December 31, 2016 - 4:27pm
Oven spring sporadic, any thoughts?
Hi, I've been lurking here a long time. I've pretty much gone from "5 mins/day" to Nancy Sliverton and now Chad/Tartine. I've gotten really really good at the Tartine sourdough country white over the years.
But, when I try variations and adding other ingredients, I almost never seem to get the oven spring out of the loaves, like polenta, sesame, olive vs, plain white country sourdough.
Picture here of polenta on the left, country white on the right. Starter, leaven, flour, all identical hydration +/- and of course added wet polenta and pepitas to the polenta loaf. Polenta flat, white springs!
Any thoughts, obvious or otherwise?
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The Tartine Country White you've baked often. The variations you've baked more sporadically. Every dough is different -- even minor variations in ingredients make for significant changes in the character of the dough. If you don't bake a specific dough consistently then you can never truly learn its ways. Therefore, you will never achieve the same results as you would from a dough that you know well.
Pick the variations that intrigue you the most, then bake them often. When you've baked them as many times as you've baked the Country White then you'll get results more to your liking.
Again, just speculating. Cheers!
Trevor
thanks Trevor. I agree with what you're saying, on a practical note I do the country white over and over, so yes I'm "in the groove" there.
that said, it still surprises me that making the two loaves in the picture, the polenta/pepita has NONE of the fermentation bubbles, docking slashes flat not open, loaf flatter. Yet they share identical leaven, flour, autolyse, proof time, etc. Granted I should expect some differences due to adding polenta, etc., but it seems SO dramatically different.
But I'll keep trying and tweaking!!! Thanks... ------
Gotta agree with Trevor's advice here : choose a bread that you like and bake it often, until you tweak the formula to your equipment, ingredients, and process to get a bread that meets your standards. Unfortunately, books can't take into account regional variations in ingredients (for example, "white flour" in California won't be the same as "white flour" in New York or France or Singapore), nor can they perfectly account for variations in something like, for example, the coarseness of the polenta you'll add to your bread. Which is to say that you've got to make it your own.
It's clear that you've mastered the Tartine country white, which is not an easy loaf in itself, so I'm sure with a little practice you'll get to where you want to be with the others. Trial and error . . . I hope you've got friends who like bread.
Happy baking
I don't expect to get similar oven spring to a white loaf. It's certainly possible I simply don't have the necessary level of skill to get that kind of result, but fwiw, I use various add-ins "all the time" and have found that there's noticeably less spring when I bake a loaf with certain add-ins (polenta being one) than with most things I use (flax, millet, sesame, olives, cheese, etc.)
That said, I think both loaves look wonderful! How was the crumb? I suspect the polenta & pepita loaf is probably an excellent specimen of a loaf made with those ingredients and comparing them is not really useful. It's the same as comparing a white, high-hydration ciabatta dough and loaf with a Country White. The dough is quite different as is the resulting loaf, but both are 'right'. Some things (like a bit of coarse rye flour) seem to change the character of the dough and bread more than you think they would. I'm sure there are chemical and physical reasons for that but I just like all the different kinds of bread, myself. :)
Thanks...darn i forgot to take a picture of the crumb! Maybe a slice from the freezer?
At any rate the bread is delicious!!! Makes such great toast!!
on the problem.
Some time ago I was attending the whole process from dough mixing until shaping in one small professional bakery. It was really strange for me that when they mixed the dough with polenta it was looking like the strongest dough but it turned out to be the weakest one at the end of bulk fermentation. The polenta added was in coarse pieces so you could easily spot it. It turned out like being more wet than any other dough. The baker told me in advance that this will happen and I could not believe him until I saw it. The rest of the ingredients were the same as for other types of bread.
Just adding different ingredients to the same dough may turn this dough to a completely different dough and in consequence this dough will behave completely different regarding the oven spring and bloom.
Happy baking!
Joze
I've never made polenta bread , but I have made corn bread/muffins numerous times over the years. Polenta is basically made from corn meal. When using any type of corn meal to make corn bread/ muffins/ pancakes, etc., I've added baking powder, baking soda or a combination of both. These are needed to make the baked goods rise. It's basically an acid/base reaction.
You might give it a try.
Claudia