This was the most exciting week of my bread-baking life. I feel like I've been let into a secret world where fresh, rustic, crusty bread exists just for the taking.
This is all thanks to the book Tartine Bread, written by Chad Robertson. He who owns Tartine bakery in San Francisco with his pastry chef wife. Awesome. I am so enchanted by his bread baking journey. He apprenticed with artisan bakers in both the US and France, stoking wood-fired ovens and tweaking and developing his bread until he came up with what some people say is the best bread in the United States. Apparently Tartine Bakery sells out of bread within an hour of baking every single day. I would really love to apprentice to a small-operation baker with a wood oven sometime in the next year or two.
Like many sourdough breads, the bread is 100% naturally leavened (no commercial yeast), but unlike sourdough, Tartine Bread is made with a "young" started, one that hasn't developed a very sour flavor. This bread has the rustic appearance, crispy crust, and a lovely spongy inside full of big holes that I've been searching for ever since I started making bread over a year ago. This isn't gimmicky make-it-in-five-minutes bread, it's the real deal. From start to finish, it takes around 20 hours to make, not to mention feeding your starter every day. I've kept my starter since last April, but I was keeping it in the refrigerator and only feeding it once a week. Keeping it on the counter and feeding it every day has made all the difference in the flavor and leavening power.
