Gosselin Baguette with Cold Retardation
Ever since Don introduced the method to combine cold retardation and gosselin baguettes, I have been eager to give it a try. David's successful try adds fuel to the fire. First I made the original Gosselin baguettes just to compare, it was delicious. Howver my first attempt with the cold retardation version ended up with an overflowing bucket in the fridge - yup, I forgot to reduce the yeast and used a container that's too small. I probably couldn've salvaged what's left in the container, but I didn't, I was too busy wiping my fridge.
This time I reduced yeast to 3/4tsp (Don added to his original post that he used 1/2tsp of yeast, but I didn't see that until ... now. Oops. Sort of decided on the # of 3/4tsp randomly, luckily it's close enough to Don's 1/2tsp.), used a combo of KA bread flour (25%) and GM AP flour (75%), kept the hydration at 75% exactly. The rest is exactly like Don's formula and everything worked out well.One thing I noticed immediately is that even though I baked them as how I bake all my baguettes, these come out MUCH darker. Is it because the long autolyse and long cold retardation brought out more sugar in the flour? They sang loudly coming out of the oven.
I used more AP flour in this batch than the original Gosselin baguettes, which means the dough's even more soft. Channeled David and the chickens, scored with an angle, got ears, however tiny, but there they are!
open crumb, comparable to original Gosselin
Here's what's unexpected about this bread:I would've thought after such a long time in the fridge (36 hours), the dough would lose some of the gluten due to too much proteolysis, especially for a dough that's mainly AP flour. However, it's the opposite. It felt MORE elastic than the original Gosselin dough during preshaping and shaping, in fact, they are so elastic that I had to fight a bit to get them to the proper length. Anyone has a good explaination? Does proteolysis activity slow down a lot at low temperature? Anyway, these baguettes are very flavorful, less sweet than original Gosselin, but more "complex".
Thank you Don for sharing with us such an innovative recipe, it was fun to make and delicious to eat.
Comments
Very nice txfarmer. You are now producing great breads shown in an extraordinary manner. Well done.
Eric
It means a lot coming from you. Taking pictures is still hit and miss for me. I usually have to take a bunch, the first ones are often crap, by the end, they are better. The ones I showed here are the last few. Just like making baguettes, it takes practice.
Wowie! Those are some holey baguettes! Your breads are always an enjoyable sight, thanks for sharing your insight and lovely pictures.
Thank you, it's a great formula.
These look absolutely terrific on all counts, txfarmer.
Some really interesting topics for discussion emerging about proteolysis and the effect of temperature. I'll try and find out more about this and get; meantime hope others at TFL, who are more in the know, might post their knowledge.
Wow, these really are light and airy. I can discern a wickedly crispy crust there too
Best wishes
Andy
I thought more about the proteolysis thing. You know the "Artisan Bread in Five minutes A Day" method, the dough is in the fridge for days and weeks, but the bread can still get great ovenspring. Also PR's new book "Artisan Bread Everyday" is the same way. So maybe dough can withstand a lot more "soaking" than we expect, especially in the fridge.
Those are incredibly lovely. I can just see the spray of crumbs as you tear off a piece. I grew up in New Orleans and REALLY miss the way French bread used to explode in a shower of crumbs when you pulled off a chunk to dip in sauce. I can remember when folks started squeezing the bread to see if it was "soft" thus meaning it was "fresh"...I sure miss the old days. I will have to give Don's version a try. c
They are heavenly! I inhaled one and half loaf right after taking these pictures.
Beautiful "diet bread" as my kids would say, Txfarmer. That's really an amazing crumb.
Coincidentally, last night I decided to give Don's formula a try and mixed the flour and 300 grams of water - it's still sitting in my refrigerator because I wanted to revisit Don's blog to check for any further updates since my original notes (there were).
Am out of KA French Style flour, so used KA AP and Arrowhead organic rye.
I had the yeast amount correct, but I didn't use my mixer last night - just lightly mixed the flour and water using my dough whisk, as first posted by Don. Definitely will use the little Bosch for the balance of the mix.
Hopefully my attempt will turn out half as well as yours!
You are smart to check the updates, I printed the original post and didn't check back until afterward, oops. :P
After autolyse, it's tricky to mix in the extra water, but it's possible to do without a mixer. I think if you mix yeast into water first, then slowly knead the mixture in (as well as the salt), it can be done. In fact after mixiing with the mixer, the dough still somewhat sits in a puddle of liquid, after one or two folding, it becomes silky and well absorbed.
Lindy,
as you note, for the latter, post autolyse stage. I only have a small hand held mixer, so found myself dividing the dough into 3 and mixing each part separately, before re-combining the whole piece. It was the only way I could do it without overheating either dough, or, machine, or probably both!
Best of luck; lots of evidence of lovely baguettes from Don's formula.
Andy
excellent scoring, especially given the hydration, txfarmer! Don and David's adventures certainly have given a lot of us fun with this challenging recipe.
I'll leave Andy to hunt up an explanation for the lack of protease degredation you expected. My hunch is that the refrigeration slows down the enzymatic activity enough so that there is no problem. I know that at work we've on occasion (not on purpose) had to retard loaves over the weekend. Although the tang of the sourdough was noticeably more pronounced, we had no problems with oven spring or gluten breakdown.
Larry
See my reply to Andy above, I think dough can probably stand a lot more soaking than we expect.
Great job, all the way around txfarmer. Wonderful write-up and pictures which are worth a thousand words. The crust, crumb, scoring are all first rate. These baguettes do tend to bake darker because the extended cold autolyse produces the extra sugar which is evidenced in the caramelization and sweet taste. I think that the cold retardation gives them the complexity of taste and makes them a little less sweet than the regular Gosselin baguettes as you have noticed.
Don
I was in awe of your creativity for thinking of this method, especially after tasting these last night. Now, let's proof these babies in the fridge for another 12 hours! Haaaaa, :P
I'm still working on this txfarmer...
but I've come up with the following:
Level of development is crucial. So long cold autolyse is fine, because the flour proteins have been subject to little development. Think about the other end of the scale and industrial bread produced using high energy mixing. The energy input is what induces the dough rheology. The rheology is an enzme [protease] reaction to begin breaking down those protein chains to give extensible dough. Additional thought: energy implies heat, and there is significant frictional heat rise in this dough mixing method; I reckon this may be of significance too.
Other bit if reading suggests some of the protease comes from the yeasts, but is only released when yeast cell walls are damaged. Given no yeast is in the autolyse, then there is no protease available from this source at this point intime.
I'm sure there is much of value in the point you are making about water. But I'm thinking levels of protein development at this stage are the really critical factors to be working through.
Anyone want to take this a bit further?
Best wishes
Andy
Dough strength, temperature, hydration, yeast level, I suspect they all play a part. The only thing I can compare is that with liquid starter, it's easier for it to lose elasticity than firm starter, if both are put in the fridge for an extended length of time.
Crust, crumb, shaping and scoring are all outstanding!
David
Thanks David! I watched the chickens this time, they said small ears. ;)
Those are beauties!
Betty
Thanks!
I'm very glad you commented on the elasticity of the dough, Txfarmer, or I would have had some concern. Even so, I dread tomorrow as the dough I mixed was like a rubber band during the S&Fs. And that was without the 24 hour retardation it's undergoing right now.
For what it's worth, I followed Don's formula and mixed at precisely 70% hydration.
Hopefully those protein chains will have a nice breakdown tonight, so I won't have one tomorrow when trying to shape it into baguettes.
Maybe it's my higher hydration, but during the mix and S&F, my dough was very loose, didn't become silky until the 3rd S&F.
After the 24 hour retardation, the dough was still a bit stubborn during the preshaping, but became easier to handle an hour later.
I made two mistakes: I was using a different steaming method and in the rush to load the baguettes, cover the oven glass, and get the sopping towel into the tray without losing too much oven heat, I forgot to lower the oven temp so they baked at 490F for the first ten minutes, then at 460F for the balance.
The second, and most important, was that I followed the instructions and didn't really watch the dough. I think it was underproofed because the crumb wasn't as open as I would have like.
It's a definite do over. I agree that there's less sweetness and am toying with the idea of adding a touch of diastatic malt powder to help during that 24 hour retardation.
On the plus side, I didn't completely botch the baguette shaping (I rarely make baguettes). Shaping a few hundred more would help, though.