16 Comments

I think there is a typo in this sentence: “This recipe can be baked in a Dutch oven/combo cooker directly on a baking stone/steel with a steaming pan at the bottom of the oven.” Shouldn’t it be “This recipe can be baked in a Dutch oven/combo cooker OR directly on a baking stone/steel with a steaming pan at the bottom of the oven.”

Also, I’m assuming that Steps 7 and 8 are both required (warm proofing, cold proofing), but I wasn’t entirely sure if instead it was either 7 or 8.

All that said, I like extra (or at least more) sour, so this looks promising. Thanks for sharing this.

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Hi Nancy, I often bake with the vessel directly on a preheated baking steel to ensure the bottom crust is developing properly. This is mostly because my oven is electric and the heating element is on the top of the oven, limiting the amount of heat that the bottom of my vessel is exposed to. I could be wrong, but I do not find this to be a typo.

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Hi Colt, I don’t see how a steaming pan in an oven with a closed Dutch oven would allow any additional steam to affect the bread. Also, on Maurizio’s website, he says “do not bake bread dough inside a Dutch oven on top of a baking stone.” Thus my view that this was indeed a typo.

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It's a typo! I just copied and pasted the text Maurizio sent me, but fixed it now, I'm sure he meant "or" and it was corrected in the actual book.

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What you said makes sense and I stand corrected!

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In process! Far drier dough than I'm used to and far less levain--maybe this last is why my loaves have not been sour enough? But it's impossible for me to follow a recipe exactly-- I did do a brief autolyse before adding the levain. But I intend to do a three day cold rise in the fridge, thoughts? Am I an idiot? (I usually do this with a far wetter dough, I might have to give in and bake it earlier.)

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Not an idiot at all, Alice! but I'd maybe suggest trying it as-is, so you have a baseline to work from.

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It's an excellent suggestion. Will do my best to follow the letter of the law the next time.

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Andrew, if I make 1/2 of this recipe-- do I also 1/2 the levain or keep it at 90 grams?

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Yes, definitely! Something many people are confused about is the idea that the yeast or leaven doesn't scale just like other ingredients, and I've never quite understood why. It's no different than if you'd made two smaller loaves from one larger batch of dough—each half would also have half the leaven in it.

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This is what I've been doing but for some reason, I needed to double check. So, yes, his recipe for sour is about 1/2 of what I use in other recipes (I mostly follow Sam Fromartz's miche guidelines. So that means i'll try 45grams for a loaf with about 350 grams of flour. I have a feeling that's the ticket.

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let me know how it goes!

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It was fabulous. One of the best loafs I've managed. Approaches the sourness and texture i want--though not there yet. But I have plenty of plenty of tweaks possible-- so it's a great foundation. Thanks so much.

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Excellent!! I'll mention it to Maurizio!

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Is there a way to make this without staying up until midnight or waking up at 6am? The three 12 hour rests seem to require either a late night or an early morning.

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I think I'd just extend the fermentation of each stage as long as needed to fit your schedule: put the levain in the fridge for up to 3 hours before using it, make the dough late in the day, then shape it 12-16h before you want to bake it.

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