To Scald or Not To Scald (or: Cute Little Buns)
The various and opposing lines of thought, not just here but in reputable books and on line as well, on scalding milk for bread have me baffled and scratchin' my head. Especially as I've been blithely adding unscalded milk to my doughs for, well, a very long time. Had I really been compromising my results with careless technique? Spurred on by CountryBoy's recent thread [1], yesterday I did this:
I tried to control the variables with limited success, but all three cute little buns were mixed with roughly 70g liquid, 95g KA AP, 2g salt and 1g ADY. 5 minute knead, 1 hour ferment, 1/2 hour proof. Into a 450* oven on a sheet pan covered by a rinsed stainless bowl, and baked for 25 minutes. The unscalded gets the blue ribbon but it also had the advantage of being a touch heavier and baked last so the oven was I assume at its hottest. Still. Clearly it didn't suffer from lack of scalding. My conclusion?
I need to get a life.
And I would be interested to know what others' experience has been.
(We ate two of these for dinner, reheated with garlic butter. It was worth it to further the cause of science.)