So I have an annoying habit of tasting bread at a restaurant or a bakery with some friends and saying "pop quiz!" I then proceed to ask my unlucky compatriots about the ways in which the bread is identifiable, e.g. what kind of rising agent is used, if it is proofed in correctly, what kinds of grains compose it, etc. But oftentimes I also run into questions for which I have no answer.
One question that came up when I was making my Many-Seed Bread/Imitation Prophet Bread is: do I need to put a sandwich loaf under steam? I have never seen any indication that a sandwich loaf should be steamed. On the other hand, I haven't baked a sandwich loaf since I made my first successful rustic loaf, so I have no idea. Here was my experience recently that makes me think I might need it. When I made the side by side comparison of the commercial yeast bread and the sourdough version, the final rise time was the same (2 hours). The commercial yeast one rose a lot and filled the loaf pan. The sourdough loaf did not. It only increased a small amount in size, but it had the same light and airy texture as the commercial yeast version so it seemed ready to bake. As there was no mention of steam in the instructions, I cooked the commercial yeast loaf without it. There was almost no oven spring at all. On the sourdough loaf, I didn't want it to come out as a brick so I baked it for the first 25 minutes under steam. Surprisingly, the sourdough had massive oven spring. It did not get quite as bid as the commercial yeast loaf. However, I thought the crumb of the sourdough was better. It was still small and regular, as in a good sandwich loaf, but it was slightly more open and creamier than in the commercial yeast loaf.
Did the oven spring occur because I put the sourdough loaf under steam or was it just because the sourdough needed that final push to expand while the commercial yeast version did not? Does anyone know?
Formulas for both loaves coming tomorrow.
One question that came up when I was making my Many-Seed Bread/Imitation Prophet Bread is: do I need to put a sandwich loaf under steam? I have never seen any indication that a sandwich loaf should be steamed. On the other hand, I haven't baked a sandwich loaf since I made my first successful rustic loaf, so I have no idea. Here was my experience recently that makes me think I might need it. When I made the side by side comparison of the commercial yeast bread and the sourdough version, the final rise time was the same (2 hours). The commercial yeast one rose a lot and filled the loaf pan. The sourdough loaf did not. It only increased a small amount in size, but it had the same light and airy texture as the commercial yeast version so it seemed ready to bake. As there was no mention of steam in the instructions, I cooked the commercial yeast loaf without it. There was almost no oven spring at all. On the sourdough loaf, I didn't want it to come out as a brick so I baked it for the first 25 minutes under steam. Surprisingly, the sourdough had massive oven spring. It did not get quite as bid as the commercial yeast loaf. However, I thought the crumb of the sourdough was better. It was still small and regular, as in a good sandwich loaf, but it was slightly more open and creamier than in the commercial yeast loaf.
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| Commercial Yeast (left), Sourdough (right and top) |
Formulas for both loaves coming tomorrow.
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