Bread bakers obsess about crumb: the distribution of nooks, crannies, and holes in a bread’s interior. The fashion over the last decade or more has been to aim for large, irregularly placed cavities, and a slice that is shot through with a full distribution of small, medium, and large apertures.
Generally speaking achieving an open crumb depends upon strong gluten development (lots of kneading), high hydration (an elevated water to flour ratio), and scorching oven temperatures. Shaping wet dough, however, is difficult, and perhaps the necessary skill involved in getting slack dough to stand up is what makes open crumb so desirable. This focaccia came close.
The suspense for bakers comes with the first slice. You can never be certain from the crust what the inside will look like.
This twisted French Pain Gascon (thank you, Melissa Johnson at Breadtopia for figuring out how to make it!) turned out to be light, airy, and moist.
Not every bread should have an open crumb, however, so again manipulating hydration and oven temperature are called upon fo get the desired loaf. Take, for example, this dark deli rye. If the holes were excessively large, how would the mustard ever stay on the bread, rather than your shirt?
