June 18, 2010 - 5:09am
My first loaf baked in a cocotte
Than
Thanks to the freshloaf.com website, I have learnt to make a very successful cheese and black olives country loaf using a cocotte I recently purchased. The bread is very crusty, better than any I have made in the past and the crumb was just perfect except for the olives which tend to be all gathered in the middle but that may be due to my poor shaping. I'll try and post the crumb shot when the bread has cooled.
And the crumb shot as promised. Any suggestions as to how I can get the olives to spread out more?
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You could roll out the dough into a thin sheet (say 1/4 inch 0.5 cm) then spread the olives and cheese over the dough. Roll up the dough like a jelly roll, pinch the ends, and let it rise seam side down. Bake as a batard or a baguette.
Ford
Curious about the cocotte - this is unknown to me... If convenient, could you post a pic of this item?
Your crust and crumb is making me hungry! Is that cheese sprinkled on the top?
The cocotte is just a heavy cast iron pot, I think some people refer to it as a dutch oven...I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese inside and decided to put some grated chedder on the outside. The crust turned a little soft when it cooled down as its very humid here in HK...but when I heat it up in the oven the crust is crispy again.
From the description, I’d bet the bread was delicious.
Ford
Don't want to be seen as blowing my own trumpet but yes, I was quite pleased with the outcome although it could do with a little more cheese. :) It's a small loaf made from 250 grms of bread flour. It's a recipe for 500 grms but I halved everything just to see what it would be like to bake it in the cocotte. I don't want to waste the flour in case it didn't turn out right. Now I think I'm comfortable to make one using 375 grms...and I will try your method to make a batard . Stay tuned...
I've been doing a bit of reading on kneading techniqiues and decided to try my hand at making a multigrain loaf after seeing a beautiful 5 grain levain made by MichaelH. I've never worked with multigrain flour so it was just an experiment by adapting to a simple wholewheat loaf recipe and it turned out quite well. The scoring needs improvement and although it is nothing like the awesome boule that MichaelH made, it was nevertheless edible and tasted really good eaten fresh with a bit of butter.