ingredients:
400gm unbleached bread flour
100gm dark rye flour
1.5 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon active dry yeast (SAF brand)
1 tablespoon each of brown sugar, dill weed, and dehydrated onion flakes
333 gm very warm water (just cool enough to put a finger in and not whimper or yank it out)
procedure:
Mixed dry ingredients in kitchenaid mixer, added the very warm water, mixed on low until dough cleaned the sides of bowl, turned out on countertop, kneaded briefly, formed into ball, and plopped it into a floured, linen-lined brotform bowl to rise covered with tea towel. Worked on income tax return for 3 or 4 hours. Preheated oven with pizza stone to 450F. Turned loaf out of brotform bowl onto parchment paper on inverted cookie sheet (in lieu of a peel). Slashed loaf, spritzed with water, and slid it onto the preheated pizza stone, parchment and all. Covered with stainless bowl in lieu of playing "steam-the-oven". Set timer for 15 minutes and removed the stainless bowl when it went off. Set timer for 10 minutes and checked browning when it went off. Decided to brown 5 more minutes and set timer again. Whipped up cornstarch glaze (1.5 tablespoons cornstarch mixed in ~1/4 cup cold water, added hot water fill coffeecup, nuked in microwave until it just boiled). Pulled loaf out of oven at about the 30-minute mark and glazed the top of the hot loaf with the thickened cornstarch soup using a basting brush.
Result: Got some decent oven spring using the bowl-on-a-pizza-stone trick (at least it didn't shrink!). The glaze dried nice and shiny on top but the bottom is caked with un-appetizing white flour from the brotform. Bottom crust seems thicker than top, presumably from direct contact with preheated pizza stone. I think I need a smaller brotform bowl to try to get a taller, more spherical loaf (any excuse to buy more toys). This loaf is pretty (on top, at least), a bit dense, and tastes pretty good although the onion dominates and masks the nuttiness of the rye.
I took pictures and will try to post them later. Never played with this blogging interface before.
