Here is a short Pizza Baker video titled "Naturally Risen".  I received it from Pizzatherapy.com.  Enjoy!

http://pizzatherapy.com/naturallyrisen.htm

Good deal, or not?

I'm planning on offering $400 for the mixer in the classified ad.  It comes with a dough hook and two 20 quart mixing bowls.

It appears to be 15-20 years old to me.

http://london.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-business-industrial-3-SPEED-MIXER-W0QQAdIdZ148670717

I am having trouble with consistancey of my doughs, especially pizza dough.  I stopped using bread flour because my dough was getting too tough to stretch and was very resilient.  I have been using the same recipe for 5 years, and the past two i have had to change the recipe twice.  I went from all bread flour to all ap flour, way too wet.  then i went to 50/50 ap/tipo('OO'), and increased the oil to soften the dough a bit.  This recipe came out great, then the other day I had to add an additional 2.5# of flour, mind you the base recipe calls for 7#.  I cannot figure out what is going wrong.  Any help is appreciated.

Hi there, I'm fairly new to bread making and bake bread by hand. I keep hearing about the perils of using too much or too little water in recipes, however I can't quite find anyone how can give an accurate description of what the dough should feel like if it's right. I'm talking here about a standard sandwhich loaf.

Often if I use exactly what a recipe asks for I can't form a dough ball with all of the flour and have to add more. If as some people say the dought should be moist then I find it gets a shaggy mess and is impossible to knead without adding lots and lots of flour during the kneading process.

I have to say most loaves I bake are perfectly fine, however I'm often disappointed that there aren't bigger and more random pockets of air.

Any one any ideas? (or photos even!)

Andrew

I had great success with overnight retarding of my ciabatta dough.  The flavor was sweet and nutty, the crust turned to a beautiful golden brown, and I got great big holes.  I thought that trying an overnight stay in the fridge for my rustic bread would yield similar results.  But I tried it this Saturday and my dough ended up with small uniform air pockets, and lacked in the rich develoepd taste of the ciabatta.

So I'm wondering what's the secret to overnight retarding of dough?  How long does it need to warm back up?  Should you knead once then put in the fridge, or knead twice and form?  Should you use a poolish, as I did, or just mix all the ingredients and then retard the dough?

I think this method has a lot of promise, but I'm wondering how everyone else does it.  Many thanks!

-Peter

I've made about 8 different recipes from PR's book, always with success, although with experience I improved.  Then I tried his regular Whole Wheat.  I used corn for the soaker, but only regular "store bought" whole wheat flour for the Poolish and main ingredient.  As I kneaded the dough, I noticed that it would not pass the window-pain test.  I tried adding more flour and then less flour, and then simply kneading some more (hoping for the gluten to develop), but NO GO.  Finally, I just put it in a bowl for the first rise, which was fine!  I then formed it into loaves, but after an hour the texture of the dough was no longer smooth and they had not risen much at all!  The two loaves looked all broken on the surface, giving me an indication of poor gluten formation.  I'm going to bake them off, but I expect a poor result.

Q:  is this due to my not using high-protein wheat flour?  That was my only variation from the recipe, and the book does say I can use it.  I was skeptical because I've noticed that other "whole wheat" recipes call for both white and wheat, perhaps because of gluten?  I am a novice here, and upset over my first failure with this fellow's wonderful recipes.  Where did I go wrong?

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

This is Floyd's recipe with a few modifications. The first is adding a bit more sour cream. The second was adding cheddar cheese instead of chives. The third is the addition of half & half in the dough and the mashed potatoes.

I think that getting a stand mixer will help me with this type of bread the most. I mixed for 8 or so minutes on speed 2 and then folded twice during the bulk fermentation, giving it an hour at the end to come to full bulk. The crumb is light, fluffy, and very tender.

I'm writing the recipe on the blog now. I wanted to share the photo because I'm so proud of how this one turned out. :)

So far, I've been relying on reading and recipies (more or less) to slog my way through the sourdough learning curve. But, here's a question I don't remember seeing addressed.

When building a bread recipe, is there a rule of thumb for how much of the flour is from the starter vs. added later? For example, if my hydration calculations show I want 18 oz. of flour, should I make a starter with 6 oz. of flour and add 12 oz. (1/3 - 2/3) in the final dough? Is this affected by the hydration of the starter? (For example, if you use a wetter starter, use a higher percentage of starter to dough?) What effects should I expect by varying that ratio towards more starter or less starter?

ClimbHi
Pittsburgh, PA

Hi,

Can anyone offer advice on how to roll dough into perfect balls?  I know it seems like a petty question as it's obvious, a no-brainer;  but every time I try to roll my dough into balls, they leave much to be desired. Either the balls have creases, lines, dents, and so when they get baked, they show these creases.  I'd really like to learn how to make perfect balls.  Anyone?  I find it hard especially when I have to make 3 small balls in a muffin cup so they come out like a bubble.

on my blog today. I'd love to hear your favorite dough recipes and most-favorite topping suggestions.

Happy baking!

Flour Girl

flourgrrrl.blogspot.com