Royal Crown Tortano: Part I

The night before baking...

If you have some time to spare, and a problem getting the sort of bread you like , I commend to you a wonderful bread baking book, Artisan Baking, by Maggie Glezer. I have had this book for some time, its pages are covered with flour. It is a pleasure to follow her meticulously adapted recipes from artisan bakers all over the United States; she has made it possible to come very close to these terrific bakery breads at home.

I really enjoy making bread when I have the time to do it, but don't generally have that time. I fervently wish I had access to better bakery breads. I don't want to make my own bread often enough to keep myself in good daily bread. Unless I stuck to making a plain, short rise sandwich loaf every other day, I would not have enough free time left for other cooking. And I don't really want to be limited to plain sandwich bread.

Even if you do have access to the best bakery bread, it is sometimes very satisfying to make your own. The tortano is a gloriously beautiful bread which Ms. Glazer adapted from the Royal Crown Bakery in Brooklyn. I have never been there, but they are my heros. Lovely taste, lovely crust, giant crumb with huge airholes, and such looks! It has great flavor, but doesn't require the use of a traditional sour dough starter.

This is a perfect bread to take when you are bringing the bread to someone's house for dinner. It's huge and gorgeous, and unless they are having 50 other guests, they will have some left over to enjoy the next day. However, if you are feeling at all rushed, or impatient, this is not the project for you. It is certainly not always the project for me, especially if I am feeling antsy. As I had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day, an extra long weekend gave me the time I needed. I have changed very little from the Glezer recipe, only adapted it a bit to suit my equipment and lack of peel flipping talent. As it takes 2 days to finish, I thought I'd divide the posting in half as well. The 2nd part will appear promptly., I promise.

This bread is made with a strange, almost liquid dough, which you must handle using copious amounts of additional flour. The additional flour will appear, semi-incorporated in the crumb of the finished bread, and baked onto the dark crust attractively. If you have not made a wet dough before, you may find this dough alarming. Don't panic. I have tried to include a few photos, so that you won't think you've made a mistake. It does take a bit of practice, a lot of flour, and a gentle hand. If you are looking for something a tad easier (but also damp), try this bread first...it's a very clever technique, and quite good. I don't want to scare you off- I am not a highly skilled bread baker, and I've made the tortano quite a few times. It's always been lovely, from the first one.

You must start the tortano the evening before you bake, and you should plan to be home the day you do. (You can see why I wish for a bakery, even though I love making this bread!) I believe that making credible crusty bread at home depends very much on three factors: baking the bread until it is done and properly dark, willingness to crank up your oven as hot as it can get, and a ceramic baking stone or tile of some kind to bake it on. (Realistically, you also need a good stand mixer for this particular wet dough.)

There are lots of baking stones commercially available, or you can arrange quarry tiles on a rack of the oven. These stones are quite delicate at first, and must be handled carefully, or they will crack. However, they get tougher after multiple bakings. I've had my present one for 6 years, it is ugly and black, but I have been careful not to get any spoilable food on it. My key to its long life is that I just leave it in the oven all the time. It doesn't seem to interfere with other cooking at all.

You will need: Evening before baking, pre ferment:

Instant yeast 1/4 tsp
Water warm 1 cup
unbleached bread flour or King Arthur's Unbleached All Purpose Flour 2/3 cup
potato 1 small (3 oz)

note: King Arthur's is 14% protein-higher than most AP flours, very close to European bread flours, sez Ms. G

Stir the water and yeast together in a pyrex measuring cup. Mix well. Add 1/3 cup of this mixture (this enables you to accurately measure a very small amount of yeast- discard the rest) to the flour, and beat until well mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and let it ferment until it is full of huge bubbles- about 12 hours. If your kitchen is quite warm, after 3 hours, put it in fridge until morning. If it has been refrigerated, give it 30 minutes at room temperature in the morning before proceeding. The illustration shows the pre-ferment , ready to go.

Prepare the potato: Cut it in quarters and boil it in water to cover until tender to knife point. Reserve potato water. Remove skin, and rice or puree potato. Measure 1/4 cup. Cover and save.

Leave this all overnight, or for about 12 hours.

The rest of the ingredients you will need to complete the bread are:

flour, as above 3 3/4 cups (20 oz.), plus serious amounts of additional flour for dough handling
potato water, and extra lukewarm water to bring total water to 1 3/4 cps plus 3 tsps (14.6 oz)
the pre-ferment , as above
honey 2 tsps
potato puree 1/4 cup
salt 1 tsp

to be continued

Comments

[Luisa]

I LOVE this book and keep checking it out of the library. Should just buckle down and buy it for myself! The ciabatta recipe in it is out of this world. But your tortano looks incredible! Good job.

[From Our Kitchen]

We recently recieved a baking stone as a Christmas gift and it is amazing! We used it the same day we got it to make a foccacia. It made the bread, which we already loved, taste a million times better. We leave it in all the time too and notice an improvement in everything we bake.

[Baking Soda]

Wow this is one beauty of a bread! I plan on making the poolish tonight. I bake our daily bread and try to vary as much as possible, but sometimes the kids just want plain white..they regard it as a treat. (No additions this time mom!)Regarding the standmixer, do you recommend a KitchenAid? I love to have one, but as they are rediculously expensive in Europe, I want to make sure it can handle all kinds of dough well enough.

[lindy]

Baking soda-I wouldn't try this one without a stand mixer, though Maggie Glezer says you can do it with a dough scraper. It's just such a wet dough! I love my kitchenaid, and have been very happy with it- though I don't have the strongest model. But I would shop around and ask questions, no doubt there are good european mixers of the same high-powered sort, perhaps they won't be so expensive, not being imported?