February 13, 2008 - 12:05am
If it's not one thing, it's another
I made a basic loaf of white bread and finally figured out my problem. I've been using way to little flour while kneading. This last time, I used a lot of flour and the dough turned out wonderful. I think I finally taken a step forward in my skills.
But, like I said, if it's not one thing, it's another. When I put my loaf in to bake, I acidentally turned off the oven. 30 minutes later, the top had collapsed and it was not in good shape. Doh! (pun intended?) I set the oven for 400 degrees and the timer for 15 minutes and prayed. It actually turned out really soft and tasty. I guess that was to make up for how silly it looked.
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Well, tasty is the most important part!
The devil is in all those little details! Nice to know there's company when Murphy's Law hits. I've forgotten to turn on the timer, had a baguette of pain a l'ancienne slide off the peel and hit the 500F hot rack (that was fun to clean up) and tonight, while making pizza dough and getting overconfident in my aerial shaping attempts, flung my dough into a lampshade.
That's why I love baking bread: I get to laugh a lot.
My oven dial will turn really easily, seemingly from something as insubstantial as a draft of air (but probably more likely somebody brushed against it). I've gone in to check my bread and found the oven dial turned to broil when I know good and well I set it to 450 or whatever. Bread seems to be more forgiving than I ever thought it was. Like you, I managed to salvage the loaf, even though it wasn't as pretty as I would have liked. But hey, tasty is tasty, and once it's cut and on the plate, nobody's looking at the aesthetics of the loaf.