Bread
Archived Posts from this Category
another day, another loaf, another chance to learn
Posted by arif on 21 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Bread, Musings
I’m still not getting the oven spring that I want, but I think things are headed in the right direction. I’ve got a meeting to go to this morning, so I had to cut the proofing to only an hour. I suspect that deprived the loaf of some of its spring. So, with that bit of new knowledge, we’ll see how the next loaf turns out.
all about the oven spring
Posted by arif on 20 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Bread, Musings
I received my cast iron dutch oven last week, and had an opportunity to bake in it last night.
The results were not what I’d hoped - not nearly the oven spring I’d expected, but I suspect that part of that was that I played a bit with the original recipe and gave it an extra long initial rise, and probably a somewhat too long proofing period given the long initial rise. I think my yeasties just ran out of gas.
Still, the bread tastes great, nice crust, good crumb, etc. I really am starting to believe that this bread is pretty much fool proof.
bread notes
Posted by arif on 11 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Bread, Musings
I thought I should post a quick update on the bread that I’d made earlier in the week, the standard no-knead recipe with about 1/4 cup of old dough added from a previous batch.
The results:
- definitely better flavor - just a hint of sourdough-ish tang. Not quite sour enough for my tastes, but definitely better.
- Wetter dough for some reason. One of my chief complaints about this recipe is that the measurements are given in cups, not by weight. There’s been so much variability in moisture here lately that only once have I hit what I thought was the right hydration for this recipe. I suppose that means that I need to break out the notebook and start taking notes and adjusting till I figure out what the correct weights are.
The actual baking continues to be a bit of a problem since I don’t have one of those fancy pots that the recipe recommends. That will be solved shortly since I ordered a cast iron dutch oven (from Amazon, I know, I know, but it was really inexpensive) that should be arriving next week.
My present baking solution involves unglazed ceramic tiles on the top and bottom racks. The bread goes in the bottom rack, I spray the heck of the inside of the oven, and sometimes include a cast iron pan full of water as the oven’s heating, etc. Sometimes I hit the sweet spot and get some serious loaf height. Other times, I get really tasty but kind of flat bread 
more bread
Posted by arif on 09 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Bread
mixed this up this am, it rises while I’m at work so I can shape and bake when I get home.
As you might guess, this is another mix of the no-knead bread that’s been working its way through many kitchens around the country? world? via those wonderful tubes on the Inkernets.
Variations for this loaf: added about a 1/4 cup of old dough saved from the last batch - kept it in the fridge and it smelled nice and ripe when I dumped it in this AM.
Theoretically, old dough could be all the leavening this loaf needs, but I didn’t take that chance and added the measly 1/4 tsp of yeast the recipe calls for. Mostly, the old dough went in to see how/if the flavor is improved.