Cold kitchen...
How is it that you start the day thinking you have plenty of time to bake your bread before leaving for a class tonight, but end up with a brick because your bread takes 4 times as long to rise? I knew I should have put the dough into the fridge and done all my baking tomorrow, came so close to doing it too. The first rise took 4 hours, and the second after shaping took 2 hours and I finally decided it was done because I knew it needed to cook before I left. I wsa forced to put the loaf in my clay baker into the oven first because it is supposed to be started in a cold oven. My kaiser rolls turned out a lot better, due to having a warm kitchen from baking and having an extra hour to rise. I am so glad that there will always be another loaf next week, but meanwhile I will cut into the loaf tomorrow and find out just how dense it is. Looked so promising too..... if I had just put it into the fridge!
Joanne
Comments
I know how it feels :).
I've even started using my mini oven as a proofing box, turning on the heat for 53.5 seconds and then turning it off again...
Baking is so much easier in summer - but the days are getting longer again so hopefully temperatures will start rising again before too long! (And then I'll probably get caught out and overproof :).
In the meantime: bake on! I think learning how to cope with the changing temperatures in the kitchen is one of the bigger challenges in home baking!
(And even a dense loaf can taste pretty good).
I have baked my 4th sourdough doorstop in two weeks and FINALLY gave up and now use supplemental yeast. House is just too dry and cold despite proofing in the lit oven, but the yeasties must be hibernating. I just couldn't face eating the mush from the grocery store, so yeast it is for a few months !
But, Jo Jo, the bricks are great either cut like a layer cake and made into "pizza" bottoms, with sauteed onions, loads of cheese, mushrooms and fried sausage and/or hamburger, or sliced really thin and fried in a bit of olive oil to accompany stews, soups or an omlette. Also great as croutons or breadcrumbs but that is a bit too much work ;)
Best,
anna
I believe that any Homemade bread is better than the "mush" (yuck) you get from the grocery store. I have baked homemade bread for several years. I needed a loaf and didn't have time to bake so I purchased a loaf of Italian bread for dinner; one of those sticks in a paper wrapper. It was awful. It seemed to dissolve in your mouth. Ugh!
Homemade, all the way! Happy Baking!
Well, it's morning and time to go see how dense that loaf is. The Kaiser rolls turned out awesome, so maybe there is hope yet! I should have followed my other instinct which was to put it into my oven with the light on. That usually works well, not real sure why I didn't do that. Maybe my brain just checked out yesterday, because I thought I had plenty of time for it all!
Joanne
Based on a thread I read here several weeks ago, I have changed my process, with very good results.
I live in an old farmhouse in Southwestern Ontario and the only rooms which are warm at this time of year are the ones with fireplaces.
I now start my sourdough loaves at about dinner time. I use the stove with the light on to keep the dough warm-ish during the bulk ferment. After several hours, and several stretch and folds, I shape the loaves and place them in well-floured, cloth lined, bannetons, cover them, and put them in the cool hallway (probably mid 50's temp). I leave them there all night and bake in the morning.
I find they respond much better to the mid 50's temp. than the low 40's temp in the fridge.
Maybe you should try it!
You know I might just try that, if I can find a kitty proof place to store them overnight. I have just been using the, "It will be done when it's done" method, but sometimes I do get stuck between a rock and a hard place usually of my own making! I make sourdough quite a lot, and refrigerate my mother for about a week at a time, but maybe I would do better putting "Arnold" into a cool place for storage rather than the cold fridge. There go those random thoughts again....
Joanne
laundry basket whih will let the air cirulate but keep the cat off the top of the nice cloth onver the loaves.
I'm bakign corissants today, the kichen is warm enough but my dining room (open to the kitchen) is about 10 degrees cooler, so figure they won't go melting there, So far its been an experience! Will take a picture or two to write up how it went!
Well, maybe the way I put it - more than two:
First: Dough temperature, dough temperature, dough temperature.
This is a factor that is somewhat neglected. Always aim for a dough temperature of about 78F - I believe that the handbook has discussions on this. In the winter you must use warmer water because the air, the flour, the bowl, etc is colder. Start warm - stay warm. If you need some kind of predictability in your timings never underestimate the importance of dough temperature.
Second: Perhaps I show my age, but there used to be one of these in just about every home - a heating pad.
It provides controlled and gentle heat. It usually has more than one setting. A heating pad in an insulated box - near, but not directly in contact with the container of rising dough can go a long way to cure the "cold kitchen blues" without a lot of expense and bother. My kitchen is very cold in the winter and my timings on fermentation times are pretty much the same fall/spring/winter. In summer I have to concentrate on cooling the dough during fermentation - but again, consistent timings.
Hope this helps.
Thanks! That is a good suggestion. I am thinking that this was simply my own impatience, because normally I would have put it into the oven with the light on and that would have solved most of my troubles. The time limit of having to leave for a meeting sure didn't help either. It's all about choices and knowing I should have done this or that, but instead did the other thing. I did put a picture of the bread in my blog, and it turned out a lot better than it looked on the outside.
I am working on the recipe, tweeking it to meet my needs, and trying to determine how big a loaf I can put into my clay baker. I think I might have to pull back on my hydration, it's at 71.4% which I think is causing it to spread out to much rather than rise up. Anyway, here's the link:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21586/not-brick-after-all
Joanne