I successfully cultivated a sourdough starter and have been baking/experimenting all kinds of breads for the last several weeks. This artisan bread baking has totally got me hooked!! I still have a lot to learn, but this site has been very helpful especially for finding answers to all of my questions after questions after questions.... 

I usually do find my answers using the search function, but I can't seem to find this particular one...

My question is: what is the difference between kneading and stretch & folding? Isn't the purpose of both methods to develop gluten? I would understand the difficulty of kneading by hand, especially for higher hydration doughs. But I do most of the kneading using my bread machine, so I usually just run the machine until I get the "windowpane" effect. I have done it by hand using the S&F method as well. Both gave me nice results, but I've never done a side-by-side comparison using the same exact recipe. (Perhaps that's my next project...) It really got me wondering if there is much difference in flavor, texture, formation, etc.

The only closest thing I could find was that with the traditional kneading method, you actually risk over-kneading the dough, as the dough still keeps developing gluten while it's resting/proofing. Is this true? (Granted, a lot of it depends on the types of flour and the length of each fermentation.)

I see that a lot of people prefer doing it by hand, which I think is definitely more labor intensive. (not that I mind it, but sometimes, I just don't have the time) If that's the only option, there would be no question, but many of those people have either a bread machine or Kitchen Aid mixer and still prefer to do it by hand. So I'm assuming there must be a good reason here.

I would really appreciate any comments and opinions on this.

What: Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers Festival  Saturday, March 20th
When: The bakers showcase is from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Greenlife Grocery, with demos in the grocery's teaching kitchen from 1-4:30 p.m. More demos will be from 2-4:30 p.m. at A-B Tech.
Where: Greenlife Grocery, 70 Merrimon Ave., Asheville, NC, and A-B Tech's Magnolia Building is on the school's campus at 340 Victoria Road.
Admission: Free, but workshops are limited to visitors who have bought a loaf of bread at the morning bread tasting.
You should know: The featured baker at this year's event is Master Baker Lionel Vatinet from La Farm Bakery in Cary. Presentations are also expected from author and baker Peter Reinhart, of Johnson & Wales University; Jennifer Lapidus, director of the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project; and Emily Buehler, author of "The Science of Bread." Wood-fired brick oven workshops.

Learn more:

www.asapconnections.org/bread2010.html

My daughter and I have been working with artisan breads for about 8 years and we still have not mastered the crusty crust and the "ear" that forms on the crust from slashing. What is the secret to consistantly making bread like this?

I've been working for the last two years to get the right formation, crust, and color on my sourdough.  Pre-heated skillets, pans of lava rocks, sprayers, you name it and I've tried it.  Turns out the best solution is the simplest.  Here is a loaf I made last night by covering the bread with a disposable foil roaster pan for the first ten minutes.

As an experiment, I left the cover on for 15 minutes on another loaf I was baking at the same time.  Here are the two together.

Turns out that extra five minutes makes a real difference, as it allows the dough to stay soft enough to keep ballooning out.  Also it seems to prevent full caramelization and the crust wasn't quite as crackly. 

Overall I'm amazed how easy it is.  No more dangerous steam and cumbersome steam pans.  My roaster pan covers were pretty crinkled and certainly not airtight, but did the trick.  Next time maybe I'll try 8 minutes to see what effect that has.

-Peter

http://psoutowood.vox.com

In the late '80s I was a foregin exchange student in Munich Germany.  Every morning while waiting for the bus on my way to school I would pick up a small battard with cheese on the top of it called a Kasestangen.  I have been looking to replicate these wonderfull little treats since I  started baking bread around 6 months ago.  If anyone has a recipe for these I would greatly appreciate you posting it.

Thank you,

Erik

Hello,

I'm using the recipe that David deduced from Jane's descriptions, but I'm having trouble getting the loaves to rise properly. 500 g KA AP, 375g water, 1/4 tsp Red Star instant yeast, 10 g Morton's Kosher. I've tried this recipe two times with poor results. Some of my concerns:

After rising for 21 hours or so, the dough much, if at all. The dough is still very stick

y, but, with the aid of a floured surface and floured hands, I think I am forming them decently. The dough is very soft and does not give much resistance to stretching. The formed baguettes flatten and spread out wide, they won't maintain a cylindrical shape by themselves—I am using an improvised couche (parchment paper and rolled up kitchen towels).

In the oven, the baguettes will rise a little bit, but not much, and it leaves me disappointed and with a flat dense bread. :(

Could someone give me some guidance? It's greatly appreciated

Loren

I have seen quite an improvement in my baking after I started following the discussions here in this forum Thanks to all. I have a question though about shaping, say, a baguette or a similar shaped bread. Cylindrical-like. I have seen pictures where I can make out some sort of cloth which is used for resting the shaped dough. Like there are 3 or 4 small cylidrical loaves rested on a cloth and the cloth is folded between each loaf to maintain the shape and not allowing the dough to spread out and flatten. My question - is it a simple cotton cloth? Will not the dough stick to it and make it a mess when transferred to the oven? If not, how does one transfer each of the 3 or 4 loaves from this cloth on which they rest?

We don't get special baking equipments like a baguette pan where I stay(I am not in US).

Not sure where this should go or even if I can get the pix to load

but I hope this will encourage anyone struggling....... the info

here has made all the difference.  Thanks to all

I've been playing with Artisan bread now for a couple of months and this weekend feel I've had another small breakthrough. No where near some of the pro bread I've seen around here, but nonetheless, a small personal success.

I used this Pain Au Levain recipe ( http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=71 ) . I have been using wild yeast  almost exclusively and hand mixing only. I though I would share my bread pics and give a couple of observations.

Mixing- Not only the most difficult thing to master, in my opinion, but it is made much more difficult for the novice by all the different styles and contrary methods. Where one great baker is doing a few gentle stretch and folds and thats it, another is beating the tar out of it for half the afternoon.  On this dough I did the french folding tecnique for maybe 6 to 8 minutes, maybe 70 to 100 folds, and at the time really don't know if it was enough or too much.  5 minutes after I got done mixing, I realized I forgot the salt and when I went to mix it in, I was shocked at how much the dough had firmed up, which made me think I had done enough mixing and the dough would continue to progress on its own. I did one stretch and fold half way through the first fermentation.

Shaping- Consistency in handling the dough is what I am practicing, and I have a long way to go. These started off as a round oval, but got kind made into somewhat of a batard shape. I wanted to control my dough without overworking it, and I guess it was in control for a bit.

Proofing- It seems like most folks blame poor outcome on under/over proofing. I proofed these in a couche for 2 1/2 hours as the recipe suggested. Maybe someone could look at the pictures and tell if the crumb could have been improved. I have no clue how to judge this, but figured I got it pretty close to right.

Scoring - I tried something new this time as my razor kept dragging the dough. First of all when it is time to divide the dough after bulk fermentation is a great time to make a practice slash in your dough where you are going to divide it anyway. I used a really long, wet,  slicing knife and it made nice clean cuts for me. The practice slash on the dividing dough was very helpful.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share my new obsession, and this site has been a huge help.

Oh and thanks to Steve for his very informative website/blog.

Keith

Hi,

I am a new user but have been lurking for a long time. Over the years, I have learned more from this forum than from all the books on bread baking combined that I own.

I have a "little" problem that I can't seem to solve on my own, though. I have a Dacor 36" Dual Fuel Epicurean range. I have had it for about 10 years. My Dacor oven has two unfortunate design flaws: exposed bottom heating element and gas infrared broiler that is used to aid the bottom element during preheating cycle to heat up the oven quicker (cannot be disabled). Because of that, I cannot bake in the oven any bread that is required to go into a cold oven. Second, the breads, mostly fat free and sugar free, like Sourdough French or ordinary French baguettes, don't acquire this nice golden reddish color like I see on a lot of pictures here and in the books. The crust is usually very dry, pale light brown color, and looks like slightly burned parchment paper.

I always bake on the baking stone giving the stove a nice long preheating time (45 minutes to 1 hour). I throw a cup of ice in the cast aluminum skillet for steam or spray the oven with water. I tried all three cycles (bake, convection bake, pure convection). I tried very high temperatures, tried to lower temperatures. Nothing seems to make a difference. The crust is just too brittle and very pale. I don't want to think that solving this problem will involve a purchase of a new super expensive range, but I am at the rope's end as to how achieve the desired crust color and texture in breads that don't use fats or sugar in them. Breads brushed with olive oil don't get too browned either. I don't have this problem with brioche type doughs at all.

If there is anybody on this forum who has the same kind of oven (with infrared gas broiler that is used during preheating cycle and to maintain the temperature during baking), please share your experience and advice.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.