In pursuit of perfection! ...... still a long way to go.

decided to make 3 batches of dough - and really pay attention to my gluten development and shaping.  Each batch was enough for 2 small loaves. I made Ru's butternut squash recipe again, my favourite multigrain and NW sourdoughs potato water SD.  I have made the multigrain recipe countless times but I reworked the recipe using the BBG spreadsheet. 

I started with the butternut squash.  As I had some squash frozen I defrosted it and used that.  It had a lot of moisture and I drained off what I could.  the dough was very very soft but seemed to come together ok with the 4 S&F at 30 minute intervals before bulk fermenting for a couple of hours.

once this was underway I started the multigrain. I added about an extra 20 g water to my soaker by accident and when I came to doing the autolyse my dough needed more water so I added water until it came together.  after autolyse I added the levain and soaker and it took a lot of hand mixing to combine.  The S&f were then matched to the butternut dough so I did one dough followed by the next.  the dough was very soft.

ok, onto the last one.  potato water SD.  this recipe uses the double hydration technique. I mixed the low hydration dough, added the levain then left to rest for 2 hours with s&f after 1 hour. final step is to added 2nd part of water with the salt gradually over 3-4 hours with gentle s&f.

Finally, as each dough finished bulk ferment I preshaped, rested and shaped dough.  It was quite a challenge with the butternut squash dough. It was really soft and very extensible and I struggled to get it to hold its shape. the multigrain gave me similar shaping problems but I hoped i had done enough. finally the potato water dough was just a beeze, no issues at all.

so into the fridge they went for overnight proof. set the oven to heatup automatically and started my baking.

here is the butternut squash.

Really spread during bake and I was very disappointed. next to be baked the multigrain.

Spread quite a bit too, but was a bit better. I hade made a slightly bigger batch so the 2 loaves were 800 and 600 gms

finally the potato water dough went into the oven.  i made 1 boule (photo at top of post) and the batard I baked in a oblong china dish with tented foil over it. normally i bake in DO but wanted to try this.  I slashed the top. I had used parchment during proofing so I could allow dish to warm up befoe putting in the oven. anyway, put loaf in oven and after 15 minutes removed lid of DO and foil from dish. it was way less baked than the boule so l left it another 5 minutes then removed it from the dish so it would brown.

this also needed longer to finish.  all loaves baked to 208°f internal temp.yy

later in the day, i sliced and packaged.  the grain and butternut loaves are very moist, never had that before.

the crumb shot cheered me up a bit, but I was disappointed given the extra care i had taken to try and do things better.

proof will be in the eating over Christmas.

Leslie