Grainy Whole Wheat and Seeds with Apricts, Prunesm and Raisins -- shaping problems
Hi all,
This weekend I decided to make the "Grainy Wholw Wheat and Seeds with Apricots, Prunes, and Raisins" bread from Amy's Bread. I've been eyeing this recipe for quite some time.
I made the dough according to directions, but made only one small change: I omitted the sesame seeds. After mixing, I got a soft dough, with all the fruits, wheat berries, and seeds kneaded into it. I let that rise for an hour on the counter and put it in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I removed the dough from the fridge, let it come to room temperature (it was already fully risen) -- I resisted the desire to give the dough a fold. Then I turned it onto a lightly floured counter, and divided into two equal pieces.
I shaped each piece into a nice taut boule: I first folded the edges into the center, and then I rolled it on the counter in cupped hands to stretch and tighten the skin. I placed the boules on a parchment lined cookie sheet. I then proceeded with the scoring. Immediately after shaping, I flattened each boule to be about 2 inches in height. I then took my dough scraper and used it to deeply score each disk into six sections. After I had done this I noticed that Amy called for flouring the scraper, which I forgot to do. I covered the dough with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour and 45 minutes at which time the dough had almost doubled in size and an indentation would fill slowly. At this time I noticed that the dough spread somewhat where I had scored it, and I suspected that I might not get the nice division into sections. I put the dough in the preheated oven and baked as directed.
As you can see from my picture, below, the shape of the resulting bread is not good. In the picture in Amy's book, the finished bread is actually divided into six sections, whereas in my bread you can hardly tell that there are six sections. So, my question is what can I do to improve the shape? Obviously next time I will remember to flour the scraper. But could that have made that much difference? Could my boules have been too tight (or not tight enough?)? Should I have maybe floured the top of the loaves? Should I have weighted 10 or 15 minutes after forming the boules before flattening and scoring (there is no mention of a wait in the recipe)?
Thanks,
Boaz
Here is the picture:
Grainy Whole Wheat and Seeds with Apricots, Prunes, and Raisins