The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
xaipete's picture

Where parchment doesn't work

March 27, 2009 - 7:42pm -- xaipete
Forums: 
Baking Equipment

I learn most things by experience, and this evening taught me that it isn't a very good idea to put parchment paper under a pizza that you are going to cook on a stone on the BBQ. Wow, it was really exciting! The parchment paper immediately caught fire and melted into the pizza. The pizza also was really black on the bottom--I mean really black (think it was a combination of the heat of the stone and the ability of what Bruce would term the lowest of low grades of parchment's ability to melt into anything subjected to 600 degrees).

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A_W's picture

Wet Crumb

March 27, 2009 - 2:51pm -- A_W
Forums: 
Artisan Baking

I know this question has been asked a lot, but I just can't seem to find my answer and TFL was on it with my last problem so here it goes again.

 

I have been getting great bread.  Everything looks as it should.  My only real problem is wet crumb, some even describe it as "oily".  I have been checking my temps after cooking, around 200-210 F, so that should be right. My recipe is as follows.

600g flour (Usually all white, but my last loaf had 2/3 WW and still wet on the inside)

420g water

1/4-1/2 tsp yeast

1-2 tsp salt

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jackie9999's picture

Dough too elastic to work with...

March 27, 2009 - 2:25pm -- jackie9999
Forums: 
Sourdough and Starters

Making bagels or challah...the process of forming the dough into 'ropes' is brutal..a real battle. It seems to have a mind of its own. It springs and shrinks, nothing like I see in the youtube 'how tos'.... I try and coax it into an even rope like shape and it fights me! I end up with a lumpy, thick, thin stretch of dough that, when proofed, still shows some signs of having gone through a war.  What am I doing wrong??

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SulaBlue's picture

Sub for Molasses in Israel?

March 27, 2009 - 1:45pm -- SulaBlue
Forums: 
Ingredients

I'm trying to share my recipe with a friend in Israel - and got to the molasses and went &*^!@. She doesn't even know what molasses is. What's a substitute for that part of the world? If she were in the UK I might think treacle. What about honey? Am I correct that it's in there as a sweetener for both flavor and a sugar-boost for the yeast as well as to help with the caramelization of the crust?

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March 27, 2009 - 1:31pm
Floydm's picture
Floydm

Don't give up

I worked from home Wednesday and used it as an opportunity to refresh my starter and bake a couple of loaves.

The dough I made was a "little of this and that" dough.  I threw some leftover mashed potatoes in, the last couple of ounces of a bag of rye flour I had, a bit of whole wheat flour from another bag I needed to use up, and a couple of cups of AP flours.  I made the dough very wet, 70+ percent hydration.

I folded a few times throughout the morning and tried to shape a couple of freeform loaves in the early afternoon.  It was amazingly sticky.  No amount of water on my hands or flour on my board (or vice-versa) was working for me. 

After 10 minutes of sticking and swearing and being about ready to dump it into the compost, I dumped the gobs into a couple of loaf pans.  Two hours later, I came downstairs to the kitchen and was pleasantly surprised by how much it had risen in a loaf pan despite the way I had abused it.  So I baked them.

sourdough loaf

Not my most beautiful loaf, but pretty darned good.  I don't think anyone else but me could tell this was not what I'd intended to make.  And the sourdough flavor was tremendous: the extra abuse and longer rises let it develop more.

March 27, 2009 - 12:29pm
nosabe332's picture
nosabe332

Baking Stone

I decided after a few sensible, somewhat alarmist, posts here on TFL that i would not buy unglazed flooring tiles (terracotta, saltillo, etc) for use in my oven. There are too many health concerns involved with the manufacturing and raw material differences between flooring tiles and bakeware. Any cause for concern should not be ignored. It's likely that flooring tiles could be perfectly fine to bake with. On the other hand, maybe not.

It helps that I'm getting a good amount of money back after taxes, which I decided to spend on a baking stone and other baking equipment. And to keep track of what I could get, I'm putting together this list:

Sur La Table, (Best Manufacturers) $42, 14x16x5/8

Old Stone, (via Amazon) firebrick, $29.95, 14x16x?

Breadtopia, Fibrament, $51, 13x17.5x3/4, $69, 15x20x3/4

Ace Mart, American Metalcraft, Corderite, $44, 14x16x1/2

Central Restaurant, Fibrament, $58.49, 15x20x3/4

 

i never thought i'd see the day that sur la table looked like an economic option!

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