How to get a good gluten sheath on a batard
After struggling more or less unsuccessfully with Hamelman's written instructions for shaping a batard (which includes a prefold and a rotation) I switched over to Ciril Hitz's approach (see his video on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgqPli_sLLM [1]) This video is fantastic (thanks LindyD) and at least for me gives the definitive approach to boule shaping. However, I feel that when I finish shaping a batard using his method it is a little limp and doesn't have enough surface tension. This comes back to bite me later when the dough expands in the oven. Hitz does batard shaping by rolling the dough up from the back to the front. I was just searching this site and saw a video from the Back Home Bakery where Mark does the exact same thing but from the front to the back. I haven't tried this yet, but it looks like it would be a little easier to do the pullback motion that forms the gluten sheath using this approach. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21607/more-shaping-practice [2] So how do you get a tight gluten sheath on a batard? Front to back (back home) back to front (hitz) prefold and rotate (hamelman). Something else? I would love to keep using Hitz's method because it is very easy and intuitive but I think I must be missing some crucial element of it. Of course the batards in his video look nice and tight. Thanks! -Varda