Baking Bread with Rick Small

If you’ve ever been to Woodward Canyon over Holiday Barrel Weekend or have had the chance to meet Rick in person, you would know how passionate he is about his bread. He has become somewhat of an artisan, spending years perfecting his recipe to get the perfect flavor and consistency for each loaf. Walking into the production building during Holiday Barrel Weekend is always a treat. Opening the door, one is met with the powerful smell of freshly baked bread along with the dips and spreads that Chef Paul has cooked up for us. During these busy weekends you can almost always find Rick with his hat on backward, wearing his white wine apron, timer around his neck, flour on his hands and standing in front of the stove. Rick takes great pride in his bread and always enjoys baking loaves for our events or even just one or two for the Woody crew to munch on or to use for pizza dough when we do our pizza lunches. And now that it's beginning to warm up a bit in the valley I'm ready for Rick's pizza lunch! 

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups hot water (no chlorinated water)

1 tablespoon wine yeast or 1 packet yeast

6 cups high protein flour – Wheat Montana’s Natural White (www.wheatmontana.com)

1 teaspoon sea salt

Olive oil

Baking items:

5 or 6 quart mixer

Wood peel. Do not buy an aluminum peel because the dough sticks to it.

Corn meal

Dough knife for cutting dough into smaller pieces

Rectangular baking stone

Bread knife for scoring the top of the loaves and cutting bread

Large mixing bowl

1^st Day:

Take 2 ¼ cups hot water and mix in wine yeast or 1 packet yeast and wait until frothy. Add 4 cups of flour and start mixer. Add 1 tsp sea salt and the remaining 2 cups of flour to the mixer. Mix until the gluten develops – the dough should be dry but moist. Lightly coat mixing bowl with olive oil and transfer bread to bowl; I never ferment the dough in stainless steel bowls.

Cover with plastic wrap and leave it to ferment in a warm place overnight. 
 

2^nd Day:

3 hours before you want to bake the bread, cut and shape the dough into 4 long loaves. Use plenty of flour underneath and on the loaves. Cover with plastic wrap and let the loaves grow for 2 hours or longer.

At the end of the 2^nd hour, put your baking stone into the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. It will take an hour for the stone to come up to temperature. I recommend using a heavy stone and also recommend an electric oven over a gas oven if you have a choice.

At the end of the 3^rd hours, transfer two of the loaves with the wooden peel (flour/corn meal can help here) onto the stone and score the top of the loaves with the bread knife. Bake for about 20 minutes but check from time to time since every oven bakes differently. Repeat with the remaining two loaves. Watch, smell, touch….and enjoy!

                                                                -Rick