The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

I would like to thank the academy...

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

I would like to thank the academy...

or, um, members of Fresh Loaf...

I have been making this bread for a few years (Pain de Campagne Honfleur by Bernard Clayton) and I've been trying to make it consistently for the last few weeks. It's always been good - always, but it just lacked SOMETHING. No oven spring was the latest issue.

Well, last week I made the best loaf with this recipe that I've ever made. I always take notes, so I tried to repeat it and for the first time ever, I was able to reproduce the bread. This almost caused me to squeal!

Seriously, this site rocks as it provides more than just my own thoughts on how to figure this all out and I appreciate it!

So, here it is below. I got oven spring. YES and the flavor is great. The only funny thing to me is that now it really does look like a sponge - an almost 4 lbs sponge! :-)

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

And it looks perfect too.  Can I interest you in a pickle for your sandwich?  :)

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

LOL and dang... I forgot I have pickles!

BreadLee's picture
BreadLee

That one looks great! Very similar to mine a few days back.  Btw that thing made quite a few pastrami sandwiches.  Did you ever get your corned beef ready? Hoohoo. 

Nicely done.  That's exciting.  I may try another. And I didn't get munch spring with mine,  but I baked it in my craptastic oven on the stone.  Imho this loaf should be baked in the dutch oven.  That's how I'm doing it next time. 

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

I bought corned beef. I'm the only one who would eat it, so doesn't make sense to make one at home. But it was yummy!

I have tweaked this in several ways with each bake except for the last two. It's "almost" 50/50 whole wheat (freshly milled hard white and commercial white bread flour.

I make it wetter than it says to partly because of milling the wheat myself). And the most recent change is that I add a cup of flour after the first "soupy" rise which was only an hour. It's a bit too wet. Then, for the last rise, 2 hours later and for shaping, I fold and turn and add a good bit more of whole wheat flour as it was still a bit slack and then I let it proof overnight in the fridge.

I _might_ try next time to add that amount of water and flour earlier, but I'm happy with how this turned out - especially with freshly milling the wheat. Now that I repeated it exactly the same with the same results twice in a row, I will know if any change I do next time makes a difference or not. 

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

I might try that next time, but I don't have a pan big enough. I would have to divide the dough and I'm not sure that two bannetons would be the right size. The 12" banneton works great and then it spreads/deflates when I slash it and then it grows during baking. 

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

Oops I meant to respond to this - so see below in the thread about size of banneton.