June 4, 2010 - 5:38am
Batard - Slack
I am new to baking bread. I made a loaf of 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread and Whole Wheat Mash Bread from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads". I made both of them in the Batard shape. During the proofing process, both loafs flattened out. The volume did increase as speciefied. It started out about 2.5" to 3" tall and ended up around 1.75". It did not have any oven bounce. I used a sheet pan and steam. I do not have a hearth stome yet. What should I do different?
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Comments
You could take the step of buying a banneton. As an alternative, you could use rolled towels to support the sides of your dough while it's proofing. The batard I baked yesterday was proofed on a sheet of parchment paper. I rolled up two dish towels, placed them under the paper to support the edges of the dough, and covered the dough with plastic wrap. It's not the most elegant solution and certainly not the iconic, artisanal look of a loaf proofed in a banneton but it worked.
The lack of oven spring may have been caused by overproofing the dough. Keep working on learning that aspect because just about everyone here has "bricked" a loaf or two as they progressed along the learning curve. Hearth stones or pizza stones are great to have and use, but your lack of one probably didn't cause the flattened loaf
Thanks for the ideas. I did not realize that I would have to support the sides.