Application Guide
Table Of Contents
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
- America’s New Bread Box
- Orientation
- Batterie de Cuisine: Know Your Bread Machine
- Making Bread
- Daily Breads: White Breads and Egg Breads
- White Breads
- Egg Breads
- One-Pound Loaves
- Pasta Doughs from Your Bread Machine
- Earth’s Bounty: Whole Wheat, Whole-Grain, and Specialty Flour Breads
- Whole Wheat Breads
- Rye Breads
- Specialty Flour Breads
- Multigrain Breads
- Gluten-Free Breads
- Traditional Loaves: Country Breads and Sourdough Breads
- Country Breads
- Sourdough Breads
- All Kinds of Flavors: Breads Made with the Produce of the Garden, Orchard, and Creamery
- Herb, Nut, Seed, and Spice Breads
- Savory Vegetable and Fruit Breads
- Cheese Breads
- Mixes and Some Special Breads Created from Them
- Stuffing Breads
- Circle, Squares, and Crescents: Pizzas and Other Flatbreads
- Sweet Loaves: Chocolate, Fruit, and Other Sweet Breads
- Breakfast Breads
- Coffee Cakes and Sweet Rolls
- Chocolate Breads
- Holiday Breads
- Express Lane Bread: No-Yeast Quick Breads
- Jams, Preserves, and Chutneys in Your Bread Machine
- Appendix 1 Bits and Pieces: Crumbs, Croutons, Crostini, and Toasted Appetizers
- Appendix 2 To Eat with Your Bread: Spreads, Butters, Cheeses, and Vegetables
- Appendix 3 Resources
- General Index
- Recipe Index
TWO-WEEK BIGA
(Classic Italian Starter) Makes about 4 cups biga
While it is convenient enough to make a new biga each time you bake, if you bake a
lot, you can make a large batch of biga using this recipe and use it in increments for up
to two weeks in any of the six recipes that follow. If you like to bake country breads,
like I do, this is a real boon in saving time, especially since bigas require none of the
feeding or waiting that traditional sourdough starters do. Obviously a two-day-old
biga will be a bit different than a fourteen-day-old biga. The older biga will be more
fermented and therefore impart a slightly different flavor, but this biga is delicious
every step of the way and will have the same rising power whether it was made two
days ago or ten. The aroma of this biga is fresh and clean, and the breads made with it
are delightful through all stages of mixing and baking.
Bigas can be quite loose or they can be firm, like this one. This one is
used like an “old dough,” or a piece of dough saved from the last batch and added to a
new batch for flavor and leavening. The full flavor produced by this method shows the
grain at its best; you get a natural chewiness and delightful flavor. The lump of starter
is added to the machine along with the wet ingedients, and it gets incorporated
throughout the dough during the mixing and kneading. Please note that for the breads
made with Two-Week Biga, I add the yeast along with the water and biga.
Note that you can use either unbleached all-purpose flour or bread
flour in this biga recipe with good results. Also, you can make half of this biga recipe,
if you like, but surprisingly, once you’ve got a batch in the refrigerator and begin to
taste how good the breads are that are made with it, you’ll be using it all up. My guess
is that once you get used to this type of starter, you won’t ever be without it.
1
1
/
2
- OR 2-POUND-LOAF MACHINES
1
2
/
3
cups warm water
1
/
3
teaspoon SAF yeast or
1
/
2
teaspoon bread machine
yeast
3
3
/
4
cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
400