Breaking Bread with Lexie Smith
The Artist-Baker Shares a Recipe for Neglect
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Lexie Smith
Our first few weeks of isolation saw shortages of yeast and flour. As fermentations appeared on social media—glamour shots of frothy, bubbling starters—lamentations quickly followed. The art of bread-making became stigmatized, condemned to “ploys for attention by people hungry for the ‘gram.” But maybe it’s more that we’re hungry for connection. Or, as baker, artist, and founder of @bread_on_earth, Lexie Smith, suggests, hungry to “[revalue] our ability to make, distribute, and consume necessary goods outside of a commodity marketplace. We’re so estranged from these processes that many peoples’ relationships to sustaining themselves feels urgently inadequate—the gatekeepers of wealth are not coming to save us.” Providing for yourself in a time of crisis by way of baking becomes political. It also brings “sustenance, comfort, and security,” she says. When everything feels so precarious, it can feel nourishing to make use of things, ingredients, you’ve allowed to fall to the wayside. Here, Lexie shares her recipe for Neglected Slab.
NEGLECTED SLAB
Think slab like a big flat block, like concrete, like what’s poured beneath a house as foundation.
Now gather the following in a decent-sized bowl:
—200g discarded sourdough starter, from the fridge, where you left it (mine is whole grain rye)
—300g bread flour or all purpose flour
—150g whole grain flour (spelt, whole wheat, einkorn, whatever, etc.)
—385g water, a little bit warm to make up for your chilly starter
—A very average sweet potato, forgotten in a hot oven overnight until caramelized and easy to crush, about 160g after cooking, give or take *
—11g kosher salt
—40g olive oil
*I stab the little thing with a knife a few times and throw it on a tray and into an oven that’s been preheated to 500 F. After a few minutes I turn off the oven and leave the potato in there while I sleep soundly, no problem at all, not a care about it.
Next:
Mix the starter, flours, water and sweet potato together with a wet hand (keep the other clean for a quicker exit). Squish it all together, feel it squirm between your fingers. Alright stop. Cover with plastic or a towel and neglect for 15 minutes.
Return and add the salt. Nudge it in with wet knuckles and mix the whole mess together with hands, also wet, for a minute. Try not to tear it apart, don’t be cruel, it’ll tear on its own. Scoop up from underneath along the sides of the dough and fold it over itself. Clean up the sides of the bowl, bring it all back to center. Give it a little taste of that olive oil then cover it. Neglect for 15 minutes.
Pour a little pool of the olive oil into your hands and rub together, really lube them up. Scoop the dough from the side closest to you and stretch up and over towards the middle then fold it over itself. Turn the bowl 90 degrees, and do this again, and again, (add a little more olive oil here, there) until all four sides have been folded. Flip the pile over on itself if you can, so the smooth rump is now the top. If it’s too lazy to flip that’s fine, just leave it. Give it some more of that oil before walking away. Cover and neglect for 15 minutes.
Oil your hands again and fold similarly for 30 seconds, or do whatever you can to stretch and fold the dough without ripping it apart. Try this: help it hide—use your hands like shovels and dig them under the mass, pull straight up and fold down, tucking the dough under itself. Do that again, a couple times, from the other sides too. This go-around, you really want to coax it to a smooth, more presentable mound by the time you’re done with it. Give it the last dregs of the olive oil, making a little moat around the dough. It’s not going anywhere now. Cover it and neglect for 1 hour.
Put a piece of parchment into a rectangular pan, about 13 x 9 inches or thereabouts, and cover it with a sheen of olive oil. Return to the dough and tuck its edges under themselves with oiled hands, creating some tension. Pour or place your package of dough into the pan. Keep the top the top, if possible. Give it a few minutes to rest then use some of the oil from the pan to grease up the roof of the dough and use greased fingers to push the dough gently out towards the edges of the pan. Cover the vessel with plastic and neglect in the fridge for a while, around 18 hours.
The Next Day:
Remove from the fridge and leave exactly as it is, barely even glance at it. Just neglect for 1 hour more.
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Neglect for 30 minutes more.
When the dough is wobbly and sways when jiggled—drowsy, and bloated—drizzle with some olive oil and salt and disrupt: dimple the dough with firm, greasy pokes. Be patronizing. Press all the way down, as if you’re reaching inside its belly to jab at its little bleating soul.
Put in the oven and neglect for 20 minutes, then turn the tray and bake for 10 minutes more, or until no living stuff has survived at all, definitely, and a golden brown sheath rides on top.
Lastly:
Let’s just say you baked a greased butterknife into the top. How convenient—this bread is so soft you can cut it with one. The knife is also the perfect measurement of readiness: only when the bread is just cool enough to eat will the knife easily release itself from your loaf.
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Lexie Smith
- Date: May 29, 2020
