The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Gawker's blog

Gawker's picture
Gawker

After my first attempt in artisan baking my family promptly volunteered me for garlic bread duty for the family spaghetti lunch Xmas eve...I figured I'd just do another batch like I did for my introduction and then garlic it but then I decided I wanted to make rolls for dinner at my father-in-law's Xmas eve and lunch at my mother-in-law's Xmas day as well. Well since the rolls are new I'm making a trial run of it today and figured since I already have the oven going I'd try a sandwich loaf as well...I'm now in gym shorts and the lightest shirt I own and dying from the heat. BTW if anyone is wondering why this halfway reads like realtime and halfway reads like I'm writing after the fact it's because I'm a spaz and I'm "blogging" to distract me while the bread does what it does without me getting in the way...oh yeah all recipe's and rights belong their respective owners blah blah blah I take credit for absolutely nothing here except what actually came out of my oven.

So anyways here we go...on the left is my bowl of rolls heading neatly into their 90 minute rise; and on the right a bowl of "Wonder-if-this-is-going-work Bread" dough going through the first 25 minute prior to processing into loaves. At this point all I can think of is how badly I now want a stand mixer so I don't have to do this stuff by hand anymore...maybe for my birthday.

The rolls are almost finished with their first rise but the sammich bread dough yielded two 665 gram loaves that are now panned for their final rise. Here's hoping there's some oven spring in the stars for me today.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I started working on the rolls but sadly I forgot to take any pictures while I was working...whoops. Anyhow I scaled 36 dough balls at 36 ±2 grams (sorry draftsman and machinist) and reformed them so the insides rolled outside to let them stick together instead of hoping the drier skin on the original rise would allow it to happen. I REALLY hoped they'd go ahead and still rise after that but they did no sweat!

The rolls yielded a dozen clovers roughly 108 grams each and they're now entering their final rise as I'm about to slash and lod the loaves. It's still hot in here and I kinda feel like the proverbial one legged man right about now but I have to admit my timing is working out well because a couple minutes after I finished putting the rolls together it was time to slash and load the loaves. Egg washed for color and into the oven they go...I'm REALLY hoping to get some spring because otherwise these are going to look a little silly...

Aaaaaaand....my wish was granted somewhat! Ok so my slashes look a little funny but hey I'll get better I promise. Also if the shot looks a little funny it's because this was the only way I could get rid of the glare of the oven light...sorry. SIDE NOTE: Has anyone seen my wife? She was in here when I started this fiasco...but now she's gone...hrmmm..........

Never mind I found her. This pregnancy has been really different than our daughter and seems to be taking a lot out of her. She's asleep with my cat. Oh well onward and upward! (Get it? Upward? Yeast humor!!)

Quickly followed by the clovers slashed, egg washed, and sprinkled with some French Grey sea salt (I was thinking pretzel) and into the oven. Whew anybody getting tired or is it just me?

And thankfully I got some spring again...though now that I think about it they're starting to crowd each other a touch...crap...oh well they're still purdy

So since this recipe says 30 minutes and the cook in me says "Yeah but look at the size of that thing!" I'm guessing being split into muffin cups they'll cook faster so I'm going to pull one when I see them the color I like and check it...

Ok am I supposed to get the loaves out of the pan immediately? cause the bottoms feel a little soggy after cooling a while in the pans...my bad...live and learn.

And here's the shot of the final clover rolls. Thanks for playing along for those of you who didn't get bored before this point!!!

Subscribe to RSS - Gawker's blog