We do pizza about once a week at my house, I usually use a crust that is really tasty and comes out quite nice, slightly crisp and chewy.

However, a couple weeks ago my daughter said she wanted hers thinner, crisp and crunchy, Cracker like.

I have tried rolling/stretching the dough, Pre-baking, oiling. These didn't do it, so in my never ending quest to win father of the century I am turning to my friends and peers here in TFL for help.

HELP!

I need a recipe for the ultimate crispy, crunchy, cracker like pizza crust.

I’m having a problem with undone inside with very done crust. I’ve been baking PR’s basic sourdough formula and using dmsnyder’s steaming method. For my last and best effort, I pre-heated for and hour up to 515º (by thermometer), pre steamed, then inserted dough and lowered temp to 450º. I used convection bake. The crust was quite brown at about 30 minutes, but the internal temp was only 165º. I went another 3 min., as more would have totally ruined the crust. Got it up to about 185. My sense is to use an even lower temp. What do you think?

BH

Hello everyone. I'm new to the site. I found it a couple of weeks ago and was immediately astounded by the quality of the breads and the advice that was here. I've been baking bread for around 7 years. I started with a castoff bread machine, graduated to pan breads and then one day about six years ago I was eating a piece of store-bought sourdough and thought "I wonder how hard it would be to make this." I ordered a sourdough starter from Sourdoughs International in Idaho and it's been percolating along ever since then. I tried Carl Griffith's starter and even made my own, but I kept coming back to the San Francisco starter I purchased from Ed Wood's company. I spent a lot of time on the rec.food.sourdough newsgroups and subscribed to Mike Avery's mailing list before I found this site. I've made a lot of bread in the intervening years, most of it good-flavored but mostly uninteresting pan breads. Don't get me wrong, my kids don't eat store bought cardbread unless we're really in a pinch and I haven't been able to bake in a while. My standard daily bread for the past few years has been good, just not great. My baking road has been long and bumpy, and several times I almost gave up altogether. Finally, a few weeks ago I caught the bug again and I'm proud to say that everything seems to be coming together this time.

For a long time I was really nervous about degassing my sourdough. Somehow I had it stuck in my head that a sourdough starter just couldn't produce the kind of oomph a yeasted loaf could, so I resisted handling the dough very much, mixing it until the gluten developed and then letting it sit until risen. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a method on Mike Avery's website to let the dough do all (well, most) of the work in developing the gluten. He mixes the final dough together until it's a very rough mass, then lets it rest for a couple of hours, stretching and folding the dough two or three times during the rise. I know I've read similar techniques elsewhere, but for some reason his explanation stuck with me. I decided to give it a try and immediately noticed a huge improvement. The other things that have greatly helped in recent weeks are the addition of split firebrick as my baking surface and the purchase of the SuperPeel from Exo Products.

I've always baked primarily for myself, but if my family and friends didn't enjoy the fruits of my labors, I'm sure I wouldn't be nearly as motivated to continue and improve. In the past couple of weeks, I've received three compliments (unsolicited, of course) that have each made my day. A coworker said "This is just like something you'd get at a bakery." A lady at a neighborhood party said "I pay good money for bread like this," and this morning I presented my wife with the best looking baguette I've ever produced and she responded with "I've had baguettes in France that weren't this good."

I obviously still have a lot to learn, but there's just something about finally reaching a goal that has taken so long to achieve that makes me want to shout about it from the rooftops. All day long I've felt like a kid at Christmas, and I keep sneaking downstairs to cut another slice. It's amazing that something so fundamentally simple can be so universally fulfilling. I feel like today's batch of bread was finally good enough to photograph and post for all of you to see. Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcome. Happy baking!

After I proof my Basilicata-style high-hydration loaves, one of two problems occurs.  Either I've floured the couche too sparingly, and the dough bonds to it so that I have to separate it with a knife blade (sometimes with unhappy results), or I've floured too liberally, and the dough carries a thick layer of unincorporated flour that spoils the crust.  In the second case, I try to scrape off as much of the extra flour as possible with a blade or a brush, but still the extra flour still prevents portions of the crust from caramelizing, and leaves an unpleasant dusty feel on the tongue when you bite into it.  How do you wizards do it?

I made another batch of the baguettes described previously in http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11925/baguette-surprise-and-challenge.

The only significant changes in the procedure were:1) I did not add the salt until after a 50 minute autolyse, 2) I was more meticulous in gently pre-shaping and shaping and 3) I let the loaves proof more fully. 4) I also poured about twice as much water over the pre-heated lava rocks to steam the oven.

Well, there's good news and bad news: The bad news is that I seem to have over-proofed the baguettes a bit, resulting in my scoring not opening up real well. The good news is, first, the flavor of this batch is equal to the first. I'm ready to conclude this recipe is reproducible in my hands. Second, the crumb is significantly more open. And third, I have finally achieved the crackley (rather than crunchy) crust I have been seeking on my baguettes! I am really delighted.

The crust is thin and it sang loudly for a long time while cooling. Cracks developed in the crust. It breaks off in thin, sharp-edged flakes when you bite it! Woo Hoo! I am pretty sure the cause was the extra steam created by the combination of lava rocks and extra water.

Now, I have to test the steaming enhancement with other baguette formulas.

David

Thinking about baking with a cover and steam injection, but I don't have that equipment.  I put my baking stone on the top shelf of the oven, slightly over 3" down from the top element of the oven.  My pan o' rocks for steam was on a middle rack.  I misted the baguettes before they went in the oven and then baked with steam at 515 for 10 minutes and another 12 after removing the rock pan.  Far and away the crispiest crust I've gotten yet.

I think that the steam congregates at the top of the oven (heat rises and all that) so maybe it's emulating the bake-under-a-cover-with-steam-injection technique.  My oven is electric but doesn't use the top element to maintain heat, only to achieve the initial setting, then it's just the lower element so there was no broiling of the tops.

Anyway, my bread has always been nice and crisp right out of the oven, but within an hour or so that crispness disappeared.  This time it's still crispy the next morning.  Very different.

:-Paul

Hello All!

First off, let me just say how wonderful this forum (and indeed this website) is. I have made several posts with great feedback, and learned a lot of amazing things. Thanks one and all!

My current Bread Adventures have me searching for the perfect baguette - of course, this is rather subjective...it's got to be perfect to me. What that baguette consists of is a light but chewy crumb with large holes and a crust so crispy it tears your mouth apart like eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Over the past few months, I have been neck-deep in Reinhart's amazing "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," trying out recipes and techniques, hoping to create this perfect baguette.

I've tried Poolish Baguette, Pain de Campagne, Ciabatta (made from a Biga) and Pain a l'Ancienne. So far, the Pain a l'Ancienne has come closest. The crumb is certain close to the mark, but my crust seems to come out more chewy than crusty.

So I've come searching for tips...what are the keys to a crustier crust and a lighter crumb? Any recipes I should try? Do I need to move on to sourdough to get what I'm looking for? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

JT

Hi All,

Well, I've been bitten by the baking bug and have made my first loaf ever, a baguette from the Crust and Crumb cookbook that turned out way better than I expected.  While I'm pleased with the results, I noticed that the baguette wasn't nearly as crusty on its underside.  I'm thinking that not having a cooking stone or a baguette pan kept the underside from developing properly.  But perhaps there is another reason?  Any tips here would be greatly appreciated. Also, as seen in the photos, the inside was a bit dense, a bit chewy.  I may have over kneeded or distrurbed the inner air pockets somehow?  What would cause this? 

Either way, for a first effort I'm quite pleased and am glad to be a part of this great community!

Miz

Yes I know it sounds like a stupid request. I finally found a dough recipe I really like, but are there any tricks to getting the end crust a little softer? It's just our preference. The dough has standard ingredients - flour, sugar, oil, water, salt. I bake usually at 425-450 depending on how much stuff is on it.

I don't use a stone (we bought one years ago but can't find it ha ha). If I did use a stone, would that good expanse of heat help me get the middle cooked faster and get it out of the oven quicker? Sorry if this sounds stupid.

The request also stems from me trying to duplicate a pizza from a shop that closed up in the neighborhhod years ago. Got the dough taste and texture down, just need a little softer edge. The shops here now all bake pizzas that have end crusts that should be registered as lethal weapons.

Hello, I'm brand new to these forums, so sorry if I mess up on any form-etiquette.  I've just used Richard Bertinet's sourdough recipe from CRUST.  Unfortunately with his recipes, I've found that almost all of them require 15 to 20% more water than he calls for.  I emailed him directly to be sure I wasn't crazy and he confirmed that American flours are often "stronger" and absorb more water.

Anyway, his sourdough is the only exception to that rule and I'm not sure why.  I don't have to add any water because it's plenty sticky as-is.  I "work" it like he shows (and I've become pretty decent at this) for about 15 minutes, then add salt, and continue until it's nice and cohesive.

However, when all is said and done and the loaf is finished - it tends to have a few large holes rather than evenly-spaced, smaller holes throughout where the bread puffs up.  It also seems a bit wet-ish or soft sort of in the middle.  Either I'm just too new to know that sourdough is supposed to be that way, or I'm doing something wrong.  I did 2 loaves today and one came out with large bubbles as I described above.  But then the second loaf came out with a huge cavern.  I mean, it just is hollow and all the actual dough is at the top or bottom of the crust with a huge hole.

I read a previous post that suggested this is due to improper shaping.  But I wonder if it's related to my wet-ish problem -- and the fact that unfortunately CRUST isn't well suited for the types of flour I'm using.  I love Bertinet's method and find it theraputic to work the dough -- it's my favorite part.  But it's tiring to feel like I have to test every recipe 10 times before I am sure of how to get it right.  And even then, I'm inexperienced so I'm not sure what is really "right".

Thanks for any advice!!!