Time and Temperature

Modified Tartine Country Loaf

This is a lesson on time and temperature in baking. It is one that I learned a few weekends ago. Here is the lesson: make sure you recalculate time based on temperature.

Two of the loaves I had this weekend proved the point rather perfectly. The first loaf I made this weekend followed the time precisely even thought the temperature in the kitchen was much colder. Unfortunately, this meant that the final proofing was not as effective as it should have been. The bread, then, had lovely holes, but did not spring much in the oven and had a dense almost doughy texture on the inside. I dried out the bread and made it into croutons. The croutons were good, but they required a lot of drying in the toaster over before I brushed them with my olive-oil herb mixture.

Note Doughy crumb and lack of oven spring.

Loaf number two, however, had a happier time. I messed up my schedule on the bread so I was supposed to be doing a few stretch-and-fold proceedures during dinner. Instead, I let the bread sit in the cold air to extend the time between tending to it. So it rose over 6.5 hours instead of 4. The bread turned out beautifully...so beautifully that I didn't take a proper shot of the crumb before we ate much of it!

Loaf #2 Crust

Loaf #2 Crumb (for better picture see top)

I Take It All Back...

No-Knead Bread

I admit it. I didn't think it could be done. I thought the no-knead revolution was absolutely absurd. Unfortunately, my increasingly busy schedule has kept me from making some of my traditional breads. So I tried a no-knead bread from from The Fresh Loaf and it worked just as it did in the pictures. I could not believe my eyes.

Crust is crisp and thin.

The crust was thinner that I usually like but is crunched and shattered beautifully. Also, although all of my breads have sung recently, this one I could hear cracking all the way across the room. It was beautiful.

Beautiful Crumb.

The crumb inside was fantastic. I had no idea it would turn out this well. The beginning stages did not look promising.

Yum!

The one thing this bread lacked was the lovely sweetness of the sourdough I like. It was nutty and flavorful, but neither sour nor sweet. This may have been the semolina.

It may be gone by morning.

Ingredients

• 30g Whole Wheat Starter
• 346g Water
• 300g Bread Flour
• 105g Semolina Flour
• 45g Whole Wheat Flour
• 9g Salt

Directions

• Mix water and starter and stir vigorously until starter is fully dissolved. Mix flour and salt to fully distribute salt. Put flour and salt together and use a dough scraper to work the flour into the water. Continue working around the bowl scraping dough from the side toward the center and pushing it down in the center, until you have a shaggy mass.
• Wait 5 minutes.
• Do a few stretch-and-folds.
• Place dough in covered bowl to rise at 75F for 4 hours.
• Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight. For about 16-30* hours.
• Take the dough out and let it sit for 2-3 hours or until it starts to warm to room temperature and bubble.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and pre-shape.
• Let the dough bench rest for 30 minutes.
• Shape the dough and put it into a linen-lined bowl dusted with rice and wheat flour.
• Let it have a final rise for two hours.
• Turn it onto a peel, slash, and bake as follows.
• After a 30 minute preheat at 500 degrees F, bake the bread under steam at 450 degrees F for 30-35 minutes and then bake for 20 minutes or until 100 degrees C (212 degrees F) on the inside and chestnut brown and crispy on the outside.
• Wait for at least 1 hour before cutting.

I am a convert. I will try this bread again.

* - (Note 10/7/11) I tired this bread again and I did not let it bulk rise for long enough so the crumb was really lackluster and unfortunate.

I also made some bread the other day. I tried to make Frankie Olive's City Bread, but I made every possible mistake so it came out misshapen. It still tasted fantastic. I will try again.

Crust: A little thin, but good.

 We ate it last night and this morning.

Irregular holes, but a little dense in spots. Still good.

Now I need to go study Sallust and Latin meter (not at the same time, obviously).

School Bread

It's been a while since I've been in school. Although I have been working and continuing my education, without a full day of formal classes life is a little more relaxed. Some days I had the day to read and make the wonderful Tartine Country Bread or my whole wheat breakfast bread. However, studying for these exams, I realize that these days, with the exception of special occasions, are coming to an end.

Yet, I simply cannot give up my bread, especially as winter approaches and meals of soup and bread are so appealing. So what to do? Well, there are some recipes that take as much time, but less intervention. I have had a lot of success with breads from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, and so today I am trying to make (a modified version, of course) of his San Francisco sourdough. Pictures and analysis to come. I also will try some breads that take a little less time such as Wild Yeast's Norwich More Sourdough which I attempted recently.

I have also been considering venturing into the territory of no-knead bread. Although this does not have the stress-relief of kneading, it also has less of the clean-up stress. I have been very skeptical in the past (with the exception of the no-knead challah I make). One bread that captivated my attention was an Italian No-Knead featured on Yeast Spotting recently. That may be my next experiment.