Got to try out my new toy today.  I've been working on this for a couple of weeks and it worked great.  The proof box is temperature controlled with a Johnson A419 controller set to control a small desk top heater placed in the bottom.  The rolls are a soft dinner roll straight dough that can be used for a variety of products.  I am catering a dinner for 100 tommorrow and made over 12 dozen rolls today.  

In "Tartine" there are a couple of pictures that show the 100's of cloth lined baskets that Chad uses for his final rise.  These look pretty simple and although I can't tell for sure I'd bet that the liners can be removed from the baskets and that both can be washed (Poly-wicker?) for dept of health reasons.  Anyhow - where might one find these inexpensively?  I currently use cheap poly-wicker bread baskets that you can buy by the dozen along with linen napkins that aren't up to snuff for the table any longer.  I can wash both and thats all well and good.  That being said I'd like to get away from the napkin folds impacting the shape of my loaves.  So in short I am looking for a cheap supply of washable baskets with removable liners.  SFBI's are $8/$10 but aren't removabble, Lined Bannetons are $30+.  What do you all think Chad uses?

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Hi TFL,

Here is a question I'm encounter over and over again.

What's the best measurement of a good final proofing.

Assuming 85% proofing is a good level for the last 15% proofing using over spring how do I test for the 85%.

I am using finger pressing waiting for the dough to get back to its original shape slowly but miss quite a lot.

When I miss, the heat in the oven, working against the humiduty wins and I get (small) cracks in the loaf.

Any ideas, tips?

Thanks a lot,

David

I've been trying in vain to bake french bread here in the Philippines and it has never turned out to be anything worth eating. It always ends up yeasty, hard/rubber-like and small! Would shortening the rising time or decreasing the yeast amount work?

Some details:
-instant yeast was used
-slamming was employed for the kneading
-the dough was given 2-4 hours for the first rise, 1-2 hours for the second, and 1-1/2 hours for the final rise
-the typical temperature around here is 36 C or roughly 97 F
-there was difficulty slashing the loaves because it sticks and it doesn't rise much in the oven

I was researching deck ovens at Empire Bakery Equipment, but I found some DIRT CHEAP plastic proofing baskets. Yeah, they're not reed baskets, but they'll due. I thought I would pass it along! :o)

http://www.empirebake.com/shop/pc/Baskets-c2.htm

Hi Everyone,  Thanks for stopping by !

You may be one of the lucky ones to have recently baked some of my fresh hand made croissants from Frozen.

I've created this blog as an extra resource for you to ensure that your croissants are the flakiest, tastiest & lightest croissants that you've ever had !

Let's get started shall we ?  :)

Step 1:  Remove your frozen croissants from the freezer bag and place on a baking sheet.  Chocolate ones should be placed seam side down.

 Step 2:  Let them raise overnight or for approx 9-10 hours.

For best results, they should be in a slightly warmer than room temp place (75F - 80F)

A trick to achieve this warm & humid atmosphere that will allow the yeast to really work is to add a tin pan at the bottom of your oven and pour some boiling water in it when you first start the rising process.  This added steam & heat will really assist in ensuring best results possible.

Here's an action shot.  Special Thanks to Katie for being a wonderful arm model.  Please Contact us for future bookings :)

 After 9-10 Hours the croissants should be fully proofed and be double to triple in size and slightly jiggly if you wiggle the pan. 

These ones actually proofed for 10 hours.  If yours don't look like this, you can try some things to set the mood for the yeast to really start working.

Tip 1:  Give them another steam bath & Let them sit for another hour

Tip 2:  Give them a little blast of heat.  Set your oven for only 200F and let it heat up for one minute (it won't actually get to 200F) for a quick shot of heat.  The point here is just to warm the surrounding air up a little bit and not make it too warm where the butter starts to melt out. 

After this heat blast - Sit back for a while and let the yeast do its thing ;)

Step 4:  Preheat your oven to 400F if using convection or 425F if not convection

Step 5:  Prior to baking brush with egg wash.  This will ensure a nice golden colour.

It really comes down to personal preference here.  If you have no eggs, milk or cream is fine.  No milk ?  Use water, or even nothing at all.

My personal favorite is to use just the egg yolk with a little bit of water.  This will make a nice dark & crispy coating - egg yolk is always the prettiest in my opinion.

 Tip:  At this point while your oven is heating, you can refridgerate the croissants.  What this does is set the butter even more.  This will ensure optimum flakiness ;~)

Step 6:  Bake for 20 minutes or until you have a deep golden brown.  Don't be afraid to go too dark here.. the darker the better and it sets them nicely. 

These ones baked the full 20 minutes.

Let Them rest on the pan for about 5 minutes.  The extra time lets the steam from the butter do its final setting.

Best served warm !

ENJOY !!!!

Cheers,

Moris.

I am able to control the temperature of my sourdough loaves for overnight retarding and proofing and I wanted to get everyone's opinion of what you think the best temperature is and why. There has been a bunch of recent thoughts and discussion on this circulating in books and whatnot and I wanted to put this question out there to the masters.

Thanks!

Nick

I'm a simple person and I'm driven by simple hopes and desires.   So while I may drool over the pictures of impossibly gorgeous pastries that get posted with alarming regularity on this site, I have no inclination to emulate those bakers.   All I want is to master bread with essentially three ingredients:   flour, water, and salt.   And that's not so simple.  For the last several weeks I've been cranking out alarming quantities of the stuff and slowly tweaking the few parameters available when the ingredient list is so short: dough hydration, starter hydration, and percentage of flour in the starter.    (Oh and also mix of flour and proofing strategies.)    I finally put together a decent spreadsheet to help me with this tinkering.    And now I can just put in the hydrations, and percentage starter (and flour mix of course) and I'm off to the races.    While I started down this road with Hamelman's formulae, I find I'm unwilling to go back to that right now, as I find I prefer higher hydrations and starter percentages.  

The first loaf baked after 1.5 hours final proof.   The second which retarded overnight, had a bit more spring. 

Second loaf: 

Slices from first loaf: