So,

I finished my WFO earlier this fall and am baking in it now. Breads are great and sell faster than I can bake them, but I encountered one particular issue:

I seem to have a problem gettin that nice, crispy crust on my French Bread. I am told that with my Whole Wheat or even Whole Wheat mix, the crust usually gets softer after the loaves cool off, but I'm a little disappointed that even the French Bread (Reinharts recipe, made with Sam's Club high-gluten bread flour) gets soft after it cools off.

I bake at around 550 degrees, give the loaves a good 5-8 seconds of steam with a brass-nozzled sprayer, and the crust is awesome immediately after baking. Once the loaves cool off, the crust gets soft.

I'm used to the baguettes we made in Germany (where, admittedly, we could add steam very easily and "remove" it after a few minutes) - those loaves would come out crisp and then shrink while cooling off, causing the crust to "fenster". It would crack and splinter.

Is there anything I can do differently to get better crust?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan

Another Simple White Loaf.  I got this from this Japanese website:  http://kneader.jp/recipe/14.  Thanks to Koby.  It was a light,  fluffly bread,  just like those you find in those Japanese Bakery.  I doubled the recipe here.

What I find interesting is the method:  1.  The Biga Mix -  it includes sugar first.  its quite a high content of yeast,  I probably would like to try a little less instant yeast.  This only requires 10 minutes although I extended it to 30 mins because of the temperature here.  2.  The baking -  3 different degrees within the span of 35 mins baking time.  Here's the details in this site:  https://sites.google.com/a/jlohcook.com/jennycook/latest-postings/simplewhiteloaf

What do you think of this method?

I just love this recipe, thanks to Floyd for posting it!  It is just sweet enough and soft enough that you can't stop eating them!  I made these to go with my blackened salmon burgers............YUM!!  The sweetness of the roll was just a delicious combo!

Ingredients 

• 3 cups (480 grams) bread flour
• 1 pack active yeast (2 ¼ tsp)
• 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 ¼ tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 cup + 2 Tbsp lukewarm water
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 Tbsp melted salted butter
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried parsley or 1 Tbsp fresh chopped italian parsley

Directions

Hey guys. I've made the rustic bread 3 times now, and I'm having a problem with the crust softing a lot during cooling. I like a crispy crust. Is this recipe supposed to have a soft crust? I do all the things you should for good crust: preheat oven with steam pan, using tiles as baking stone. Is it possible I'm not baking it for long enough? The whole thing gets very dark brown after the recommended baking time. In fact the first time I made this recipe, I burned it and it had a very crispy crust. Still tasted good after hacking off the black parts. I'm shaping my loaves as batards BTW. I don't have this problem when I bake baguettes (different recipe, however).

The crumb is very moist and slightly dense. Is it supposed to be like that?

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread

Can anyone share a formula for a truly fantastic olive bread? The baker at my farmers market makes the most delicious kalamata olive bread. It's soft and chewy inside with tons of kalamatas. The crust is golden brown and very crisp. This bread is fantastic eaten out of hand, toasted, for sandwiches, or my favorite, for egg-in-a-hole. The bread itself is not very sour so I doubt it's a true sourdough. I sent the baker an email hoping she could point me in the right direction for a formula (yeast raised? starter based?). I wasn't asking for a recipe, just for some pointers, but all she said was, "come to the next market and we can chat." Well, I want olive bread now and the market doesn't open for the season until May!

Any ideas would be welcome. :) Elissa

So in a recent thread I posted a recipe that I based on a bread someone had seen on TV. I just did my best guess, based on provided ingredients and my own experience. 

I figured I should post the results, because it was mostly theoretical, but I believed it would work. The goal was yeasty, soft, fluffy bread, and use of a preferment. 

Here's the recipe, makes eight (8) 92g rolls/buns, or one good-sized loaf of bread...hence BreadBuns!

• 100% hydration starter (sourdough or not) 100g (26.50%)
• All purpose flour 375g (100%)
• Water 218g (58%)
• Brown sugar 38g (10%)
• Salt 10g (2.65%)
• Yeast (instant) 12g (3.30%)
• Melted butter 26g (7%)
• FINAL DOUGH WEIGHT (g) 778g

First, make a 100% hydration starter with 50g flour, 50g water and a pinch of yeast, mix, cover and leave at room temp for at least 6 hrs (or use some existing sourdough starter). In this case, I used some starter that I had around. 

Combine starter with remaining ingredients. This is after 1 minute of mixing at low speed. 

Mix with dough hook for 6 minutes total at KitchenAid speed #2 (low speed); this is the end result: soft, supple, quite smooth and satiny. 

Flatten, then roll into log and/or shape into ball and let rise for 1 hr in warm place, covered. 

Shaped and ready for rising...

In the bucket, ready to rise

After a 1 hour rise, it's doubled.

I decided to shape into 92g rolls, placed in a greased 9x13 pyrex dish:

Cover and let them rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, til doubled. Preheat oven to 400F

Bake for 23 minutes at 350F on middle oven rack.

Here's how they look after 10 minutes, just starting to get a hint of browning.

After the full 23 minutes, they're looking nice and brown. 

Remove from oven, carefully remove from pan and let cool on rack about 10 minutes before devouring. 

Crust and crumb are soft, light, tender and fluffy as expected. I think they could use a bit more brown sugar though, a touch more sweetness for this kind of bread. 

I like to store these in a Ziploc plastic bag to maintain that fluffy softness. Enjoy!

Good morning and happy holidays to all.

I have just started making my own bread, and I have made three or four loaves and a pan of dinner rolls, and they all came out pretty good.  I made the dough in my food processor and then let it rise according to instructions.  BUT,  the the bread is too dense and crust is too thick and hard for my particular liking.  I was wondering if anybody here has a recipe that would yield a semi dense, yeasty soft  dinner roll.  Tonight,  I'm making puttanesca with homemade noodles and hopefully some great homemade dinner rolls. 

Thank you in advance for your help.

Bart

So far when baking bread I have only used the Regular or Quick Baking Cycle with the "Light Crust" option.  For what types of recipes would I use the "Firm" or "Soft" option? Can someone please explain how the bread results will differ if I use the "soft" option for a Whole wheat bread recipe?  Also I love a bread texture that has holes.  Is there a particular name for that texture?

Barbequed Philadelphia Soft pretzels

Growing up in Philadelphia the corner Pretzel vendor was always there ready with a soft Pretzel (they were not always that soft)  But the flavor was like nothing else. 

I have missed them for so many years.  But I have managed to make a pretty good pretzel and I do use a lye bath as it gives the pretzel the best authentic flavor.

But I live in Nevada and it is hot in the summer time  to hot to bake in the afternoon when I get home.  So I have baking the Pretzels on the barbeque and the result have been great.  Philadelphia Soft pretzel Flavor with a slightly smokey barbeques flavor.  Plus the kitchen stays cool.

I make a standard pretzel reciepe

Let the do rise for one hour form the pretzels

Chill for at least 1 hour

30 Second Lye bath  The lye does bake off and convers to a safe to eat great crust.

Put baking stone on Grill high on two outside burners, med on middle burner under stone

Get the grill up in the 550 degree range bake for 6-8 minutes and then I put a cooling rack on the grill and turn the pretzels over and let them bake for a few more minutes until golden brown.  Time on Grill will vary with each grill