... Hours, that is. Today I made a Pullman loaf start to finish, in an hour and a half. And it's pretty decent, too.
I decided to try my hand at baking a bread in such a short time after I'd watched one too many episodes of The Great British Baking Show, known as the Bakeoff in the UK. Over and over again the baker contestants had to create various kinds of bread in ridiculously short times, usually 2 hours or less. Up until now, I had always thought that a bread completed in short times would have little flavor and a limp crumb.
To start with I chose a lean yeasted dough. Now how can we get rapid fermentation? Lots of yeast, high temperatures, and probably some sugar. With luck, a high temperature ferment will bring some flavor out of the grain, since all the chemical reactions will happen much more quickly than at room temperature.
For this bake, I chose a temperature of 90°F/32C. My counter-top oven has a proofing setting that goes down to 80°F/27C, so I'm covered there. I used 30% stone ground spelt, 70% King Arthur bread flour, 65% hydration, 2 tsp yeast, 2% salt, and 2 Tbs sugar. The Loaf pan is my 4X4X9 Pullman pan, from USA Pans.
With no time for stretch-and-folds, I probably should have mixed with a mixer but I did it by hand anyway. I had in mind to add a little yogurt water or yogurt, in the hopes that it would improve the flavor. It would in a long room temperature fermentation. But I forgot.
Schedule
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- 6 PM - measure water, preheat to 100°F, add yeast and sugar. Let stand while measuring flours;
- 6:05 - measure flours and salt, stir to combine;
- 6:10 - add water mixture, mix by hand;
- 6:15 - put in oven at 90°F;
- 6:25 - knead 10 minutes by hand; put in oven at 90°F;
- 6:35 - remove (needed oven to toast some buns); butter Pullman pan; knead a few more minutes;
- 6:40 - shape, put into Pullman, back into oven for 20 minutes at 90°F;
- 7:00 - set oven to 390°F/200C, bake for 30 minutes lid on;
- 7:30 - bake 3 more minutes out of pan at 375°F/190C.
So all right, the total time was 3 minutes over the hour and a half. But the time included that extra five minutes to toast some buns. At the 1.5 hour mark, the loaf's internal temperature was 203°F/95C. That would have been all right for a sandwich loaf. The extra three minutes was to dry out the loaf a little more.
As usual, 450g of flour was enough to fill the pan and press against the lid, but not quite enough to fill the top square and flush. 470g would probably fill out the top completely.
The bread is tasty, with a crumb that is on the soft side. The flavor is mild, a little sweet, and very pleasant. I won't say it's the richest or most complex flavor ever. I was surprised how good it is given such a short production time. The crust has that tasty, slight crunchiness that tends to come from buttering the Pullman pan. My partner said it's now her favorite of all the loaves I've baked (that's partly because she likes the Pullman shape, and partly because she likes a softer bread and crust).
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When you look back at standard bread recipes from years back they always called for 2 envelopes of Fleishman’s Yeast. That’s 5 tsp 😳. We have all learned a lot since then.
Another way to shave off a good bit of time is to skip right to the bulk in the pan. When Paul first said “ look for one bubble” then get the top on the Pullman and into the fridge. But I have used a very wet dough and plopped it into the Pullman let it rise til a bubble ( or 2 or 3 ) shows and put the top on and bake. Comes out exquisitely tender and flavorful.
Knowing your love of experimenting I’m sure it’s going to happen. Looks great. c
I almost did a bulk-in-the pan. There was a 10-minute bulk stage, if you want to call it that. That was because I wanted to knead the dough a little more before shaping, and 10 minutes in the proofing oven gave the dough a chance to relax first. Relaxation happens quickly at 90 deg F.
I forgot to say earlier that in the baking show, each work station has a proofing drawer. I've never noticed any talk about what temperature to set it at. I thought if that's how they are doing it, I'll give it a try.
It’s working great so far for yogurt and bread. I can have - low/ medium/ high . The other day for baguettes I laid the heating pad on the counter and turned to high and set the sheet pan on it covered it and it worked great. Cheap too lol.
My doughs are all so wet these days that all they get are folds in the bowl and a possible lamination with added hydration on a wet counter if need be.
Your loaf and crumb look excellent. Try it with the Trinity next. 🙏
This bake was the third in a series. The first was a free-standing loaf, having 20% spelt, baked on a steel with steam, in 1 hour 40 minutes. It came out all right too. The second was a Pullman loaf and had 20% spelt and 3 large Tbs yogurt. The hydration was also way high. It took 2 hours because I blindly put the dough into the bulk tub instead of right into the pan. By the time I woke up and realized what I had done, an extra 20 minutes had passed. It tasted about the same as this bake, so apparently the yogurt didn't have enough time to work its magic.
My bread machine has two express settings--one for 80 min and the other for 58 mins. Mixed, risen and baked in 58 min. There is no photo of the result and I will not be trying it.
Tom, yours looks good.