What a flippin’ mess
To 3-1/2 cups of flour I added a half-packet of activated yeast along with salt and a total of 8-3/4 oz of water. Mixed with spatula and fingers to achieve a sticky dough.
Let rest covered for 15-min. It was too sticky to knead so folded it over on itself several times while rotating the mixing bowl. Let rest for 20-min. Lifting the dough, I stretched it and let it fall back on itself 8 times before letting it rest covered, for 20-min.
Did the stretching and resting cycle 4 more times.
Poured the dough onto the counter and stretched and folded with bench scraper for 10-min.
Let rest for 30-min. Repeated the stretch and fold for another 10-min. Let rest for 30-min before trying to roll it up into a ball. Here’s the result after baking.
Looks a bit like focaccia.
Well time to lick my wounds. As always, comments are appreciated but I need to take a break from this.
Thanks everyone... Katie
so sorry it turned out like this🙃, Katie, tho the finished faux focaccia with onion looks really tasty.
I'm nonplussed. there's no reason I can think of why using less yeast would do this, particularly because your photos show some stretchy gluten development.
Honestly, my thought would be to treat the dough much more harshly and to do a messload of Richard Bertinet-style slap & folds. If you google slap & fold you'll find some vids of him turning dough that looks like yours into an obedient boule. Might be worth a try once you are done with your break.
Rob
Don't give up yet! go back to my suggested water - 7 1/2 oz. You way overshot. In the meantime, enjoy the foccacia!
Sorry Tom, my mistake. You said “I would go with 7 1/2 tsp.” I took that to mean 7-1/2 tsp per 1/2 cup of flour as in the test I did.
7 half/cups X 7.5 tsp = 52.5 tsp for 3-1/2 cups of flour
52.5 tsp = 8-3/4 fluid ounces
Whoops...
Katie
Katie, your calculations in scaling up from 1/2 c to 3.5c were correct, based on 7-1/2 tsps water per 1/2 c flour. These darn oz and fl oz are a pain in the arse. Your kingdom for a scale.
Although 7-1/2 tsps water worked well in your small test, the equivalent 8-3/4 fl oz water did not work well in the larger one. Probably because there is more variation in measuring 3.5 cups of flour than a half-cup.
Get back on the horse. Cut down on the water. You can always add more, if needed, at a later stage. I'm also wondering if the time for fermentation was too drawn out in this bake for a yeast dough. I was going to add up all the rests and stretches, but didn't bother. You can tell from the stalactites in the dumping bowl that the yeast was active.
Just to be sure we're all on the same page. Katie's previous bake, the one before the foccacia, used 7 oz of water with 3 1/2 cups of flour - see https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/78878/toms-instructions. It sort of worked but was on the dry side. I'm suggesting trying 7 1/2 oz water with the 3 1/2 cups of flour. for Katie, with her touchy flour and difficult baking conditions, I think it will be best to sneak up the water little by little, because too much causes the flour to go all gloppy.
I may have written "7 1/2 tsp" by mistake when I meant "7 1/2 oz". Grrrr.
If this comes out all right, the next move is to go up to 8 oz.