Daily Bread

Actually a couple of days worth of bread.

Today dawned, dank, damp, overcast and cold.  46F when I finally got around to firing the Forno around noon.  

I had previously prepared a large batch of signature French Boule bread dough yesterday and it had been proofing for about 24 hours already.  I was either going to bake a traditional Boule in the kitchen range - or was going to bake hard rolls in the old-school wood oven out back.

As you correctly concluded it was old school today.

The fire built in the oven was considerably smaller than what I would have started if planning to bake pizzas.  I was looking to charge the brick interior not at 900F but something on the order of 450F.  Bread-baking temp.

With the oven heating, I measured-out my dough into eight basically equal portions and formed balls to further proof on a pan lined with parchment paper and corn meal.

The clouds parted and the sun emerged about the time the fire had died-down and pushing the embers to the back, I inserted my pan of rolls, gave the dome a healthy spritz of water from a spray bottle to establish a steamy-hot atmosphere and closed the oven door.

This was my first foray into hard roll baking with a wood oven and it wasn't long before the back yard smelled of fresh-baked bread.  I likely messed with the oven temp with more frequent checking but it's a learning curve after-ll.

I rotated the pan and the 20 minute mark - gave the dome another spritz and closed the door.

20-25 minutes later there was this...

 

Eight crusty hard rolls made the old school way.