The GT Italian Bread Recipe

foreign [Music] hello and welcome to cooking enthusiasts on this episode I'm discussing what I've decided to call the GT Italian bread recipe named for the two best Italian bread-making companies I recall growing up around Chicagoland namely Gonella and Toronto this recipe features a rustic Italian style loaf with a thin crusty baked exterior and tender Airy crumb we're starting off our ingredients with 770 grams of all-purpose or bread flour 23 grams of sugar 9 grams of salt 15 grams of yeast 590 grams of room temperature water 26 grams plus extra oil now this can be made by hand in a mixing bowl or in a stand mixer and I'm using the KitchenAid Professional 5 plus in this video recipe we'll begin in our stand mixing bowl with water sugar and proving our yeast briefly stirring them all together foreign we'll want to set up our stand mixer with the dough hook attachment once our yeast is proved and mix our oil in because this is a sticky higher hydration dough incorporate flour gradually at the lowest speed [Music] we've sped up the video in these next scenes which cover the mixing of the dough if you're mixing by hand you'll want to continue until the dough feels well combined and smooth with no visible lumps and does not tear or break easily in a stand mixer we'll continue until just before the dough comes to the ball stage Beyond a Shaggy Mass to add our salt this ensures we've allowed the dough to absorb the yeast preserving its effectiveness [Music] foreign [Music] foreign if you're working in a stand mixer the next point of interest is when you will begin monitoring the dough mix time pay attention to the dough hook as it works beyond the ball stage the dough will relax and fall from the hook as it does it will spread evenly across the sides of the mixing bowl when this begins continue mixing at the lowest speed for 4 minutes [Music] some of the things you will see in the appearance of the dough at this stage are lumps and the texture tears and breaks and a matte finish in the sheen of the skin these indicate the dough is at the very early stages of developing gluten structures if you're working by hand the texture may feel gritty especially between your fingers which indicates there are dry bits of flour yet to be incorporated into the dough after four minutes increase to speed number two and continue mixing for four minutes [Music] completing that step I rest the dough four minutes while applying a light layer of oil to the proofing container and dough scraper with a silicone brush then resume mixing on the lowest speed for minutes if you're working by hand in a mixing bowl your goal at this point is to achieve a dough that is smooth with no lumps dry bits or gritty textures that doesn't tear easily or break if you're working in a stand mixer the dough should not have any lumps and appear very smooth the dough will Trail in Long strands rather than break ball or tear abruptly as it did early on foreign [Music] with our scraper lightly oiled the dough comes away from the sides of the mixing bowl easily and doesn't adhere as you continue working the dough out it should ooze into your proofing Bowl in one continuous cohesive strand this indicates a well-developed dough at this stage foreign [Music] try to scrape as much dough from the bowl as possible afterward place the lid on the container and rest the dough for the first of three 30 minute rest and stretch and fold sessions prepare a bowl of clean water to work with and keep your plastic scraper in it for use when ready the first stretch and fold session was not at the best camera angle so what I'm doing is wetting my hand and punching the dough down after 30 minutes then I'm reaching in with my fingers closed as if I was cupping water and stretching the dough until I feel slight resistance and folding it over onto itself and into its Center I rotate the container several times to complete the rotation of the dough then using my scraper nudge any seams closed down the surface of the dough then replace the lid and rest 30 minutes and repeat so now we'll see these steps in practice [Music] so wetting my hands and punching down the dough [Music] cupping my fingers together stretching for a slight resistance folding towards the center rotating the container and repeating [Music] foreign [Music] what I'm attempting to do here with the plastic scraper is nudging down any seams on the top of the dough nudging those down closed so that I'm trapping any gases so that the dough will rise as it's resting for this next 30 minute stage foreign [Music] we're going to cover with the lid and rest for 30 minutes and repeat the process with another stretch and fold session [Music] as this stretch and fold session comes to an end we're going to replace the lid and allow the dough to rest for 60 minutes or until the dough doubles in volume foreign next up we're going to grease our baking tray with a coconut oil and then we're going to flour the tray and then we're going to flour our working surface next we invert the container and allow gravity to extract the dough for us then we generously flour the exterior of the dough now what I'm doing here is I'm trying to use as little flour as possible I know this looks like a lot of flour but what we want to remember this is a very wet sticky dough and I'm trying to use just enough flour to handle the dough and I really want to rely as much as possible on my dough scraper to do most of the work now what I'm going to do but before I proceed to shaping the dough dividing the dough is I'm going to make sure that the dough is not sticking on the top and bottom surfaces so what I'm doing I've applied the flower to the top of the dough surface and I'm patting it dry to shake loose the the flower on the sides of the dough and what I'm doing is brushing that back up against the sides because that is where a lot of the dough tends to stick to the scraper so I'm brushing the dough or the flour that comes loose when I tap on it back up against the sides of the of the dough and that actually helps the flower to adhere to the sides as I go along so once it seems like the sides of the dough are covered pretty well with flour I'll go ahead and proceed here and things look like they're pretty well covered I'm not shaking loose any more flour by tapping on the top surface so now I'm just making sure that everything's looking good and it is and I'm gonna go ahead and try and divide the dough in half as best I can by eye [Music] foreign [Music] so to pre-shape these loaves I'm going to start by pulling the outer edges in towards the center and the best way to work with this sticky dough is to try and confine the stickiness to the very center most portion of the dough ball so just continue pulling the outer edges in towards the center and continue keeping the stickiness or your sticky fingers in the center of that dough ball and what that's going to do is by time you reach for the flower to tap some extra flour onto this dough ball what I'm going to do is tap some extra flour onto the surface of this dough ball and then I'm going to Pat it down with my hands and that's doing two things it's helping to distribute some of that flour onto that surface but it's also testing if that dough ball is sticking to my hand because if it doesn't stick to my hand then it's likely that it won't stick to the work surface and it's not sticking to my hands so I can go ahead and flip it over and start working with it and sure enough it doesn't stick to my work surface and I can begin using my dough scraper and my other hand and create some surface tension and begin shaping this into a dough ball [Music] thank you [Music] so again we're going to start by pulling from the outer edges and working in towards the center trying to confine the stickiness to the very center most portion of the dough ball and we just continue working to keep the stickiness in the center and as we tap that extra flower into the center we also kind of eyeball where we're going to flip the dough over to and we work some surface flower down onto that spot as well make sure that we not we're not getting any stickiness on our hand and we flip the dough ball over no sticking so we began shaping that dough ball by creating surface tension with our dough scraper and our other hand and continue working [Music] so some things to consider at this point we want to make sure that we're preheating our oven and we want to preheat the oven to 430 degrees and we also want to have a steaming tray on the bottom rack or below the baking rack you we want to bake these Loaves on the center rack so we come back to go ahead and shape these Loaves and we will apply some flour to the very top of the Loaves and that is so our rolling pin will not stick to the loaves as we roll these out also want to make sure we get some flour down on our work surface and as we roll these out what I found works for me is I I tried for the longest time to get these into rectangular shapes and that was very difficult I just couldn't get them into those rectangular shapes that so many recipes called for what I found ultimately worked for me was actually a bell shape and this first loaf of was a rough Bell shape but basically um narrower at the top but keeping the dough thicker in the center and of course rolling from the top down and then tapering out at the sides so that basically it stays thick in the center of this loaf and comes to a natural taper as we roll down and the loaf or the roll that we've created by Rolling wider and tapering out or flaring out will actually just create a very natural taper as we work along and taper the edges and pinch the the seams closed as we work along now of course I have limitations and the I have to Speed the video up because I work at a very slow pace so that's why a lot of the videos the these are sped up so much because I have to work very slow so again I'm using my dough scraper to create some surface tension in the dough as as the loaf will rise the surface tension will help this dough to rise as it bakes so we're going to tuck in these ends and place it on the baking tray so that it can rise excuse me it can go through the final rise and we're going to cover this up in a moment but we're going to go ahead and shape our second roll second Loaf and this one is going to take on a very good Bell shape like I was explaining to you so notice how this one gets rolled out this one definitely takes on a very good Bell shape and so I start by rolling out with a pin make sure we have some flour on the top of that surface so the rolling pin does not stick switch over to my smaller rolling pin and then we work that out make sure that this flowered well and notice how at the very top portion furthest away from me that's thicker at the very top and it's going to stay at that thickness as I continue working now as I work toward me I'm thinning out and flaring out the dough so that it's narrower so as I begin rolling and tucking that seam in it's thicker in the center but it's tapering towards the edges as it widens out and as the dough itself flares out the further I come towards me it takes on a naturally tapered finish as I continue rolling towards me so this to me especially with the limitations that I have was just a much much more natural way to help encourage a baguette style loaf or a more natural Italian loaf in working to shape the final loaves so now you're just going to pinch the seams closed and then work to taper the ends and again I'm using the scraper to create some surface tension this one needs a little more work to pinch close the seam and when this comes to the final rest uh it's going to be covered for 30 minutes and this will sit covered rest allowed to rest for 30 minutes and the oven is preheating at 430 degrees with a steaming tray below the baking rack so my steaming tray is set up basically it has lava rocks inside a pie tray [Music] that I fill with hot water 10 minutes before I start baking so that it will develop steam by time the baking tray hits the oven so here I'm going to place the loaf onto the baking tray and I'm going to tuck in the ends and I'm also going to make sure that just before I put the loaves into the oven I'm going to tuck the ends in again if they proof over the edges of the baking tray itself so I oil up the knife the edges of the knife and I make my venting scores I make several passes with my knife because I have limitations and I I'm just not that good so I have to make several passes with my knives so into the oven this goes [Music] so you will bake these for 25 to 30 minutes or until done and after 21 minutes you will decrease the baking temperature to 375 degrees foreign big shout out to my niece Melissa for this lovely Christmas gift thank you and seven minutes into this bake making our first quarter turn and boom directing our attention to the steaming tray setup below we have a pie tray with lava rocks and two cups of water thank you so much for joining us for this video recipe we close it out with a presentation of the flower used and test loaves in this presentation [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Cooking Enthusiasts

Views: 28,375

Keywords: cooking enthusiasts, italian bread, gt, gonnella, turano, baking, recipe, chicago, chicagoland, ceresota, heckers, harvest king, king arthur, italian bread recipe, bread, crusty bread

Id: tjA5Ajqk7J0

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023