The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Not my Grandma's white bread

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

Not my Grandma's white bread

I did another bake of FWSY Overnight White again today, with a couple of differences. One was caused by scheduling difficulties, the other by absent-mindedness! But at least they show that I feel I now have enough experience as a baker to make changes and still feel confident of the results!

I really love this recipe - just flour, water, salt and a tiny bit of yeast. I mixed the flour and water yesterday afternoon, but I had to go into town for a meeting so it autolysed for close to five hours instead of 30 minutes. When I got home I added the salt and yeast (just 1/8 tsp. per 750 gram loaf) and mixed it well in the big mixer (I was doing seven loaves). I didn't like the way it looked, and thought maybe I had made a mistake measuring the flour, so I dumped in some more until the dough was how I wanted it. The original recipe is 78% hydration, I think. This version is probably closer to 75%. It was quite lovely, and after two stretch and folds it was perfect - strong, silky and forming a beautiful big ball. I covered it and left it overnight in the cool basement.

This morning it was well-risen with a nice dome. It was a bit sticky so I had to flour the bench and my hands, but it was very soft and stretchy too. Pre-shape was a double letter fold, and then the loaves rounded into beautiful tight balls. Into floured baskets for about a one hour proof, then into preheated cast iron pots to bake.

Because I had dumped in the extra flour I ended up with a piece of dough about 350 grams, so I baked a little mini-loaf. I'd only pre-heated seven pots in the big oven so I improvised to bake the little guy. I put my little cast iron frying pan into the toaster oven with a steel bowl over the top to preheat, then put the little loaf on parchment into the pan - perfect! It baked at 450F for about 30 minutes.

I removed the bowl lid 15 minutes into the bake - looks good!

The crumb on this bread is fantastic. This is one of those breads that I could eat the whole loaf at one sitting! Moist and surprisingly flavourful for the simple ingredients.

A few big holes, but I wasn't careful about popping all the bubbles when shaping. So yummy!

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

mini oven.  Only yours looks clean.  Mine has been put through the ringer over many years, wuith very little cleaning.  I bake bread with it outside on the patio in summer so i don/t have to heat up the house.  I use your steaming method or I use the broiler pan with water in it and put the dough on the top [art with the holes.  That works great too or I use Sylvia's method with Pyrex 1 cup measures and a wash cloth rolled up inside, half full of water that I heat up in the MW.  All 3 work fine for steaming in the Cuisinart.

Forkish is supposed to be 78% hydration and that is what makes it fun.  It is supposed to be a sticky mess.  It will eventually come together and be fine with no additional flour and the crumb will even be better than your fine example!  That is one fine bread for sure

Well done and happy baking LL

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

Haha, it's only clean because I finally cleaned it a couple of days ago. I was getting tired of the cheese that was melted all over the bottom smoking when I was baking something!

I liked the slightly lower hydration, actually. It wasn't too much of a difference, but just brought the dough together and made it easier to shape and bake seven (and a half) loaves. If I was only doing one loaf I would probably persevere.

I hope you're not melting in the heat. You must go outside and bake bread around 2:00 AM, just to make sure it's tolerable (assuming it's tolerable at 2:00 AM).

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

It was 91 F but did get to 89 F before morning.  When I had a black bullet water smoker I would just put it out in the sun, no fire, and it would get to perfect 225 F to make ribs.  The wood would smoke and everything.  Talk about easy:-)  I'm making white bred at 72% hydration tomorrow - no whole grains

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

Wow, how did you sneak that one past Lucy?