The Fresh Loaf

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Lucy’s YW White Bread for Thanksgiving Croutons

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Lucy’s YW White Bread for Thanksgiving Croutons

It seems the only time we ever make a plain white bread is for the Thanksgiving croutons we use for the stuffing.  We have all kinds of whole grain SD breads in the freezer; some have nuts, some with seeds, some fruits, some with at least 2 of the 3 and many flush with the works.

 

We had a little YW levain left over from Friday’s SD /YW rye bake that had already spent a day in fridge and put some more YW and flour in it to make it a little larger and then after it had nearly doubled we refrigerated it again for 2 hours.

 

This bread was made our usual way.  While the YW levain was warming up we autolysed the dough flour and water with the salt sprinkled on top.  Once it all came together the mix was at 75% hydration when we starter the first of 3 slap and fold sessions of 6, 3 and 1 minute each on 15 minute increments.

 

We finished the gluten development with 2 sets of S&F’s with  15 minutes rest between them.  After pre-shaping and final shaping into a boule the dough was placed seam side up in a rice floured basket and immediately retarded in the fridge for 12 hours.

 

We baked it in a 550 F DO that was one size too large for this small bread.  We turned the oven down to 525 F after 5minutes and then down to 500 F after 10 minutes.  At 15 minutes the lid came off for another 5 minutes of 425 F baking, convection this time.

 

We then removed the bread from the DO since the top was browning way faster than the sides.  We continued to bake for another 10 minutes turning the bread 180 degrees after 5 minutes.

 

Even thought the sides never browned as dark as we wanted, the inside was reading 210 F so we took it out of the oven to cool on a rack.  The bread blistered well and the bottom was browned perfectly

 

After slicing into it the still a little crispy crust after the bread cooled we found it thin like baguette.  The crumb was fairly open, very glossy with the holes varied in size and irregular - a typical YW crumb for a white bread - soft and moist even though over baked 5 F trying to get it more brown

 

Toasted with butter is the best way to eat this bread as, like most non SD white breads, the flavor is lacking otherwise.   Kids would love this bread for sandwiches I’m guessing.   It will make fine croutons for Thanksgiving to mix in with the other more substantial croutons.

Formula

Yeast Water Build

Build 1

Build 2

Total

%

Yeast Water

50

25

75

15.79%

AP

50

25

75

15.79%

Total

100

50

150

31.58%

 

 

 

 

 

Yeast Water Starter Totals

 

%

 

 

Flour

75

15.79%

 

 

Water

75

15.79%

 

 

Starter Hydration

100.00%

 

 

 

Levain % of Total

17.88%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

AP

400

84.21%

 

 

Total Dough Flour

400

84.21%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

9

1.89%

 

 

Water

280

58.95%

 

 

Dough Hydration w/o starter

70.00%

 

 

 

Tot. Hydration  w/ Starter

74.74%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour

475

 

 

 

Water

355

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration With YW & Adds

74.74%

 

 

 

Total Weight

839

 

 

 

  

Comments

Darwin's picture
Darwin

Looks like a pro baked it. 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

the bread Darwin.  It tasted better for lunch with cotto salami and super sharp cheddar.  Actually, not at all bad for a white bread  Thanks for the compliments!  Lucy is blushing!

Happy baking

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Love those blisters.  Lucy must have been nipping at your heels to try and stop you from adding some whole grains in the mix.  For a white bread this came out real nice.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

sad Lucy didn't shape them into baguettes but this bread sure tasted like one anyway.  Toasted or plain with butter, a bottle of red wine, some cheese and cold  meats and I could be back in Paris if I had a $5,000 travel package!

Now we have the croutons for the stuffing done and only need some crackers :-)

Happy baking Ian.

Skibum's picture
Skibum

. . . dabrownman has shifted to the white bread side! All this for courtons? Well I am glad you at least had a sandwich. My compliments to Lucy for another fine bake and beautiful photos -- again!

Beat regards, Brian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

dark rye pumpernickel next!  The sandwich was better than I thought it would be and the white bread better than I remember it  It will make great croutons.

happy baking Ski

Foodzeit's picture
Foodzeit

looking forward to your pumpernickel, one of my most favorite bread and one of the reasons that got me started baking... I was not aware that this typical German bread seems to have some fans in the US as well :) Happy baking and share the result with us, pls.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

around here. My apprentice has been known to Dapumpernuckel white bread like this one to try to get it to taste better!  Will post the pumpernickel next Friday.  Glad you liked this one.

Happy baking FZ.

 

CeciC's picture
CeciC

Lovely White!! Do you have wait for it to stall before u can make crouton? If so, i dun think your loaf gonna last that long!!

I cant wait to see your pumpernickel!! I am still looking for a formula with fantastic result, I believe I have to look no further after your post ^^

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

so that we can slice it later, cube it and dry it out in the oven....what we go through for stuffing!  We went though a stage earlier this year where we did a whole range of pumpernickel bread bakes to find one we liked the taste and look of and found a couple we liked - one more complicated than the other we plan on combining the two and come up with another one we might like better .  Glad you like this bread too!

Happy baking 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

would relegate this beautiful loaf of bread to croutons...even croutons for Thanksgiving! Your weekend bake was an adventure in luxurious tastes. It was kind of Lucy to let you sample it for a sandwich, she must like you a lot! Now will you do the add ins in the stuffing itself? My assistant is lucky that she can get sausage and onion into this family stuffing. No creative license with certain recipes- a never frozen fresh turkey, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, fresh cranberry orange relish and then of course the pies. Think we could limit the dinner to those things and no one would mind at all.

Looking forward to seeing what you are baking for Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. That apple cider doughnut page (Sufganiyot) on chow.com has filling recipes for pumpkin buttercream, and marshmallow cream cheese in addition to the salted caramel that first got my assistant's attention. Decisions, decisions!

Barbra

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

stuffing, quite unlike her plain white bread - more to here wild side when it comes to stuffing making.  She has been known to put, sultana's, raisins and cranberries in there with pecans and walnuts, some wild rice, celery and carrots along with caramelized onions and mushrooms.  Then there are the 4-5 different herbs and home made stock to go with the 6 -8 different kinds of breads. 

My daughter and i like this one but my wife prefers plain stuffing so we have to make 2 of them.  Same thing with cranberry sauce.  My daughter and i like to gussie it up and my wife likes it plain.  We combine mashed and sweet potatoes for a light orange version instead of doing both, but we do caramelized carrots instead of sweet potato too.   I keep telling the girls I want to do a salad but they look at me like I am nuts - which is really  besides the point.

The only two thongs on the list for Hanukkah is mince meat puff pastry Rugelach also chocolate, apricot and raisin ones too and a sweet potato pie with caramelized apples on top,  

So what are you girls doing for the holiday bake list! 

Lucy says that even croutoins deserve the beast bread you can manage.  She is really anal about these things as my poor wife knows all too well picking up after Lucy's droppings in the yard,
Happy Holiday baking