Baking with Roland in Cucugnan

A week ago today I arrived in Cucugnan to bake with Roland Feuillas in his bakery  and learn about what this man so highly spoken of by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac was doing in a small village in the South West of France.  I didn’t have a clue what to expect since Jean-Philippe said very little about Roland’s work other than, “You must visit him!”  So I went, open minded.

This is off-peak for Roland, during the summer months the bakery sees some 60,000 visitors and the windmill around 200,000.  Roland’s baking process is very simple, no messing around.  

In my next post I’ll explain in detail of Roland’s philosophy but in simple terms his feeling is that he has put so much into the carefully chosen ancient varieties, the growing of them and milling of it that by the time it comes to making the bread he strongly believes the less you do to it the better.

He does the minimum for the forming of the loaves and feels he’s there only as an enabler of transforming dough into sizeable loaves rather than there to manipulate the dough into fancy works beloved by many.  He calls himself a humble peasant baker.

I showed Roland feeding his starter here, he uses a stiff starter, two parts flour to one part water.  Then when the dough is ready brings on to the table spreads it out.

Folds it.

Then using the baguette flipping board he cuts it into loaves, it’s important for him not to use metal.

The other piece of dough is cut into smaller loaves.

Then put down for second rise.

I pretend to help a bit.

You can read all the details about Roland’s special oven here.

Once the oven is up to temperature there’s a hurry to put all of the loaves in as quickly as possible.

Knowing your wood fired oven is knowing where to put the loaves and where the heat is fiercest.

Once they’re ready again, a haste to get them out.

This is why you need really long peels….they just keep going in.

These loaves are at the end of Roland’s hard work, the long journey from Field to Table.

I wish I could give across the screen the most amazing smell in this bakery at this point.

After the loaves are out the heat has cooled down a little to put in the quick baked fougasse.

Wanted to show you just how wet the dough is, it runs between 78-82% hydration…very exciting I know for some bakers.  The other thing you would have noticed if you felt it is how “short” the gluten strands are.

Roland is very particular to only mix it for  the minimum amount of time until just so mixed.

Voilà! 

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