Pain Brie

Based on a recipe from: “Upper Crust: Homemade Bread the French Way”

From Wikipedia:

Pain brié is a traditional Normandy bread. Its name comes from the pounding of the dough…

Ingredients

Makes two loaves

Poolish

• 300g water
• 4g fresh yeast
• 300 g AP flour

Bread

• 200g AP flour
• 50g water
• 40g butter, at room temperature
• 6g fresh yeast
• 10g salt

Percentages

• 500g AP flour (100%)
• 350g water (70%)
• 40g butter (8%)
• 10g yeast (2%)
• 10g salt (2%)

Method

0. Mix the poolish ingredients till well-combined. Cover and rest for room temp for two hours, till bubbly.
1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients (include the poolish). Turn out onto the counter, then mix until smooth. Return to bowl and rest for 30 minutes (BF)
2. Turn out onto a floured surface and split into two portions. With each, form a batard. Let rise for one hour (proof)
3. Halfway into proofing, preheat oven to 230c. Place an empty cast iron pan on the bottom row
4. One hour into proof, refrigerate dough for 10-15 minutes. Bring some water to a boil
5. Make 3-5 incisions across the dough, then place the dough in the oven. Pour the boiled water into the cast iron pan
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Open the oven door slightly and bake for another 5-10 minutes to dry out the crust

Thoughts

I made this, twice. Many, many mistakes were made the first time round (I won’t discuss these), and I noticed some areas for improvement.

First off: while this recipe doesn’t contain a lot of butter (8%), I think it’s beneficial for the dough to have the butter held back first. I mixed everything together during my first try (as per the instructions from the book), but I’m not sure that’s the best idea. Butter (oil) and water aren’t friends, and it takes forever to develop gluten when you add everything in at once. This is especially evident when you’re kneading by hand. Adding the butter after gluten developed resulted in a less sticky dough - much easier to manage. However, I can’t speak to how one would fare if they were using a stand mixer - perhaps it would be fine.

I also opted for a cold proof the second time round, for two reasons:

1. I really wanted it to proof nicely, like, inflate to the size of a balloon. And I didn’t trust myself to read the proof well enough at room temp
2. Wanted to see if a cold dough would be easier to score (spoiler: it was)

Closing

I found it interesting that the recipe called for a bulk fermentation time of 30 minutes, while the proof is an hour. Usually, it’s the reverse, where the proof is shorter than the bulk fermentation. After thinking about it a bit more, it made sense: since the yeast in the poolish is already happy and active, we don’t have to ferment it for too long,

Pictures:

This ain’t it

Second attempt:

Overall, I think the second attempt turned out okay… The scoring isn’t as straight as I would like, but the cold proof really makes a difference. Taste-wise, it’s a bread with a crunchy crust and a slightly chewy interior - a fun eat, so I’ll definitely keep working on this one.