Reader Ali wants to know the history behind sourdough bread. At first it seemed like an impossible question to answer, but then I though…maybe not so much.

Bread starters date back to when the first cro-magnon put down his bowl of einkorn gruel to go join the bison hunt, then forgot about it. That was about 10,000 years ago, and I’m still grateful to whoever-it-was. But really, natural starters in general aren’t what we’re talking about here. Rather, the question has to do with the specific type of starter that North Americans call “sourdough”. For indeed, “sourdough” is a term that originated in the States and in Canada, and as come to be a sort of generic term for a starter. What we call a “sourdough” a Brit might call a “barm” a Frenchman a “levain”, a Belgian a “desem”, an Italian a “lievito” and so on.

A few questions on this point came in overnight. Aren’t they both used to cover stuff? In which case…are they the same thing?

They are not. But the principle is the same. Both of these kinds of chocolate are quite low in cocoa solids and quite high in fat. That allows them to melt readily, go on thinly, and create nice, even coatings.

However where “couverture” contains cocoa butter, coating chocolate contains other fats like palm or vegetable oil. This is the primary difference between them. The non-cocoa fats make coating chocolate at once less expensive and easier to work with as it doesn’t require tempering. The trade-off is that coating chocolate doesn’t provide the same nice, brittle snap of a (properly tempered) couverture. It also doesn’t have couverture’s gloss, and it tends to melt a little faster on the fingers.

The main difference between this recipe and the previous one is the tart crust base. It’s an idea I’d never seen before young Joan found it in Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook. What I like about Keller’s combo is that it provides something of a balance between riches and sweetness…and also makes the florentines a little less melty on the fingers. This recipe makes a half sheet pan of florentines (which is a lot). The recipe can be cut in half and made in a 1/4 sheet. Or doubled to make a full sheet. Depends on how hungry you are. It goes like this:

1 lb. 9 ounces tart crust (one and a half recipes) pâte sucrée
4 ounces milk
5 ounces sugar
3 ounces glucose syrup
3 ounces honey
7 ounces butter
1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt
11 ounces sliced blanched almonds
3 ounces shelled raw pistachios
3 ounces finely diced candied orange peel
About 14 ounces coating chocolate

“International” flour types extend well beyond France and Italy. All I can say is that I spent the lion’s share of last week (including many of my so-called “work” hours) on those posts, to say nothing of updating (read: rewriting) almost all the flour-related pieces in the ingredients section. My brain is a little burned […]

Several readers have asked: given the fundamental character differences between the gluten found in North American wheat and the gluten found in European wheat, are alternative formulations possible? Is there any way to compensate for the differences between the two using readily available ingredients? I’ve been mulling over that very thing. Certainly the functional differences […]