Comparing Two Rustic Loaves
New to bread-baking and my first attempt at artisan breads. Chose two recipes: popular "Rustic Bread (TFL) from this site, and "Pain de Campagne" (ATK) from "America's Test Kitchen -Bread Illustrated" book. Almost the same ingredients and procedure, but with some distinctive differences in the end result. Here are some of the details:
| TFL | ATK* |
Pre-Ferment / Sponge |
|
|
Bread Flour | 16 oz | 18-1/4 oz |
Water | 9.5 oz | 16oz |
Salt | 1/2 tbsp | 0 |
Instant Yeast | 1/8 tsp | 1/4 tsp |
|
|
|
Dough |
|
|
Bread Flour | 10 oz | 11 oz |
Whole Wheat Flour | 6 oz | 7-1/3 oz |
Water | 12.5 oz | 12 oz |
Salt | 3/2 tsp | 5 tsp |
Instant Yeast | 1/2 tsp | 3 tsp |
Pre-Ferment / Sponge | all | all |
* adjusted for 2 loaves, to match TFL recipe
Note that ATK has no salt in the pre-ferment, and double the yeast. Salt is added in ATK dough after a 20 min rest for all other mixed ingredients. ATK has nearly twice the salt and 6X the yeast in the dough recipe. Also, overall rest time for TFL is about 50% greater than for ATK
Comparing the bakes:
ATK has a more intense (more sour) flavor, a less pronounced cake, and a thicker crust. Preferment was soupy enough to be poured (could be not cut into pieces) when combining with the dough.
TFL had a better rise, easier to shape (although a bit wet and sticky) and a more subtle flavor
Ingredients for both were of the same brands, same age. Baking environment was the same.
My Conclusions:
Both breads were "respectable, good tasting, easy to bake. I prefer the flavor of ATK, which was quite addictive. Also thicker crust and darker color. The TFL loaf was a bit easier to work with and easier to form.
Interested in your opinions relating cause and effect. (Is the pronounced difference in flavor due to the distribution of salt?) Would be interested a way to in combine recipes and get the best of each.
On the salt: converting these into baker's percentages, if my arithmetic is right, the TFL has 1.3% salt and the ATK has 2.7% salt.
A typical salt % is 2%. Tastes vary, but In a side in a side-by-side comparison that will be a large difference.
Hydrations are the other obvious difference -- 69% to 77%. That changes the ease of working with the dough, as you note, and affects flavor. I like high-hydration breads too!
Two suggestions, if I might: figure out how much salt you like, and standardize. And if you get a couple of digital scales (big and small) and do everything in grams, it gets much easier to do what you're doing -- trying different combinations and mapping out the space of possible breads.
Thanks for your insights. Makes sense.
Also wondering how the salt in the TFL sponge (but not in the ATK sponge) might affect the flavor.
"Also wondering how the salt in the TFL sponge (but not in the ATK sponge) might affect the flavor."
Directly, not really -- you end up with the same amount of salt in the bread no matter when you add it; salt timing mainly affects the pace of yeast growth at different stages.
Indirectly, sure: salt slightly retards yeast activity, and is withheld from some pre-ferments (poolishes and bigas) so the yeast has an easier time of it. So to the degree that holding salt back supports a particular path of fermentation and dough development, it affects flavor. Whether a variant of the ATK recipe with salt in the sponge would taste appreciably different, though, I can't say.