We have one winner!

Where's the darned drum roll when I want it?

It is our great pleasure to announce the winner of the random drawing for a signed copy of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers.


Bling! Bling! Bling!

Our first winner is:

Robin of Around the Island, written from around her kitchen island in Israel. She tells me it is not a food blog but I see recipes, plates of tasty looking food there, plus: duh, the name. grin

Robin says the book is for her husband, who does most of their baking, some with the help of very small people - which is always challenging! Maybe if we ask nicely, Robin will share pictures and stories of breads from her, I mean her husband's, new book.

We'll be back in a day or two with the winner for the best story. Because choosing a winner is hard. Very hard.

Technorati: Food | Beth | local breads | bread

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The Lost Stories

When we started our contest to give away a copy of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, we thought that perhaps a few people would share an amusing story of bread-baking and we were right. A few more — maybe more than a few — shared heart-warming stories of baking bread, while others wrote a poem or a song. We have had a blast reading all of these entries and would like to thank you all again for taking the time to join in.

We were, however, dismayed when we got a message from someone asking why we hadn't posted his story in the final roundup because we certainly didn't mean to leave anyone out. A lot of work went into your stories and they are each wonderful in their own way. This got me started thinking about missing entries and where they might have gone... a train of thought that stopped at a gMail spam folder. A spam folder that is apparently a part of the Bermuda Triangle since it held all sorts of missing things. Including a number of contest entries.

Oops.

So, with our apologies we present the actual last round of bread stories to be followed shortly by announcements of winners. Four of them.

What? Did she say four?
Yes, I believe she did!
But... I thought it was two?
It was but now isn't.
So FOUR people get copies of Local Breads? Cool!

Yes, we found two more copies of the book so we get to give copies to two lucky runnersup (er, runnerups?) ["runnersup" - Ed.]. So look for four winning names, starting tomorrow. In the meantime, on with the stories.

Zach tells us a story of a man, a woman, and their wild love for wild yeast:

Two weeks before my wedding, I made sourdough starter — my second attempt ever. I wanted to bake communion bread for the wedding service to be held on my family’s farm. My fiancée, Kira, and I were excited about using wild yeast as leaven — some of it from the very air of the farm on which we would marry — but I was nervous that it wouldn't be ready in time.

I mixed water and flour, and refreshed it daily, putting the starter in the farmhouse's basement to keep it safe from the July heat. I made frequent trips down the worn, wooden steps to check on it, hoping the yeast were happy with what I had given them. After about a week, it was bubbling with life, ready to make bread!

Two days before my wedding, I made a firm starter. The next day, I mixed up the dough, fermented it, shaped it into boules, and put it in the refrigerator. I woke up on my wedding day with two thoughts in my head: "Today I will marry the woman I love," and, "I need to get the bread in the oven!" The sourdough baked into some of the best loaves I have made. It was so special to carry it down the aisle alongside some homemade wine from Kira’s grandfather. I know I will often think of that feeling as I am baking bread, and the smell fills up the kitchen like it did on my wedding day.

(Beth dabs eyes with tissue)

Cerddinen offers excellent advice at the start of her tale of making Susan's Italiano No-knead Bread: "Make sure to completely read and understand the instructions." Excellent advice which she, of course, ignored. The story sounds like my bread (this is Beth of the long, cold rise) as her dough goes in and out of the refrigerator because "I'm not waiting till 1 A.M. to put this sucker in the oven." (Kevin, she served it with North Carolina Style Vinegar Based BBQ Pork. Is the BBQ pig a secret message to you?) [The Legions of the Slow Order of the Pig are as grains of sand. - Ed.]

Don Luis shares his journey while seeking a new way of making his much missed crusty Italian bread after a move to Puerto Rico where basic ingredients including instant yeast and unbleached flour are impossible to find. Starting with a simple nine-step recipe for Pan de Luis and ending with a two-phase, 19 step bread-building process at Pan de Luis Redux, Don Luis seems to have mastered bread in a land that is 1400 miles from the nearest Whole Foods.

Druzsbaczk writes from Hungary (where 'cock' means water valve) [Thanks for that clarification - Ed.]

My family is gourmet, and we like delicate food as gifts, especially homemade things. Last year I planned to bake a german-style sourdough bread for my father. The procedure needs about 5 days.

Everything had gone well, on 23rd December morning I made the last step of feeding my sourdough, and wanted to wash the used spoon and other dishes. As I opened the cock, suddenly it dropped out, and stayed in my hand! I had to call my Father (excellent handyman), he came over in 20 minutes — so I had to cover all the bread's tracks: bowl, spoon, flour...

He fixed my cock, and did not realized the present sourdough — everything's OK! I baked the bread, it looked nice, father was surprised and happy, and we tasted it at dinner.

Bad surprise: tasty, but absolutely saltless! Unfortunately I forget to mix in salt before baking — this was the "sacrifice" of the cock...

Huiping checks in from Singapore to tell of her first attempt at bread, which looks awfully tasty for being deemed a partial success. She also has some photos of wonderful looking cranberry & black currant scones. And a cat who knows how to make himself at home at the table.

Baking Soda digresses mightily as she talks of being a stay-at-home-mom and how she started her blog. Then by way of making us all jealous, she bakes five kinds of bread from three new cookbooks. That's one busy woman!

Over at Anomalous Cognition, Jenny, well actually Eric, poses one of the eternal questions of life: "Time passed. I grew a garden, with a big parsley patch and a tomato plant (okay, twelve), and one day we decided the time had come to make tabbouleh fresh from the garden. 'And you'll make your pita bread?' Eric said to me. 'Maybe this time it will poof.'"

You have to go read her contest entry "Pitas" to see how it turns out.

Speaking of pitas and poofiness, BC of Beans and Caviar also made pita bread. Oddly, it was the first bread she ever made and she had never seen a pita before! Perhaps the title of the post "Pita Footballs" gives you a hint of what she encountered.

That's it for today. Check back tomorrow for the first winner of an autographed copy of Local Breads.

Technorati: Food | contest | Local Breads | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking

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Deadline

Today marks the cutoff date for our Local Bread contest. Susan, Beth, and I would like to thank everyone who's participated in the random drawing and particularly in the story contest. We'll announce the two winners within the next. In the meantime, here are the last of the story entries.

First, Carla Shafer and Zorra both posted their stories on their blogs. Carla offers an amazing story of a four-year-old boy making cinnamon rolls from scratch with no help.

In the meantime, Zorra offers a bit of advice on baking bread along with her sourdough recipe.

Amanda was prompted to start baking bread by a loaf her mother made when she was a young girl. But it took her 16 years to get around to it:

I have a vague memory of my mother sending me to school for a pioneer day with a small round loaf of bread. Years later I came across a recipe for Country Loaf, a large round loaf of bread. It reminded me of how good that bread tasted 16 or so years before, so I set out, armed only with Betty Crocker’s instructions, to make homemade bread.

I grabbed my all-purpose flour and the little bag of yeast that had been languishing on my pantry shelf and mixed, kneaded, prodded, poked, waited, worried and baked the afternoon away. I honestly didn't expect it to work. Several hours later I pulled a golden brown loaf of bread from my oven, just in time for dinner. I had done it! I had made bread with my own hands. My husband walked in the door, sniffed, then said "I didn't know you knew how to make bread." I told him, "Neither did I."

Four years later, I'm still at it. I have an ever-expanding library of bread books and am saving to buy myself a KitchenAid mixer. For me, bread making has gone from a way to pass the time to something interesting to do to something I am passionate about, all because of a little loaf of bread made by my mother 16 years ago.

Libby Maxey tells of her adventures with sourdough, replete with explosions:

I come from the west coast, where sourdough bread is a given. When my grandma used to come over for our regular Sunday lunch, she would always bring a packaged sourdough round to go with the soup that she had made. Although my mom ground wheat to bake bread for us, my heart belonged to that pre-baked, heat-and-serve sourdough. When I moved to upstate New York, where sourdough bread was neither plentiful nor particularly sour, I decided to bake my own. I was engaged, waiting for my fiancé to return from abroad, living alone in our new apartment and trying to learn how to cook. I had baked bread before, but not memorably. Little did I know how memorable my sourdough saga would turn out to be.

First, there was the starter that dried up, then the starter that molded, and then the starter that just sat there and did nothing. I didn’t realize that the last would do nothing for the bread, so I tried to bake with it. (At least it wasn’t moldy.) After a day of long, messy and indefinite rises, 10 P.M. found me shoveling a rather shapeless mass of grainy dough onto a cookie sheet, and hustling it into a hot oven. I left the oven door open, and reached for my tea kettle to add the final artisanal touch: steam.

The recipe had directed me to place an empty baking pan on the bottom rack to pre-heat so that I could fill it with boiling water as the bread went in. I had chosen a blue glass lasagna pan; I poured quickly, eager to get the oven closed before the steam escaped. Suddenly, the pan exploded with a tremendous bang. Fragments tumbled into the bottom of the oven and out onto the kitchen floor. Nevertheless, I was bound and determined to bake that bread, even if I could barely get the oven door to grind closed with all the shards in the hinge. I’m sure I tried to enjoy some of the hard, unleavened lump that was the fruit of my labors, but I have no memory of tasting it. Undeterred by the failure of that adventure, I’m proud to say that I continued my quest to bake a true sourdough loaf, and eventually became enough of an expert to advise others — and to console them in their times of trial.

And finally, from Teri Nestel we have another "first time" story:

My first experience baking bread was completely unexpected and unwanted. I was newly married and foolishly asked my sister-in-law what I could bring to Thanksgiving. To my terror Lori said, "You can bring the bread."

Because my mother-in-law is a fabulous bread baker and I assumed my three sisters-in-law were too, I thought nothing less than homemade bread would do.

I got out my Betty Crocker cookbook and carefully read the pages of instructions and recipes. I shopped for ingredients, turned out two loaves of Honey-Whole Wheat Bread and carefully packaged them for the trip to Lori's home.

The food was delicious and my bread was not a disaster. It was a little flat and dense — not enough kneading, not enough rising? Geri — when she heard it was my first effort — said she was impressed. I will love her forever. For all its flaws in appearance, it tasted good! And I was hooked.

That was over ten years ago. I have come a long way from those early days when baking a tube of refrigerator sweet rolls was worth writing home for. My favorite recipes include a buttery roll made with cornmeal and milk, fluffy rolls covered with poppy seeds, a honey mustard loaf, a braided loaf flavored with cardamom and crusted with coarse sugar, and Naan, middle-eastern flatbread that the neighborhood kids ask to take home. I still make my original Honey-Whole Wheat bread and it is still pretty good!

Again, thanks to everyone who participated in our contest.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | contest | local breads

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Breadtime Stories

I'm not the only one who has compared bread dough to a baby's bottom. Louise Lewis has drawn the same metaphor in this story :

If you have raised any children, or even babysat a lot, you probably understand my meaning in reference to bread baking!

My first real go at solo bread baking came in the first year I was raising my boys who were born 13 months apart.I had decided to stay at home for a few years with them, and while at home began trying all sorts of things that one can do when they have time on their hands. Yeah, right. But gardening and baking bread did become my pass times while the boys napped, and I fondly remember baking my first loaf of white bread, scalding the milk, and melting the shortening, using an old recipe I found in a cookbook. That hobby grew into a passion, and went further into a very unexpected career. One of my favorite references, while teaching others to bake bread was using the different degrees of a baby's bottom as an indicator of different types of bread and their readiness. "It should feel like a freshly powered babies butt while they are sleeping." "It should be smooth and elastic, like the skin on a babies bottom..." It really was amazing at times how easily beginners to the field understood and were able to use that reference to whip up a great loaf of bread. I think, bread baking just must bring out the "mom" in all of us!

Risa sent us a couple of stories, but we only have room here for one of them, a Thanksgiving Day tale:

A few years back, I was making Pumpkin Soft Yeast Rolls the day before Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving dinner. I put the dough ingredients into the bread machine and made sure it looked good before walking away. About 10 minutes later, I heard the machine making a real racket! When I went to check, the bread pan was shaking, the mixing blade was going crazy and then it stopped. Completely stopped. I tried to re-start it and it wouldn't. I had partially made dough. I put the dough in a bowl and used the electric hand mixer to finish the recipe.

My husband called me to see how things were going and I told him that the bread machine had died. It was a gift from my parents for my anniversary a couple of years earlier. It was one of those Dak Turbo IVs. The next morning I insisted on going to the mall, Sterns was having a sale on electric items. For $75 I found a Breadman TR444 and I was back in business.

Jay's daughter insists on "helping:"

My 3-year-old daughter likes to steal the raw bread dough. Just about every day she asks if she can help me "dump". She helps me put the bread dough together, dumping the ingredients one by one into the bowl, then says "Daddy, now you need to go like this", urging me to knead the dough. (I don't really trust the machine) Then she proceeds to steal dough by whatever means necessary. She tries anything that might work: telling me to look at something on the other side of the room, moving the stepstool to the other side (so I won't see) and downright shoving me out of the way. She usually settles for the bowl and paddle after a few purloined handfuls.

Michele was also moved to an act of poesy with this piece that she notes is suspiciously like "Twas The Night Before Christmas:"

Twas the week after our trip and all through our home
was the smell of bread baking, and it was almost done
I’d mixed it and kneaded and shaped it with care
In hopes that fresh Broetchen soon would be there

My husband was nestled, all snug in our bed
While visions of German breakfast danced in his head
And me in my apron, the cat on my lap
Had just settled down for a quick 5-minute nap

When from the stove there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter
It was just the oven buzzer, I turned it off in a flash
Went to the oven, and saw my hopes dashed

The light of the oven, its slight yellow glow
Showed the luster of egg wash on the objects below
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But some sad looking rolls, just as I feared

They looked just like the last batch, I pulled them right quick
I knew in a moment, they would be just like bricks
More rapid than eagles, myself I did blame
I fumed and I complained and I called myself names

I’m hopeless, a moron! I said to the cat
I’m just making rolls, what could be easier than that?
To the garbage these go, outside by the wall
Now throw away, throw away, throw away all.

They didn’t rise well, (at least the bottoms weren’t black)
This bread baking business, would I ever get the knack?
So off to the Internet to view sights that I knew
Surely someone could help me with my new pursuit?

And then in a twinkling, I found a great site
With pictures and recipes to help with my plight
A Year in Bread was the name of this tome
Eureka! I shouted, I’d at last found my home

It was wonderfully thorough on each shining page
With techniques and hints for each breadmaking stage
My hopes were restored, my mission was back
I’d make Broetchen yet, you could bet on that!

I’m proud to say I can now make great bread
Thanks to the folks on the site I no longer dread
Experimenting with dough, I’ve learned how to do it right
My Broetchen are now tasty, thanks so much and Goodnight!

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | contest | local bread

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Being the Heartland

One of the local Knoxville stations has a series named, "The Heartland." As might be expected the brief spots are deeply folksy, full of plaid shirts and chewing tobacco, and hosted by a charming fellow with an East Tennessee accent (making an ET accent charming is a skill) and what used to be boyish good looks but are now avuncular good looks.

And you know what? He really is a nice guy with an abiding interest in this area's history and culture. He is absolutely genuine. Just like you and me and the others participating in some way in this blog. So I have few more stories for you, sent in by our fellow bakers. You don’t get to vote on who wins the story contest (we're too lazy and it's too hot to think about how we might accomplish that) but add your observations, thoughts, and reactions in the comment section.

As a Southerner, I have a near-instinctual affection for grits. From Judy Shealy:

I'm a Girl Raised In The South, as in GRITS! That's rural deep south, as in way out in the country.

I'm the youngest of three, and was my Daddy's little angel. My mother worked outside of the home, and when my older siblings married, I was alone a lot. You need to know, I had an aunt, uncle, and cousins that lived on both sides of us within hollering distance, so you gotta know I would get off the school bus with them whenever I had the chance. My Aunt Hazel and Uncle Bonnie had seven kids, so there was always homemade bread there after school, and it was so good! Usually just out of the oven, with lots of butter and homemade jam to spread on it. Now this was not just any old homemade bread, no sirreee, it had grits in it. The left over grits from breakfast made this a moist and beautiful loaf of bread. I have never had any bread like this outside of Lexington County, South Carolina unless I made it.

It's still my family's favorite. My fond memories of fellowship with my cousins over a loaf of fresh baked bread is still alive, I can smell it baking as I write, and hear the laughter of my cousins as we gathered around the table to break bread together. This was the beginning of my love of baking bread.

I don’t know how old Jane is, but this story has clearly had all the rough spots worn off over the years, leaving a perfectly smooth and shining gem of memory.

I remember the first time I ever made bread. I was 10 years old, and my mother told me what to do. She sat at the kitchen table and didn't lift a finger, just let me do all of the mixing and kneading and rolling and rising and baking. She gave very good instructions, and I have never forgotten what a properly kneaded bread dough feels like. There's nothing like it, that glossy, rubbery texture.

That loaf was perfect, and tasted wonderful, especially since I knew what went into it. That started a tradition in my family. Every time there is a family gathering, it's well known that Jane brings the bread. I am now the (un)official breadmaker in the family.

I'm older now, and my hands and arms aren't as strong as they used to be, so I rely on my well-beloved KitchenAid mixer to do the hard work, but there is nothing like homemade bread to lift the spirits and make the soul soar.

And melt butter. Real butter, not that nasty margarine stuff.

Am I the only person who set out to bake bread without a mentor? I wonder. And Wonder what I missed by relying on books. This from Tammy Kimbler:

My great grandmother, Fannie Elizabeth Kimbler, was a biscuit maker. She taught three generations of us how to make them, including my mother and me. If she was in charge of a meal, there would be biscuits. Her regular breakfast consisted of one biscuit, one egg and one piece of bacon. She lived to be 97.

When she was young in the early 1900s, her husband worked as a ranch hand in Oklahoma. My grandmother was the cook. Pregnant, with a baby on her hip and more around her feet, she would roll out big batches of biscuits for most meals on the ranch. Her biscuits were made with flour, lard or bacon fat and farm fresh milk. After cutting the biscuits and placing them in the pan, she would brush the tops with bacon drippings. She baked them in a wood stove. Her modern biscuit recipe barely varied, except for the electric stove and the homogenized milk.

Last week my daughter turned 1 year old. Her favorite toys in the kitchen are my biscuit cutters, particularly the old fashioned ones with the green and red wooden handles. This weekend my mother comes into town to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. And this weekend, a new generation will taste my great grandmother’s biscuits for the first time. Thanks Grandma.

Bread really is a human tie. And I need a biscuit just now — and some real butter and blackberry or strawberry jam.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | local breads | contest

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Prizes! Awards! Gimmicks!

Today we're launching our first contest at A Year in Bread. As the regular readers know, we've been looking at recipes from Daniel Leader's new book, Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, for the past three weeks. The book is due to be released this month, but we already have a couple of signed copies in our flour-covered hands that we're going to give away over the next month.

One copy will go to a reader selected at random. If you're interested in participating in this contest, send an email to AYearInBread with your name and email address and we'll add you to the list. The subject line should be "Local Bread Contest."

The other contest is more challenging. We're asking for your favorite homemade bread story. This could be an egg (or flour) -on-your-face tale of failure, it could be a memory of bread made for a special occasion, it could be an unexpected success or even a long-sought-for success. Maybe it was how you learned to bake bread at your mother's side, or why you started baking bread. Whatever the specific event or events, we want to hear about them. Your entry should be no more than 250 words if you're sending to us to post (on your own blog, go for broke), and creativity counts. Clever poems, silly songs (just tell us what tune to sing them to), and good old-fashioned humor are all welcome.

If you have a blog, post your story there with a link back to this post, and send us an email at AYearInBread with the permalink. If you don't have a blog, just write up your story and send it to us and we'll post it here. All those participating in the story contest will automatically be included in the random drawing.

The contests will end on August 30th, and we'll announce the winners one week later.

Let the games begin!

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | local+breads | contest

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Beth: Italian Breads From Local Breads - Filone

L et's start with the obvious confession: I'm off my game. Way off my game. So far off that I don't even have a razor blade in the house to make a decent slash in an unbaked loaf of bread. Look at that picture! <hangs head in shame..>

Seriously, it has been almost five weeks of one handed cooking, baking, driving, and sitting on the couch with a good book (no, not that book, I'm swiping theKid's copy this weekend) — although, truth be told, there's been a lot more sitting on the couch and than cooking and there's been virtually no baking. (In fact, I'm back to using speech recognition for my writing, and in its usual slightly ironic take on reality it just wrote "virtually no drinking" instead of "virtually no baking" and that's just wrong, because there has been drinking.)

On the one hand, taking a break from a common, almost daily, activity is a sure way to remind you that absence truly does make the heart grow fonder. And it's been very easy to restrain myself from rushing into the kitchen because I usually have a pound or so of neoprene, Velcro, d-rings and let's not forget those lovely pieces of metal strapped to my wrist as a reminder of what I'm not supposed to be doing. Plus, pain as a backup reminder.

So when my copy of Daniel Leader's Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers arrived I was conflicted, some might say of two minds. (others might say I'm always a bit schizophrenic so two minds is a slow day inside my head... but I digress.)

Local Breads: a mini review

Leader's journey across Europe in search of local bread specialties opens with a brief primer on ingredients, followed by a walk through of the stages of baking bread. A chapter on sourdough and other starters is followed by a collection of frequently asked questions about bread baking. These are particularly useful for beginning bakers who may be unfamiliar with the science of baking bread.

Each of the nine regional chapters opens with a bit of context, history, and local color as Leader invites you along on his quest for the taste of each place—the terroir, if bread can be said to have such. (I am enchanted by his description of Amos DeCarlo's dream-inspired Ferris wheel for biga!) Leader examines what sets apart one area's bread from another, and then offers some general advice about how to reproduce a particular type of bread, including things like how to blend flour to approximate European flours not commonly available here in the states. After the recipes, a brief FAQ about that collection of bread recipes wraps up each chapter.

Information about tools and techniques, such as instructions on shaping loaves, are accompanied by lovely sketches, which add an appropriately artisan charm to the book. The photographs, while straightforward and simple, actually show what the bread should look like rather than how esoterically artistic the photographer could get. I kind of like that.

On the downside, there are some inconsistencies in measurements that leave me wondering. In a single recipe, this recipe in fact, 1/3 of a cup of water weighs either 2.3 ounces or 2.6. (It's 2.66) I suspect this is due to Leader's stated preference for weighing everything in grams and the subsequent rounding during conversion back to volume, but it's confusing and I wish it had been addressed directly—as is, it looks like bad editing, which I am pretty sure is not the case. I would recommend using the metric weights, which seem to line up with the baker's percentages and which are, in any case, seemingly what Leader used when developing the recipes.

But the true test of any cookbook is the recipes: are they any good?

On that score, I am giving this book fairly high marks. Susan has been thrilled with the two recipes she has tried and Kevin says the focaccia is the best he's ever made. While I am at a loss to explain the gap between the glam shot of the filone in the book and what I made, I am also willing to take some of the responsibility — and since we're interviewing Leader soon, I have a chance to ask him about it.

I adore new cookbooks, especially baking books, which I am somewhat more likely to actually use rather than simply drooling on while browsing. Bread books are at the very top of my list and Susan has been talking about this one for months. (Confession: I have somehow never laid hands on a Daniel Leader book prior to this one.) Susan has been a happy acolyte of Leader, however, she raves about him, is a one-woman Bread Alone selling dervish — she was also darned adorable the first time she got actual e-mail from him! Now, I must go buy a copy of Bread Alone and read it while I finish healing.)

On the other hand... there's the other hand, the left one to be precise. When turning the pages the wrong way hurts, the gap between tempting recipes and hand in dough looms large. Fortunately for me, I had a deadline pushing me in that direction of the kitchen and a Kitchen-Aid mixer waiting for me on the counter when I got there.

My month on the couch with my copy of Local Breads left me with about a dozen recipes I really wanted to try: sourdoughs, whole wheat sourdoughs, German rye, even a dark Silesian (Polish) rye that just be one of those lost breads of my youth, and a number of Italian breads, including the famous saltless Tuscan bread. Susan shined up her pointy hair and made an executive decision that we were going to make Italian breads, which mostly use a biga starter that takes just a few minutes to make and ferments in less than twelve hours.

Once the parameters were narrowed, my choice became fairly obvious, apparently to everyone. When I told Susan and Kevin that I was making Rosemary Filones, they both said "of course you are". (Hmm, was it the herb garden that gave me away?)

In some ways this was a great choice of recipes, I think one of the best things you can do to homemade bread is add rosemary and olive oil. Really, try it sometime. Almost any non-sweet recipe is improved by adding fresh rosemary and olive oil. In that department this bread did not disappoint, chopped fresh rosemary and a healthy dose of olive oil helps produce a loaf of bread that tastes like a summer afternoon in Italy. We served it to visiting friends two nights in a row, at their request.

But the crumb... Well, I said I was off my game.

I made this bread twice and both times produced a loaf that I would be happy to use for sandwiches. The crumb is evenly dense with a lot of small holes and the crust is distinct yet not too chewy. Sadly, this is not supposed to be a sandwich loaf.

According to the picture in Local Breads, this bread should have a gorgeous open crumb and a substantially thinner crust. See my bread? See the photo in the book? Do they look the same to you?

Tasty enough but just not it.

I think that this is due to a combination of the recipe and my inability to do my usual hands-on approach to a new bread recipe and in this case a new cookbook author as well. The inability to manipulate the dough by hand really gets in the way of making all of the tiny adjustments that go into making any bread recipe work in real life. (The book also seems to have some inconsistency in the conversions of measurements and maybe this is a recipe where that is a factor.)

So this morning I made one last batch with bread flour, which should better support that hugely open crumb — but which also absorbs more water than AP flour and I didn't really adjust for that — and it was a bit better. Not better enough to make me grab the camera, just a little bit.

I think that I can do better with this, and when I can use both hands again, I shall try. Next time: More water, a hotter oven for better oven spring, and real slashes. In the meantime, I want to see what the rest of you do with it. Please bake some and show me what you make.

Rosemary Filone
This is the original recipe from Local Breads in its entirety, with my baking notes [in brackets].

Allow 9 to 17 hours to mix and ferment the biga;
10 to 15 minutes to knead;
1-1/2 to 2 hours to ferment;
45 minutes to 1 hour to proof;
30 to 40 minutes to bake

Makes 2 loaves (~20 ounces/560 grams each)

Equipment
baker's peel or rimless baking sheet
parchment paper
bench scraper or chef's knife
baking stone

Biga<
Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
water tepid (70 - 78F/21-26C) 1/3 c | 80 ml | 2.3 oz | 65 g
instant yeast 1/2 tsp | 2.5 ml | .1 oz | 2 g
unbleached all purpose flour 2/3 c | 160 ml | 3.5 oz | 100 g

Prepare the biga
Nine to 17 hours before you want to bake, prepare the biga. Pour the water into a small mixing bowl. With a rubber spatula, stir in the yeast and flour just until a dough forms. It will be stiff like pie dough. Dust the counter with flour and scrape out the dough. Knead the dough for 1 to 2 minutes just to work in all the flour and get it fairly but not perfectly smooth. (This is a very small amount of dough, about the size of a plum.) Lightly oil the mixing bowl. Round the biga and place it back in the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave at room temperature (70 - 75F/21 - 24C) for 1 hour, then refrigerate it for at least 8 and up to 16 hours. The biga will double in volume (to about the size of an orange) [Mine came to slightly above the one cup line on a pyrex measuring cup], becoming glossy and porous, and will smell mildly acidic.

Bread dough
Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
biga about 1 cup | 237 ml | 5.9 oz | 167 g
water tepid (70 - 78F/21 - 26C) 1 1/3 c | 320 ml | 10.6 oz | 300 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 5 ml | .2 oz | 5 g
unbleached all purpose flour 3 1/4 c | 770 ml | 17.6 oz | 500 g
sea salt 2 1/4 tsp | 12 ml | .5 oz | 15 g
extra virgin olive oil 1/3 c | 80 ml | 2.3 oz | 65 g
fresh rosemary coarsely chopped 1/4 c | 60 ml | .4 oz | 10 g

Mix the dough
Remove the biga from the refrigerator and uncover it. It will be soft, airy, and a bit sticky. Scrape into a large bowl. Pour the water over the biga and stir it with a rubber spatula to soften it and break it into clumps. Stir in the flour, olive oil, rosemary and salt until a dough forms. [I added the yeast too, even though the copy editor did not.]

Knead the dough
By hand: Lightly flour the counter and scrape the dough out onto it. Knead the dough with steady strokes until it is silky, smooth, and elastic, about 13-15 minutes. Check that the dough is well-developed check that the deal was well developed by pulling off a golf ball sized piece and stretching it into an opaque windowpane. If the dough tears, knead for an additional two to three minutes and test again.

With mixer: With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed (four on a Kitchen-Aid mixer) until it is silky, smooth, and elastic, ten to twelve minutes. Check that the dough is well developed by doing a windowpane test, as described above. If it tears, knead for an additional two to three minutes and test again.

Bulk Fermentation
Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover and let rise until double in bulk.

Divide and shapes the loaves
Cover a baker's peel or rimless baking sheet with parchment paper and dust it with flour. Lightly dust the counter with flour. Uncover the dough and turn it out onto the counter. With the bench scraper or chef's knife, cut the dough into two equal pieces (19.7oz./560g each). Shape each piece into a log about 12in. long. Place the logs smooth side upon the parchment paper, at least 3in. apart, and cover them with plastic wrap.

Proof the loaves
Let the logs rise at room temperature (70 to 75°) until they spread and look puffy and light, nearly doubling in size, 45 minutes to one hour. Press your fingertip into the dough and your fingerprint will spring back slowly. [Even my oddly dense bread passed the 'puffy and light' and fingerprint tests.]

Prepare the oven
About 1 hour before baking, place a baking stone on the middle rack. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Bake the loaves
Slide the loaves, still on the parchment, onto the baking stone. Bake until the logs are dark caramel color, 30 to 40 minutes.

Cool and store the loaves
Slide the peel or rimless baking sheet under the parchment paper to remove the loaves from the oven. Slide them, still on the parchment, onto a wire rack. Cool the loaves briefly, then peel off the parchment paper. Let them cool completely on the rack, about one hour, before slicing. The olive oil in the dough will help to keep them moist. Store in a resealable plastic bag at room temperature for three to four days. [Or freeze.]

Recipe reprinted from Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers by Daniel Leader (c) Copyright 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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Kevin: Italian Breads From Local Breads - Focaccia

I was about 12 or 13 the first time I tried baking bread. I produced two whole wheat bricks. I tried again a number of times over the following few years but without any great success. I did produce some decent English muffins — although nothing as good as those I made using the No-knead Bread Dough.

Then in 1981 I'd just gotten out of school and while I was trying to find a real job I decided to make sandwiches and sell them door-to-door at offices. Not content to do it the easy way, I elected to make the sandwiches using croissants. — homemade croissants. Croissants are one of the most labor-intensive breads you can make. After mixing and kneading the dough, you roll butter into it, then fold it and roll it out again, then do it again. The next step is refrigerating it, not because you've finished but because the butter needs to harden again. The process of folding and rolling is repeated at least twice more, maybe three times.

Once you've made enough folds, you roll the dough out one last time and cut it into triangles, which are rolled up and shaped into crescents. Then back in the fridge until 4:00 the next morning at which time I'd get up and move them into some jury-rigged proofing ovens. Back to bed until 6:00 when I'd get up and start baking them while making the various sandwich fillings. I've never worked so hard in my life and I haven't made a croissant since. But I did start occasionally making bread again.

In 1995 I bought a Kitchen Aid specifically for making bread and sausage and at the same time I bought Daniel Leader's Bread Alone, which I proceeded to read cover-to-cover. I learned a lot, so, like my confreres, I was pleased to get a review copy of Local Breads: Sourdoughs and Whole-grain Recipes from Europe's Best Bakers (and I confess, I haven't read it cover-to-cover) and was equally willing to feature it here this month (with no promises that anyone would be happy with the results). Although we'd decided to do breads involving a biga, I decided instead to do focaccia from the same section of the book. I'm fond of flat breads and it's a simple straightforward recipe. Given how busy this month has been, simple and straightforward seemed like a good idea.

One note, the recipe calls for 3 1/4 cups of flour and I ended up using almost 4 cups. I should have weighed it to see how close my cups came to Leader's, but by the time I realized how much flour I'd used I'd used up the last of that bag — and weighing flour from a different bag wouldn't have told me anything.

Grape Harvest Focaccia (Schiacciata all'uva)
Adapted from >Local Breads.

Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
water — tepid 1 1/4 c | 296 ml | 10.6 oz | 300 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 5 ml | 0.2 oz | 5 g
unbleached all-purpose flour 3 1/4 c | 770 ml | 17.6 oz | 500 g
extra-virgin olive oil 1/3 c | 80 ml | 2.1 oz | 60 g
sea salt 1 1/2 tsp | 8 ml | 0.4 oz | 10 g
Topping:
red seedless grapes 1 1/2 c | 355 ml | 7.1 oz | 200 g
fresh rosemary — chopped 2 tbsp | 30 ml | 0.2 oz | 6 g
coarse sea salt 1 tsp | 5 ml | 0.2 oz | 5 g
additional olive oil

Mixing
Pour water into the bowl of a stand mixer bowl and add yeast, olive oil, salt, and 3 cups of flour. Mix the ingredients on low (2 on a KA) using the paddle attachment on a Kitchen Aid until shaggy, then swap to the dough hook. Add additional flour as needed until a dough forms. Increase speed to medium (4 on a KA) and knead for 9 to 10 minutes.

As I mentioned above, I needed about 4 cups of flour. I'd added about 3 3/4 cups and thought that was fine, and then a strange thing happened. In the last 3 minutes of kneading the dough fell apart. It lost it cohesion as a mass and became something like an exceptionally thick batter. I've never seen this happen before. I added about another 1/4 cup of flour and it came back together.

Scrape dough out onto a lightly-floured board and shape into a ball. Note: I always knead the dough a bit by hand at the end to make sure it feels right. In this case the dough is moist, but not sticky (the oil accounts for this).

Fermentation
For this amount of dough, I typically use the mixer bowl for the fermentation phase. I wash it out and dry it, then lightly spray it with oil, shape the dough into a ball, lightly spray the top with oil, cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until doubled in bulk.

Proofing
Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and brush lightly with olive oil. Scrape dough out onto baking sheet and let rest for 5 minutes. Oil your hands and then stretch the dough out on the baking sheet, if it resists, allow to rest for another five minutes and continue. The dough should end up about 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) and form a rough rectangle about 12 inches by 16 inches (30 cm by 40 cm).

Using the balls of your fingers, press indentations into the dough, then drizzle a bit of olive oil on the top and, using your fingers, coat the top with oil. Press the grapes into the surface about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) apart. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and chopped rosemary. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double the height (45 minutes to an hour).

At this point I also began heating my oven to 375F (190C) and positioned a rack in the center.

Baking
Bake focaccia for 20 to 30 minutes, but do take your own oven into account. My oven tends to cook slowly for some reason (and yes, I have verified the temperature with a thermometer) and I baked the bread for 40 minutes until it was a golden brown and the grapes had shriveled slightly.

Cool for about 5 minutes on a rack, then dive in.

This was absolutely the best focaccia I've ever made. The bread was delightfully sweet (and look, Ma, no sugar), moist, and chewy. The rosemary is a perfect flavor pairing with the sweet grapes (an added burst of sweetness), and the coarse salt provide both textural and flavor contrast.

Adapted from a recipe in Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers by Daniel Leader (c) Copyright 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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Susan: Italian Breads From Local Breads - Black Olive Cheeks (Puccia)

If your bakery cafe has 500 locations scattered around the country, launching any new product is a complicated endeavor. First there's the research and development stage, which in many cases can last as long as a year. Creating something that is not only tasty, visually appealing, and on budget, but that can also be easily and exactly replicated around the country — or even the world — is no small feat. Then there are the amazingly expensive, in-store and out-of-store publicity/marketing/advertising campaigns needed to spread the word about your delicious new invention.

If, however, your bakery cafe has only one location, one oven, and one baker, introducing a new item is as easy as flipping through a cookbook, pointing to a recipe and saying, "That looks good!"; baking it up; and sticking the results in your display case next to a handwritten sign stating what it is. Years ago when I had a little bakery cafe in northern California, that's exactly what I used to do.

One of the nicest things about opening a small eatery several miles from any other place folks could buy a cup of coffee or, even better, a still warm chocolate chip cookie and a latté made from freshly roasted coffee beans, is that you quickly develop a band of very loyal customers. And although some of them happily ordered the same thing day in and day out, I was fortunate to have a share of eager guinea pigs. These adventurous folks were always willing to try something new and different, no matter what it might be. Some of my experiments, such as the pistachio olive quick bread, never made it onto the permanent menu (or even into the oven a second time), others, like the pesto piezones, were instant bestsellers. This ongoing creative challenge was one of the most enjoyable parts of the job.

Shaping Rolls

I once knew a guy who had worked as a cook in a restaurant famous for its five different types of homemade rolls. I said something about what a pain it must have been to shape all those little pieces of dough, and he said it wasn't hard at all. "I'd just tear off pieces and throw them in the pan," he said, using hand gestures and sound effects to demonstrate his technical prowess. "I could make about 60 rolls a minute."

The nice thing about homemade rolls is that they, obviously, don't have to each be perfectly formed. I'm not a real stickler for perfection, but I do like my rolls to look nice, so my method takes a little more time than one second per roll. If I want to be sure they're all the same size, I simply plunk a few down on my digital kitchen scale to gauge how I'm doing.

There are many ways to shape rolls. Basically whatever works best for you is the best way to do it. I use the same technique as I do for making large rounds. I hold up the hunk of dough and pull pieces of it underneath the ball, pinching them so that a taut "skin" is formed. Then I set it down on the counter, cup both hands around it, and turn it in a few tight circles while lightly pressing it into the counter so the ball is pulled into shape.

Since describing things in three-dimension is clearly not one of my strong points (can anyone actually follow what I just described?), here's the method for making rolls in Local Breads:

The technique for shaping small round rolls is similar to the technique for shaping a larger round. Place a small piece of dough on an unfloured work surface. cup one hand slightly and cover the dough ball with it. Rotate your hand in small circles, applying a little pressure to the dough. As you rotate, the dough will eventually form into a ball.

Rustic rolls may also be formed simply by flattening a larger piece of dough to a 2-inch thickness. Use a bench scraper or chef's knife to cut 2-inch-wide strips. Cut each strip into squares or rectangles.

I haven't been trying many new bread recipes lately, because I've been focusing on refining the five or six breads that will be the mainstay of the small wholesale bread bakery we're building here on the farm. But the other day I had an enlightening realization. When it comes to offering additional items for sale, things won't be much different than they were at the cafe. Testing out a new type of bread will simply be a matter of finding a recipe that sounds interesting, baking a few dozen loaves, loading them into the delivery truck, and seeing if our wholesale customers want to offer them to their customers. If the response is positive, we bake more. If not, there's no big loss.

That was all the excuse I needed to start baking new breads. Add with the publication of my new favorite bread book, Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, by Daniel Leader (renowned baker and author of my previously favorite bread book, Bread Alone), and my priorities around the farm have suddenly shifted. Weed-filled garden, piles of dirty laundry, ravenous baby chicks, and scorching summer heat be damned — I'm on a bread baking roll.

We're devoting this month at A Year in Bread to Daniel's latest book. Because we haven't tackled sourdoughs here yet, we decided we would each bake a bread from the Italian section as they most often begin with a biga, which can be made in several hours, as opposed to sourdough starters which take several days to create from scratch. After you mix up the biga and let it sit for an hour at room temperature, it goes into the fridge for at least eight and up to 16 hours, so it's not hard to make this recipe fit your schedule.

This is the second recipe I've tried from Local Breads, and both of them were easy to make and are definite keepers, the first article was on "Parisian Daily Bread". The book, which I highly recommend for bread bakers of all levels including total beginners, will be available in stores on August 13th. You can pre-order copies now at Amazon.com for $23.10, which is 34 percent off the cover price of $35.00, plus there's no tax and free shipping on orders of $25 or more.

We're also going to be holding a contest here at A Year In Bread and giving away two signed copies of Local Breads to lucky and skilled bakers! More details will be posted soon.

I have to admit the cute name of these tasty little rolls is what first caught my attention. With the discovery that they're made with those strong and salty oil-cured olives I love so much and Daniel's introduction, I was hooked. He says:

Plump with olives, smooth and round, these rolls look just like puccia, little cheeks. I first saw them in Lucca, a walled city in Tuscany famous for its superior olive oil. I arrived by train, and when I left the station in search of food, these rolls beckoned from the only bakery I found open during the midday lull. They were the perfect snack for a hungry traveler, moist and tender with the delectable crunch of cornmeal on the bottom crust. Dark, oil-cured olives give these rolls richness and great flavor. . . Serve the puccia as an antipasto, with some pecorino cheese and a glass of Chianti.

I also almost never eat crusty breads plain or without reheating them, but I found myself nibbling on these straight from the bag on the counter. They're delicious reheated and slathered with butter, too, and make scrumptious mini sharp cheddar & homegrown lamb salami sandwiches. When I tasted the first one still warm from the oven, my immediate thought was that it would be wonderful with a glass of red wine. Yep.

As with nearly all breads, these rolls freeze beautifully. I pulled out a couple this morning, and for lunch I sliced them in half, toasted them in my beloved toaster oven, and covered them with cream cheese and slices of juicy garden tomatoes. Oh. My. God. If you can keep from gobbling them all up plain, black olive cheeks have all kinds of possibilities. Next time I'm going to make a few larger ones for lamb burger buns.

Black Olive Cheeks (Puccia)
This is the original recipe from Local Breads in its entirety, with my baking notes [in brackets.]

Allow 9 to 16 hours to mix and ferment the biga;
10 to 15 minutes to knead;
1-1/2 to 2 hours to ferment;
45 minutes to 1 hour to proof;
20 to 25 minutes to bake

Makes 20 rolls (2.1 ounces/60 grams each)

Equipment
2 baking sheets
bench scraper or chef's knife

Biga
Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
water tepid (70 - 78F/21-26C) 1/3 c | 80 ml | 2.3 oz | 65 g
instant yeast 1/2 tsp | 2.5 ml | .1 oz | 2 g
unbleached bread flour* 2/3 c | 160 ml | 3.5 oz | 100 g

*[I used Heartland Mill organic, unbleached, strong bread flour that I order in 50-pound bags from my local natural foods store.]

Prepare the biga
Nine to 17 hours before you want to bake, prepare the biga. Pour the water into a small mixing bowl. With a rubber spatula, stir in the yeast and flour just until a dough forms. It will be stiff like pie dough. Dust the counter with flour and scrape out the dough. Knead the dough for 1 to 2 minutes just to work in all the flour and get it fairly but not perfectly smooth. (This is a very small amount of dough, about the size of a plum.) [Mine was more like the size of a peach.] Lightly oil the mixing bowl. [I used Trader Joe's baking spray, which is what I've been using lately to oil my baking pans. It's made with canola oil and flour and works really well.] Round the biga and place it back in the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave at room temperature (70 - 75F/21 - 24C) for 1 hour, then refrigerate it for at least 8 and up to 16 hours. The biga will double in volume (to about the size of an orange) [mine was bigger], becoming glossy and porous, and will smell mildly acidic.

Bread dough
Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
biga About 1 cup | 237 ml | 5.9 oz | 167 g
water tepid (70 - 78F/21 - 26C) 1 1/2 c | 356 ml | 13.2 oz | 375 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 5 ml | .2 oz | 5 g
flour* 3 1/4 c | 770 ml | 17.6 oz | 500 g
sea salt 1 1/2 tsp | 7 ml | .4 oz | 10 g
oil-cured olives pitted & coarsely chopped 1 1/2 c | 356 ml | 5.3 oz | 150 g
coarse cornmeal for dusting

Mix the dough
Remove the biga from the refrigerator and uncover it. It will be soft, airy, and a bit sticky. Scrape into a large bowl. Pour the water over the biga and stir it with a rubber spatula to soften it and break it into clumps. [I used my hands.] Stir in the yeast, flour, and salt until a dough forms. [I used the US volume measurements, but because I'd ended up using quite a bit of extra flour making the Parisian Daily Baguettes, I measured out my flour in cups and then weighed it on my digital kitchen scale. Turns out my 3-1/4 cups of flour only weighed 456 grams. That extra 44 grams to reach the designated 500 grams was nearly a half cup, which I did end up adding while kneading. Click here to read Beth's recent article, "Weights & Measures", which discusses this very subject.]

Knead the dough
By hand: Lightly flour the counter and scrape the dough out onto it. Knead the dough until it is soft and almost smooth, about 10 minutes.

With floured hands, press the dough into a very rough rectangle and spread the olives over it. They will seem overabundant. Roll up the dough to contain as many of the olives as possible and continue kneading until the olives are evenly distributed and the dough is smooth and elastic, 3 to 5 minutes more. If olives pop out as you knead, push them back into the dough. They will tint the dough a grayish color.

By machine: [I haven't tried this.] With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed (4 on a KitchenAid mixer until it is fairly smooth, about 8 minutes. Stop the machine, scrape down the hook, and add the olives. Knead the dough on medium-low speed (3 on a Kitchen Aid mixer) until they are well distributed and the dough is smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Or knead them in by hand as directed above. They will tint the dough a grayish color.

Ferment the dough
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled, clear 2-quart container with a lid. [I used an inexpensive plastic freezer container that I sprayed with Trader Joe's baking spray.] With masking tape, mark the container at the level the dough will reach when it has doubled in volume. [I used a Sharpie permanent black marker, which washes off with dishsoap and a scrubbie sponge.] Cover and leave it to rise at room temperature (70 to 75 degrees F) until it doubles in volume, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. When you press your finger into the dough, the fingerprint should spring back slowly. [My kitchen was 83 degrees, so I put the container of dough in a cooler with an ice pack during fermentation. I should have checked it sooner; after 1-1/2 hours the dough had already more than doubled in size.]

Divide and shape the rolls
Sprinkle a light coating of cornmeal over the surface of the baking sheets. [I lined my baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper first. I didn't have coarse cornmeal, but the regular stuff worked fine.] Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop and pat into a rough rectangle. With a bench scraper or chef's knife, cut the dough into 20 equal pieces (2.1 ounces/60 grams each). [I cut the dough into pieces and then weighed them on my digital kitchen scale, adding or subtracting bits of dough to make them all about 60 grams each.] Shape each piece into a ball. Place them smooth side up on the baking sheets, about 1-1/2 inches (4 cm) apart. Sift a veil of flour over the tops of the rolls and drape them with plastic wrap. [I was too lazy to pull out the sifter so I sprinkled the flour with my fingers, then covered the rolls with a damp tea towel instead of plastic wrap.]

Proof the rolls
Let the rolls rise at room temperature (70 - 75F/21 - 24C) until they expand to the size of a mandarin orange, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Press your fingertip into the dough and your fingerprint will spring back slowly. [The baking sheets wouldn't fit in my cooler, so I just let them proof in the 83F/28C kitchen for 45 minutes. I'm not sure how big a mandarin orange is, and this may have been a bit too long as the dough barely sprang back, and the rolls didn't rise very much in the oven. They looked and tasted great, though.]

Prepare the oven
About 15 minutes before baking, place one rack in the top third of the oven and another in the middle position. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Bake the rolls
Uncover the baking sheets and slide them onto the oven racks. Bake until the rolls are honey-colored, 20 to 25 minutes. [I baked mine about 5 minutes longer.] Halfway through baking, switch the sheets so the rolls bake evenly. [I'm usually paranoid about baking two racks of anything at once, but I wanted to follow this recipe exactly, so I tried it. Surprise! It worked great.]

Cool and store the rolls
Remove the baking sheets to a wire rack. Cool the rolls briefly, about 5 minutes, and enjoy them slightly warm. [Finally a bread that doesn't have to cool for 40 minutes before you can taste it!] The oil from the olives will help to keep them moist. Sstore uneaten rolls in a resealable plastic bag at room temperature for 1 to days. [Or freeze.]

Recipe reprinted from Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers by Daniel Leader (c) Copyright 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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