DETROIT – This week’s Tasty Tuesday Home Edition takes us to the kitchen of Paul Gross!
Here’s how to make it at home:
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups of bread flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 ½ cups of whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting (your choice which to dust with)
- ¾ teaspoon instant yeast
- A little less than 2 cups warm (not hot) water
- 1 package unflavored gelatin
- Cornmeal or wheat bran
- 1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
Day 1
- In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt.
- Dissolve gelatin in water – you may need to heat the water but let cool somewhat if you do.
- Add gelatin / water and stir until blended – dough will be “shaggy” and very sticky. If it’s too loose, then add a little flour to stiffen it up; if it’s too firm, then add a bit of water. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.
- Let dough rest for preferably 18 hours at room temperature (no less than 12 hours).
Day 2
- Dough is ready after it roughly doubles in size, and surface is dotted with bubbles or little holes.
- Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it.
- Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice.
- Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
- Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball.
- Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or corn meal.
- Put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, wheat bran or cornmeal.
- Cover with another cotton towel and let sit for about two hours.
- When it is ready, dough will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
- At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450°.
- Put a 2-to-3 quart, heavy, covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in oven as it heats.
- When dough is ready, remove pot from oven. Be careful…it’s hot.
- Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. It may look like a mess, but that is okay. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed…it will straighten out as it bakes.
- Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 minutes, or until loaf is beautifully browned.
- Turn out and cool on a rack. Note: if you try to slice when it’s hot, crust will be difficult to cut.
- You’ve now baked a wonderful bread…enjoy!