Oven bottom baked breads with Wayne Caddy (British Baking Team)

If you bake directly onto hot stone it gives the bread a real boost of immense heat and creates a beautiful rustic base - great for cottage/crown loaves and bloomers. These are our school deck ovens, but you can achieve the same effect in a domestic oven using a pizza stone. Best not to buy them too cheap as they do crack. For the Rolls Royce of pizza stones this Miele one is excellent and well worth the investment plus you get a wooden peel too:  http://www.miele.co.uk/accessories/Details.aspx?rdid=10%206&aid=441 

For our cottage loaves and bloomers, we used strong flour with a protein content of 13-14%. Manitoba canandian red wheat is best as it gives good volume, dough stability and has better keeping qualities. Depending on where you are in the country, Shipton Mill do a great canadian strong flour: http://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct-shop/white

Wayne Caddy
 (British National
Baking Team)

Pre-ferment with beer & honey

You start by making your overnight pre-ferment or 'sponge'. Then leave for around 12 hours in an ambient temperature. It looks fantastic and active when you come back to it - all stringy & sloppy. Before combining to the dough mix, you can add some beer (we used Springhead beer from the local brewery nr Newark) and honey. Beer was always traditionally added to cottage loaves and when mixed with the honey it gives a mild malty flavour as well as acting as a humectant by retaining moisture and softening the dough.
Make up pre-ferment (overnight):
Strong white flour 5600g
Water 3360g
Yeast (fresh block) 38g
Combine pre-ferment to your dough mix:
Pre-ferment (sponge) 8998g (total)
Strong white flour 1400g
Yeast 14g
Salt 140g (2%)
Malt flour 14g
Butter (for a creamy flavour) 210g
Lard (adds flakiness/ brittleness) 70g (total fat 4%)
Beer 595g
Honey 140g

You can scale this recipe down. 
1) Mix by hand or using mixer with spiral attachment (4 mins slow and 2 mins fast)
2) Dough temperature target should be around 25 degrees (mine was 23)
3) Bulk ferment for 60 mins at room temp
4) Divide and shape as required (we made cottage loaves and bloomers)
5) Proof 45-60 mins 
6) Slash & Bake at 250degrees with steam


Big thanks to Wayne Caddy, the essential baker http://www.bakeryconsultants.com/ and team member on the British National Team at Coupe Louis Lesaffre World Baking Cup: http://www.coupelouislesaffre.com/ Whilst, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden won the European selection rounds last week, England still have a chance as they were recognised for their 'amazing performance' alongside Slovakia. As 'challengers' we still have a chance to get through - Good luck team !

Wayne - A star performer !