Question: In the Julia Child-video for making croissants, Esther (the french lady who does the baking in the video) wraps her dough very tightly in cling film before she puts the fridge to rise.

I'm doing the same thing when making croissants, but I actually have no clue what this does to the process. It feels counter intuitive somehow: why am I not giving this dough all the room it wants and needs to grow?

The dough grows, thus rises, despite the restraint of the cling film, but I can't help thinking: is it better to just leave it to rise freely? Does any one here know why she does this?

I have noticed (or maybe I'm just imagining things...) that upon rolling out the dough (that rested in tight cling film) it feels rather resistant, almost overdeveloped, even though I have not been kneading the dough to a point where it could be overworked.

If any of you guys can shed your light on this would be grateful!

thanks

Freerk

Right, so about six months ago I was in Cambodia, in Sihanoukville to be precise where I happened to stay at a guesthouse called Thida's inn. Thida the lovely lady who ran it, was a rather good cook and one day someone said, "have you tried the chicken wrap?" no I replied, is that on the menu?

No she replied, someone showed her how to make it, he was south american I think, try it.

I did. I don't precisely know what she used to make it, a kind of magic I think, all I know is it's one of the greatest items of food I have ever tasted, I generally ate at least two a day and on balance I would love to make them again.

So one day I sauntered into the kitchen and said, thida, show me how you make your chicken wrap, which she did, unfortunately while I saw and video'd how she made the contents of the wrap, she'd premade the wraps themselves the day before and refridgerated them, she simply grabbed a precooked one, dropped it onto an ungreased hot plate and warmed it up. I asked her how she made the wrap and she said it was exactly the same as the pizza bases she made only thinner obviously.

So last weekend I decided to give the pizza base thing a go, I grabbed some recipes of the net (I never got hers unfortunately) did some dough, rolled some out and threw it onto a hot plate and... I made naan bread, well it certainly looked like naan bread, tasted nice, great, but not the magic wrap.

So I through the second one in the oven and I got.... pita bread! hurray I can now make naan bread and pita bread but no $*U%($ng wrap!

So I am after some advice, the recipe I used was basically flour, yeast, sugar, water, salt. I heated the flour and water before hand, chucked it alltogether kneaded it, let it rise for an hour then kneaded it some more, rolled it out and cooked it. So I'm wondering about some alternate recipes and if anyone has any ideas, would baking powder make a difference vs yeast? I really don't know, any help appreciated.

Rob

Hi all,

Love the site, excited about baking better bread.

I moved to rural Kenya in the past few months to teach music at a high school and have been frustrated by the lousy bread (mostly wonderbread, or a whole-wheat version thereof). I grew up in a French city and I love to cook, but my bread-baking has been limited to basic loaves from the Joy of Cooking. Now I'm trying to elaborate (the white loaf is a little boring), and I want to take a stab at the Rustic Bread (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread) found on this site. I have a few questions:

1) I'm at fairly high altitude (about 7,000ft). Do I simply reduce slightly the amount of yeast I use?
2) The only yeast I can find locally is Instant, either in tiny packages or in 1KG packages (much to my surprise). Will this do? Should I be springing for the large packages (only thought here is that larger quantity implies bakery usage and therefore better quality).
3) I've found all-purpose and whole wheat flour, but many people here use a corn flour (maize flour) to make an "african cake" called ugali (it's a firm, gluey texture, just flour and water cooked). Can anyone suggest recipes that might use that flour? Can I mix it into regular bread recipes?
4) Is plastic-wrapping the Preferment necessary? I understand this is likely to seal in the moisture, but plastic-wrap would likely require a trip into Nairobi to find. Part of the reason baking my own bread is appealing is due to the fact that I can be a bit self-sufficient, so if I can avoid importing plastic-wrap I'd like to. Can I cover with a towel? Or cover with a plastic bag cut open with an elastic band around the edge of the bowl?

Thanks. I look forward to sharing my experiences and learning from yours! Now if only I could figure out how to import a copy of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" ...