But there are so many things we can do with them.” “There are only four ingredients, flour, water, salt, and yeast.
Accommodating mother nature is one of many ways that baking is simple, but it’s not, Vatinet says.
Humidity and temperature affect not only the behavior of the dough, but how many people are likely to be out buying it. “Every day you have to change.” The extreme humidity on this night means that the gluten in the flour will absorb water more quickly, and the dough won’t ferment as long, he says. “The weather doesn’t adapt to you you adapt to the weather,” he says. By the end of the morning, the rack will be fluttering with them.ģ a.m. As Vatinet rolls each boule out of its couche, Wittwer hangs the linen to dry on a wall rack to dry. “We don’t want it kissing.” His mother, who lives in the small town of La Tranche-sur-Mer in Western France, made each of La Farm’s several hundred couches by hand, cutting them from a roll of French linen and hemming them just-so. These wick away a bit of moisture, helping to create a crunchy crust, and provide support, separation, and protection for the raw dough: “Bread is very fragile,” Vatinet says. When the inside of the score begins to brown, it’s time to take them out.īut before these boules go in the oven, Vatinet has to slide each loaf out of its linen proofing cloth, or couche. The scores also provide a clue to the done-ness of the loaves, Vatinet explains. These are La Farm’s signature five-pound sourdough boules, made from locally milled organic flour, and after Vatinet dusts their tops with a little more flour, he uses a lame, or handled razor blade, to score them with the wide tic-tac-toe pattern that makes them unmistakably “La Farm.” This practice allows some carbon dioxide to escape and is also rooted in history: For centuries, in community ovens across France, families kept track of their loaves by marking them with distinctive scores like this. Baker Stephan Wittwer, 22, and Vatinet together slide linen-wrapped loaves the size of deflated basketballs into the European stone hearth oven. Jacques Pepin has already called the book “remarkable” and La Brea Bakery founder Nancy Silverton, a renowned California pastry chef, describes it as “a masterpiece of baking.”Īt 2:30 a.m., Lionel Vatinet scores unbaked 5-pound sourdough boules with the markings that will make them distinctly “La Farm.”Ģ:30 a.m. Because in November, his book, A Passion for Bread: Lessons from a Master Baker, will be published by Little, Brown. If Vatinet’s fan base is already broad, it’s about to grow. Some will be FedExed all over the country. About 80 percent of these will be sold to customers here in the bakery the rest will head to the shelves of local Whole Foods stores, or be sold at farmer’s markets around the Triangle. More than 1,000 loaves of bread of 15 different types will emerge from the ovens before morning. His hands shape the dough into loaves as he speaks rapid French with his boss, and they go over the night’s plan. At careful intervals, he takes the temperature of dough he’s making in a cauldron-sized mixer and records it in neat handwriting. One is Fernand Somadjagbi, 39, a native of the French-speaking West African republic of Benin and an employee of the past 11 years. With noontime energy, and in rolling, trilling, nonstop French-accented English, he talks about his passion: Baking, bread his wife and business partner, Missy their two young children his devoted cadre of long-term employees. With his crisp white baker’s jacket, closely shorn hair, discreet goatee and gold hoop earrings, Vatinet, 47, looks French before he opens his mouth. “This crew does not drink coffee,” says Vatinet with a Gallic shrug, handing a bleary visitor a steaming cup. And it’s bright, the antithesis of night: fluorescent light, gleaming surfaces, flour, dough, and white La Farm T-shirts make for a bleached, monochromatic scene. Nevertheless, it’s quiet inside the four bakers already working are focused and busy. Named one of the “20 great American bread bakeries” by Saveur magazine last year, La Farm’s kitchen has miles to go before sunup. Loaves are already out of the oven, because at 2 a.m., work is well under way at La Farm, the bakery he opened 14 years ago. The yeasty scent of just-baked bread welcomes him like a warm fog. In the wee hours – At 2 a.m., La Farm baker Stephan Wittwer keeps close watch on some of the 1,000-plus loaves that will emerge from the bakery on this night.Īt 2 a.m., as liquored-up college kids are polishing off a game of cornhole outside the Back 9 Pub in Cary, master baker Lionel Vatinet is arriving at work next door.