The Fresh Loaf

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Ate The First, Photographed The Second

flour-power's picture
flour-power

Ate The First, Photographed The Second

My second venture into bread baking, guided by The Fresh Loaf Lessons. With today's loaf I want to try:

1.Using a preferment to use less yeast and lend more flavor to the bread.

2.Venturing from machine mixing by autolyse, so I'm not "kneading the beegeebers" for 10 minutes - kneading is the one reason why I've shied away from bread baking all these years. I'm lazy.

3.Getting a feel for the slap and fold method.

4.Using a baking stone. I'm working with a darkened pizza stone, saturated with years of grease from frozen store-bought pizzas. I opened the windows and turned on the fan before preheating the oven with this stone. Baking commenced when the smoking stopped. Parchment paper was placed between the bread and the stone.

Well, I don't have a scale, yet. Here's the play by play.

Poolish, 10pm. Left covered on the counter, about 65 f.

1c whole wheat flour

1c water

1/4 t yeast

10 am, 30 minute autolyse of 2c white flour and 1/2c 2% milk, then added,

1/4 t yeast

1T white sugar

the poolish

2T melted butter, salted.

Blended together to make a sticky dough. Placed in a covered buttered bowl to rise in an 80 f oven for one hour until doubled. Slap and fold. Returned to bowl and repeat a second time. Third handling was to shape the dough on parchment and allow to rest while the oven and stone preheats to its max of 525 f. Placed a metal 9X9 pan on lower rack to hold steam water. Lowered temp to 400 to get the stone to quit smoking. Brushed watered-down egg yolk on the top of the dough and slashed top with a steak knife. Baked 20 minutes at 400 f. Loaf made a nice thud when tapped.

Though I used steam, the top, once it cooled down, seems softer than I'd hoped. Supper is still three hours away, but for now, it's a pretty little thing, deserving of a glass of wine alongside. Perhaps in the next chapter!

 

 

Comments

dosco's picture
dosco

Looks good from the outside.

Perhaps you could post a pic of the crumb? (i.e. after cutting)

Regards-
Dave

 

flour-power's picture
flour-power
flour-power's picture
flour-power

A nourishing loaf. Needs salt, for flavor. I'd prefer a harder crust. Quite moist and mild.

dosco's picture
dosco

I'm interested in your preferment. Mostly white flour? AP or BF and how much?

 

Also I notice you're measuring by volume and not mass. You might want to get an el-cheapo scale and move to using measurements by mass (and not volume).

 

As an experiment you might want to make a batch without the sugar. You don't need it for the yeast, and the difference in flavor profile might be very interesting.


Cheers-
Dave

 

flour-power's picture
flour-power

Thanks for your input, Dave. I'll save the sweeteners for that Portuguese recipe of yours! This time I timidly left out half the sugar, so I will indeed go ahead and leave all of it out next time. As recorded in my blog, my preferment concoction was made with whole wheat, and yes, as I mentioned, a scale is in order. I am soon to own a used myweigh uber alum 5000. I appreciate your help!

dosco's picture
dosco

Sorry, I didn't notice where you mentioned getting a scale. You won't regret it.

And yes, you should add salt for flavor and also to "tighten the gluten."

What sort of white flour did you use?

Regards-

Dave

 

flour-power's picture
flour-power

Gold Medal Unbleached White Flour, to be specific.