Pane Rustica: Italian Peasant Bread

[MajorChode]

I've been making my own bread for a very long time. I've made many different types (mostly yeast breads). I have yet to find such an easy recipe that produces such fantastic results. I like breads that you ferment overnight, but every recipe I've tried had a few more steps than this one. I also very much like basic breads that only contain water, salt, yeast, and flour.

I used Dr. Fankhauser's technique, listed on his web page and followed his directions to the letter.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Pane_Rustica/Pane_Rustica.html

I was a bit surprised by a few of the steps. For one thing you only use 1/4 tsp of yeast. Normally I use at least 2-3 times more for a single loaf. There is no kneading step, which I also found a bit surprising. The hardest part was keeping the dough from sticking to the tea towel during the proofing stage. Even though the towel I used wasn't terrycloth and was floured very heavily, it still managed to stick a bit (which didn't affect the final outcome). I'm going to have to find some linen towels or I may try using a layer of cheesecloth between the dough and the towel. Dr. Fankhauser really doesn't specify which type of flour to use. I used bread flour and got results exactly as he describes. Next time I will experiment with a 1:1 ratio of different types of flour as he recommends. I have some pumpernickel on hand, so I'll probably try that first. I'll probably experiment with a sourdough version also.

[noamnety]

1. The bread looks wonderful.

I've been doing some no-knead wet doughs as well and had some similar problems with sticking at the last step of transferring the bread from where it was rising to the preheated stone. I could either use too much cornmeal and slop that around in the oven (and the bread was still sticking a little), or I could try to scoot it off with a spatula, but it was deflating a little during that process.

I just got a "superpeel". It's a pizza peel with a loop of pastry cloth running through it like a conveyor belt. It's nothing high tech, but it works to shift the dough to the stone without it having to slide across a surface. (It's the same way I got loaded onto an operating table once, which is somewhere between fascinating and creepy for me.)

[Warpy]

2. what I use is a Silpat dusted with cornmeal

and laid into a very shallow bowl I bought from a local potter. When it comes time to transfer, just invert the Silpat over stone or Dutch oven. You might have to scrape off a couple of straggly strands, but only a couple.

The only other alternative is rising the wet dough on parchment and transferring the whole business, parchment and all, to stone or Dutch Oven.

I've done both, prefer using the Silpat.

[noamnety]

3. I wasn't coordinated enough to transfer it cleanly.

I tried transferring from hard surfaces (thin sturdy cutting boards), and from soft flexible surfaces, and I'm just not smart enough to pull that off.

It probably doesn't help that my cat, in her old age, has decided that she needs to practically climb into the oven every time I open the door even if it's 500 degrees in there. Anything more than a quick movement onto the hot stone threatens to become a reenactment of hansel and gretel.

Superpeel in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6owgSkYJTo&feature=player_embedded