Need help to improve crust on italian bread
Hello,
I recently had a bread procured from a neighborhood store made by kings road, like italian/french, darl, almost burnt thick crust, light, soft interior.
My wife loves this stuff. I found a standard Italian recipe in my breadman book but left out the herbs, ran it through the breadman on french cycle until final rise when i took the dough out, had to add extra flour as it was too sticky to handle, (made a note to add more flour next time) shaped it into a narrow and long loaf, let it rise , brushed it with plain water, cooked until medium brown crust in oven on pizza stone at 425F.
It came out really good so i was pleased with result but still need some suggestions to increase crust thickness, should i use higher temperature, (my oven can go to 550F)?
Michael
Put a cookie sheet in the bottom of your oven while heating the oven up. When you're ready to bake, cover the glass with a towel so you won't brake it, then pour about 2 cups water in the cookie sheet, spray the oven walls with water, plop your loaf in, spray it too and that should create a lot of steam which will thicken that crust of yours.
Starting with a higher temp then reducing it for baking will increase the steam.
Oh, don't forget to remove the towel after spraying all that water.
There's a video around here about it.
Rick
Sounds good, I'll give it a try!
Thanks