart. Poke them all over with a cake tester or skewer to keep them from rising too much. [I forgot to do this, and the breads puffed a little, like pitas. Also, again to match the book photo, I sprinkled the tops of the breads with fennel seeds, but I didn’t press them in firmly enough, and most of them fell off after baking.]



• Bake the flatbreads. Slide the baking sheets onto the oven racks. Bake until the breads have risen slightly and are nearly crisp, 20 to 25 minutes (switching the position of the baking sheets halfway through). They will not color significantly but will look barely toasted. [Because of the convection, I think, mine got to the barely-toasted stage, without swapping the sheets, in 19 minutes. In hindsight, this was probably a little short.] Turn off the oven and leave the baking sheets inside for 10 – 15 more minutes to crisp the bread. [Because the oven seemed very moist, I left the door cracked open for the first 10 minutes or so. And because they seemed to need a little more crisping, I left them in the off oven for a total of 30 minutes.]
• Cool and store the flatbreads. Remove the baking sheets to wire racks. The flatbreads will cool quickly. Store completely cooled flatbreads in airtight containers at room temperature for up to 1 month.

First, the fendu: I’ve been getting a little bored with basic batards lately, so I thought I’d do something just a bit different. A fendu (French for “split”) loaf is an easy variation that looks cool and offers a nice respite for those with scoring anxiety.

The fendu can be made with any shapeable dough, but my understanding is that it is traditionally done with country French bread (pain de campagne), which is a basic French bread, made with sourdough or other preferment and a portion of whole grain flour (rye and/or whole wheat).

To shape the fendu, first shape a batard. Make it a bit stubby; it will elongate into a torpedo as you complete the shaping process. Place the batard on a lightly floured counter, and sprinkle a little flour on the top.

With a dowel (or, if you can’t find one, a new (undented) drumstick, like the one I borrowed here), press into the center of the loaf the loaf firmly along the long axis.

Roll the dowel back and forth to make a “hinge” about two inches wide and 1/8-inch thick. Sprinkle the hinge very lightly with flour.

Roll the two halves of the loaf back toward each other so they touch. Place the loaf, split side down, in a floured couche or linen-lined banneton to proof.

After proofing, the split may look rather indistinct, but it should open up during baking.

Bake the loaves split side up, and voilà!

Now, about the dough. My plan was to do a variation on Norwich Sourdough, substituting whole wheat flour for half of the pumpernickel. Then I realized I had to be somewhere before the bread would be done, so I planned to spike the dough with a little yeast (3/8 t.) for faster fermentation. Then I realized I had elaborated my starter into only about half of what I needed, so I doubled my original amount of yeast and increased the flour and water to make up for the missing starter.

So it’s not the dough I would usually make, but the bread was done in 4-1/2 hours from start to finish, the crust was a whole lot more crispy-crackly than what I usually get using a higher proportion of starter, and the taste still beats most store-bought bread by a mile.

Country Semi-Sourdough
Yield: 1 kg (two loaves)
Time:

• Mix/autolyse: 25 minutes
• First fermentation: 1.5 hours
• Divide, bench rest, and shape: 25 minutes
• Proof: 1 – 1.5 hours
• Bake: 30 minutes

Desired dough temperature: 78° F Ingredients:

• 496 g white flour (I used Giusto’s Golden Haven organic)
• 31 g whole rye flour (I used KAF organic pumpernickel)
• 31 g whole wheat flour (I used Whole Foods organic)
• 339 g water at about 70° F
• 138 g ripe 100% hydration sourdough starter
• 12 g salt (2 t.)
• 2.25 g instant yeast (3/4 t.)

Method:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the flours, water, and starter on low speed until just combined, about one minute.
2. Let the dough rest (autolyse) for 20 minutes.
3. Add the salt and yeast and continue mixing on low or medium speed until the dough reaches a medium level of gluten development. This should only take about 3 or 4 minutes.
4. Transfer the dough to an oiled container (preferably a low, wide one so the dough can be folded without removing it from the container).
5. Ferment at room temperature (72° F – 76° F) for 1.5 hours, with folds at 30 and 60 minutes.
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Divide it into two pieces and preshape them into light balls.
7. Sprinkle the balls lightly with flour, cover loosely with plastic, and let rest for 15 minutes.
8. Shape into fendu batards and place split side down in a floured couche or linen-lined bannetons.
9. Slip the couche or bannetons into a large plastic bag or cover with plastic wrap and proof at room temperature for 1 – 1.5 hours.
10. Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with baking stone, to 475° F. You will also need steam during the initial phase of baking, so prepare for this now.
11. Turn the proofed loaves, split side up, onto a semolina-sprinkled peel or parchment.
12. Once the loaves are in the oven, turn the heat down to 450° F. Bake for 10 minutes with steam, and another 20 minutes without steam. The crust should be a deep brown. For a very crisp crust, turn off the oven and leave the loaves in for another 5 minutes with the door ajar.
13. Cool on a wire rack. Wait until completely cool to cut and eat.