Artisan Breads Every Day - Rustic Bread and Focaccia

One of our favorites from Peter Reinhart's newest bread book...

Pain a l'Ancienne Rustic Bread

This recipe was one of our favorites during the recipe testing last spring. Ed just loved the chewy texture, large holes and great flavor. The dough is very wet and sticky but the stretch and fold technique described in the book is a simple way to eliminate the kneading. If you go to Amazon, you can a watch a short video demonstrating the stretch and fold.

Changes I made: I replaced 1 1/2 cups of flour with whole wheat. I also added 2 T of vital gluten. Whole wheat flour makes a drier dough so I increased the water by 1/4 cup.

The photo above shows a large ciabatta loaf.

Focaccia, pictured below, uses the same ingredients with a slightly different method. When I made the focaccia, I increased the whole wheat flour even more to 2 1/2 cups and increased the water by 1/2 cup and added 3 T vital gluten. I kept the topping simple, just olive oil and some herbs. Next time I want to add more topping, maybe pesto, or sun dried tomatoes and some cheese. This would make an awesome pizza crust, if I kept the toppings simple enough to let the great bread flavor shine through!