The Fresh Loaf

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Little Kitchen of Horrors or Tentacles Takeover

hanseata's picture
hanseata

Little Kitchen of Horrors or Tentacles Takeover

On Tuesday a horror scenario unfolded in my Bar Harbor kitchen. Preparing my breads for Wednesday's sale I made the fatal decision to give my doughs the stretch-and-fold treatment instead of just leaving them to the mixer. I had no idea what dark forces I unleashed!

Follow this link at your own risk:

http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2010/07/little-kitchen-of-horrors-or-tentacles.html

Pain de Campagne, one of the evil perpetrators - after his containment.

Comments

Franko's picture
Franko

That's a baking horror worth going through. I'd buy that in a second!

holds99's picture
holds99

and an interesting story.  All is well that ends well and your bread looks very nice.

Howard

threedogs's picture
threedogs

Good thing it didn't end up attacking you, haha!

That's just about what happened to me a couple of months ago, hanseata - except it was worse. I was going to do a write up for my blog (which I'm still working on starting - speedy me!) Mine was a disaster, and despite my attempts to save it, I had to throw out all of it.  I kept adding flour, but that didn't help. Tried to add some yeast (it wasn't rising much, too), but I was out. Got some from a neighbor - finally realized the neighbor's yeast was dead (that bag was left open, unrefrigerated for what I suspect was a very long time; I never test any of mine - keep a jar of instant yeast in the freezer & it always rises).

Your result looks gorgeous. I suspect it was worth the confrontation with that Kitchen Sourdough Octopus, haha!

hanseata's picture
hanseata

Fortunately I refrained from adding more flour (being a bit wiser from past bad experiences with too dry doughs), I just tried to keep it from welling over my countertop (it was the amount for a batch of 4 loaves) and basically did all the folding with bench scrapers and oiled hands (it stuck even though).

The strange thing was that I used the same amount of water that I had used before when I did all the work with my mixer (mixing 1 - 2 min., then kneading 4 min., resting for 5 min. and kneading for another min.), and I do not remember it being so sticky. One dough was mixed leaven sourdough, the other 100% sourdough, and both did the same.

Maybe it was the weather...

Karin