French T65 Auvergne Round Bread: A Ten-Year Wait

The Auvergne round bread from the book "The Basics of French Bread" - I waited a full ten years for it, ah~~~ and now I have finally made it!

Just what kind of great bread is worth waiting ten years for? Ten years ago, as I flipped through the recipes in that book, I saw that the Auvergne round bread required a rattan mold 22 cm in diameter. Where on earth could I buy a rattan mold? For the first few years I gave up because I could not find one. In recent years, because my lifestyle changed, I had to get to the bottom of where every food comes from, and I insisted on pursuing original, natural flavor with no artificial additives, which made me place even more importance on the vessels used for making bread. A few years ago I discovered that baking supply stores in Taipei had started selling rattan molds! But these rattan molds from Vietnam still made me uneasy - I worried the rattan had been soaked in chemicals, bleach, or preservatives, so I kept putting off placing an order.

Then last year I learned that National Treasure-level teacher Li Ronglie at the Caotun Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute teaches rattan weaving and bamboo weaving, and I thought: could I perhaps weave a rattan mold or bamboo basket myself? But when I heard a classmate in the bamboo weaving class say, "Bamboo weaving is very hard - you have to scrape the bamboo yourself, split the bamboo, set the width, trim the bamboo strips, and weave the bamboo. Some people spend months just splitting bamboo." Just hearing that might make you want to back out, but if I did not try, I would never learn!

I brought my English baking book and, steeling myself, went in person to visit National Treasure-level teacher Li Ronglie. Flipping to the photo of the rattan mold in the book, I discussed with the teacher what the rattan mold looked like and its dimensions. Teacher Li said, "The material for rattan molds has already been soaked in many chemicals by the time it is imported, so when you weave it into a rattan mold, it will still be the same as commercially sold rattan molds. Otherwise, would you consider weaving a bamboo mold out of bamboo? But you would have to split the bamboo yourself." The teacher also said, "Bamboo weaving is really hard, you know~ do you really want to learn?" I said, "Yes!" I asked the teacher to order custom tools for me.

Teacher Li Ronglie

Two months ago, at my first class, I spent the whole day just splitting bamboo, until both hands were nearly ruined. I kept pushing on and working hard, though I actually did not know how many months of bamboo splitting lay ahead. I never missed a single Saturday bamboo weaving class, and after several weeks in a row, a savior appeared for this sheep!

Deng deng~ Director Zheng Xiuzhen, the class leader of the bamboo weaving class, had retired after seven years as an elementary school director and had been doing bamboo weaving for seventeen years. Director Zheng said, "I will first teach you to weave a simple round-rim weave using bamboo strips split by machine." I copied her method and made several round-rim weaves, fixing the closing with hexagonal weaving first, then securing the top with rattan skin and rattan core. It looked simple, but in practice, making it took several days, especially for a beginner like me.

Director Zheng Xiuzhen

After trying a few, I found that the machine-split bamboo strips were too wide, and the dough might stick to them. Director Zheng said, "Then let us simply use the bamboo strips I split myself!" We started over. She took out bamboo she had previously split into six sections and trimmed it again. In order to clamp the bottom layer of bamboo strips, we made a double round-rim weave, which was truly difficult, especially for someone who had been in contact with bamboo weaving for less than two months. Director Zheng worried I would not finish, so she asked me to come to her house on weekdays to work on it. Often we would disband and go home in the evening, and she would take the half-finished piece home to keep working on it. For the past few weeks, almost three to four days a week, she accompanied me in doing bamboo weaving, and most of it was done by her, because I was slow, and the deadline for the bread book was the end of August. This anxious sheep kept feeling the pressure of not being able to finish. Thanks to Director Zheng's enthusiastic help, I completed six fermentation bamboo baskets within two months.

I know this is a pioneering feat - no one at home or abroad has done it - so I was cautious and fearful, deeply afraid that one careless moment would ruin it! On the day it was completed, to celebrate finally finishing the six fermentation bamboo baskets, I said with a laugh, "We must open champagne to celebrate!" This sheep was afraid of getting drunk first, so that morning I did not bring champagne. I brought a whey drink from Sifang Ranch and said, "This is a soda-and-milk drink - the equivalent of champagne!" The bamboo baskets gave off a faint bamboo fragrance, just like bamboo leaves used for zongzi.

That night before bed, I first made a pre-ferment using French T65 flour. Early the next morning, I added Canadian organic stone-ground rye flour and continued to finish the final dough. For the second fermentation I put the dough into the bamboo basket. I was actually quite nervous, worried about what I would do if it failed, because it had taken two months to make the bamboo basket! I carefully did every step, until I inverted the bamboo basket to turn out the dough - ah~~~ how beautiful! The pattern of the bamboo basket was imprinted on the dough, and the bamboo basket was extremely elastic, with no sticking problem at all.

Once it went into the oven, the top of the dough split open slightly, as if it were wearing a hat and smiling!

The French T65 Auvergne round bread has a large amount of organic stone-ground rye flour added, making it a very substantial and aromatic rye bread. I remembered that Mr. Poilane of France once said that butter mixed with fresh rose petals to make rose butter is most suitable for spreading on rye bread. Recently I happened to go with a friend to "Rosebloom Four Seasons" in Puli and brought back a lot of pesticide-free fresh rose petals. I tore the rose petals apart by hand, mixed them into the butter, stirred lightly, then chilled it, and spread it on the rye bread. What bread could be better than Auvergne round bread? Every bite is pure satisfaction!

I am very happy that I finally finished it! What makes me even happier is that wanting to make a bread fermentation bamboo basket gave me the chance to start learning bamboo weaving. Today a classmate in the bamboo weaving class asked me, "You finished your fermentation bamboo basket, so will you keep coming to bamboo weaving class?" I said with a laugh, "Yes! Seeing so many bamboo weaving works by my classmates, I still have new goals to keep working on!"

Pre-ferment ingredients:

• French T65 flour (French unbleached flour, imported by Yuanbao Company / Zhenxiufang online store)
• Water
• New Zealand organic sea salt
• White Rose brand fresh yeast

Final ingredients:

• Organic stone-ground rye flour (Canada)
• French T65 flour (French unbleached flour, imported by Yuanbao Company / Zhenxiufang online store)
• Water
• New Zealand organic sea salt
• White Rose brand fresh yeast
• Pre-ferment