Due to the ongoing, unfortunate hate crimes targeting Asian Americans, MasterClass offered grants supporting the AAPI community and Nichi Bei Weekly Editor-in-Chief Kenji Taguma applied for and received a grant supporting the Nichi Bei Foundation which included an annual complimentary membership for staff members of the Nichi Bei Foundation. I was one of the fortunate staff members that received a one-year subscription to MasterClass so after setting up my account, immediately perused classes that were offered especially those pertaining to food… and wine.
The Beginning of my Journey
My bread making journey began right in the Bay Area shortly after I started courting Ms. S. during graduate school. You see, two of her favorite foods were cinnamon rolls and steamed bao. Up until then, I was adept at making quick rising breads like muffins and banana bread but still hadn’t ventured into the world of yeasted breads. But I eventually found recipes for cinnamon rolls from one of those mini cookbooks that they place near the checkout aisles of supermarkets – I likely purchased my cookbook either from Cala Foods or Lucky Supermarket. I also found a recipe for manapua (char siu bao) in the Honpa Hongwanji Cookbook series. I also used Beth Hensperger’s Bread purchased from the Green Apple bookstore on Clement St as my bread “bible”. And several years ago, a friend gave us a sourdough starter she purchased from the King Arthur Baking website and I’ve been nurturing that starter ever since then refreshing the starter every other week. And since that first day that I baked a yeasted bread, I’ve made countless baguettes, loaves, focaccia and pizza dough though I’ve always felt that my loaves were leagues apart from what the professionals create. Enter my own private baking tutor.
MasterClass with Apollonia Poilane
Maison Poilane was started in 1932 by Pierre Leon Poilane specializing in round, sourdough loaves at a time when most bakeries primarily made baguettes. Monsieur Poilane felt that the round loaves kept a little longer since baguettes go stale within a day and that his usual clientele of artists and artisans struggled to make ends meet so his loaves could feed them for several days. The bakery was eventually passed to his son Lionel and his American born wife, Irena. Their eldest daughter Apollonia started her apprenticeship at 16 years old though tragically, Lionel and Irena were killed in a helicopter crash just two years later. Therefore, Apollonia found herself as the head of Maison Poilane at just 18 years of age. Not only did the bakery thrive but Apollonia also managed to obtain an economics degree from Harvard all while running the bakery long-distance as an undergraduate student. Since then, American cooking “royalty” from Alice Waters to Martha Stewart to Ina Garten rave about the products that exit those wood burning stoves at Maison Poilane.
First Mistake
There are 17 modules (about 3 & ½ hours total viewing time) in Apollonia Poilane’s MasterClass and in Module 3, she describes the steps to creating and maintaining a proper sourdough starter. For starters (pun intended), I tried creating my own sourdough starter well before obtaining the starter that King Arthur Baking sells on their website. It involved flour, milk and a little live culture from yogurt. I never got past day 3 as my batch always started growing a long white beard – it never got to the bubbly, soft mass that all good sourdough cultures look like. Probably due to the high ambient humidity in Kaneohe which fosters both good microorganisms for sourdough starter creation and not-so-good critters. So as I’ve mentioned before, I refresh my gifted King Arthur starter every other week. WRONG! You’re supposed to refresh the starter daily! She even mentions that there are sourdough hotels in Switzerland that nurture your sourdough starter daily if you leave your house for more than 48 hours. I then went back to the King Arthur website and though they don’t have a strict daily refresher recommendation, they do recommend that the starter be refreshed at least weekly. So I’m not sure what I’ve been propagating by refreshing it every other week. It still smells and looks like a sourdough starter even with my feed and starve for 2 weeks method of refreshing…
Second Mistake
In Modules 4 and 5, Apollonia describes the procedure to create their standard sourdough loaf and what surprised me was that Poilane uses half whole wheat flour. They only use French grown wheat that’s stone ground which maintains more of the nutrients in the flour – what I considered the standard sourdough up until now was from that San Francisco institution, Boudin which appeared to be pure white flour. So from now on, I’ll start using half King Arthur all-purpose and half King Arthur white whole wheat. During the initial rise, you’re also instructed to let it rise just for 45 minutes until the mass has roughly doubled in volume. If it’s still not doubled at 45 minutes, then another 10 minutes but no more stressing that anything longer causes overfermentation and likely will cause the top to sink upon baking. I’ve been known to let my dough rise during my weekend bike rides which can last up to 90 minutes. When I make my panned focaccia without any yeast (letting fermentation to occur just with the microorganisms in the starter), I often let it rise overnight. Both BIG no-no’s with the Poilane method.
During the 2nd rise after shaping, I was making two mistakes. I was being too rough on the dough when creating the final shape – Apollonia gently tucks the outer edges like flower petals under the loaf as rough shaping essentially ruins the structure created by the first rise and once again, I was letting the dough rise too long. The 2nd rise should take no more than 2 hours – my loaves probably took a lot longer as I was inadvertently squeezing the life out of the loaf when shaping it. She also recommends baking the loaf in a pre-heated Dutch oven to mimic the conditions in a commercial wood burning oven… which I’ll attempt in my try at creating the perfect loaf…
The One Positive
The one thing that I thought was wrong about my loaves turned out to be a desired quality of the loaf. My finished loaves had a very uniform structure with evenly spaced air holes and what I was trying to create was a variety of air hole sizes that weren’t uniform. Ms. Poilane sliced a perfectly baked loaf which had very evenly spaced small air pockets which she stated is the texture you are trying to achieve. Okay, I guess I wasn’t doing everything wrong.
Following Directions
So, for the first time, I followed a recipe exactly as written and even purchased a baking couche or wicker basket lined with linen used for the 2nd rise. I also “dumped” the loaf into a cast iron Dutch oven like Ms. Poilane to mimic the baking conditions in her wood fired oven and for this loaf, I scored the top with an actual razor or bread lame instead of the serrated utility knife I normally use. And the results? Drum roll please. I daresay that my loaf was almost as good as one of the top bakers in the 50th, Chris Sy. It smelled and felt just like his Breadshop Country Loaf and we enjoyed the sandwiches it produced during the work week. Next MasterClass, Aaron Franklin’s perfectly smoked Texas style brisket… But that’s another column.
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