Holiday Foodie Posts - Two of More Than One - Bread

Wife is really taking her bread making up another lever.  As part of the big Italian meal she found this recipe for Filone, an Italian bread that requires making a starter the day before and then a series of slow rises during the day of baking.

This the beginning of the second day after she took the starter and added some more flour to it.

Bringing it down after the second rising

Shaping the loaves

Then you put the loaves on a wooden paddle with parchment paper on it.

After the third rising, you slip the parchment paper with the bread off the paddle onto a hot pizza stone.

Third rising completed

 When the bread goes in the oven, you have had a cast iron skillet on the rack underneath the one with the pizza stone.  Then you toss in a bunch of ice cubes which gives you a bunch of steam...important for crust development.

The finished loaves.

They were great.  The crust was outstanding and stood up for hours and hours.