September 5, 2010 - 6:34am
the waiting loaf
I bake sourdough using a recipe that gives me two loaves. In order to create steam I bake each loaf under a metal bowl for the first ten minutes, which gives great results. The problem is that the oven only has room for one loaf at a time, when the bowl is there, so the second loaf has to wait til the first has baked. This means that it tends to overprove. What would be the best thing to do with it whilst I'm waiting? Should I put it in the fridge or just a cooler room - our kitchen is warm as the stove is an Aga and is on all the time. I would welcome any thoughts.
Best wishes from Suffolk, England
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Hi Isobel,
Greetings from Northumberland.
You just need to establish 2 sets of proving conditions, so that your second loaf is ready to go once your first loaf is baked and your oven is back up to temperature ready for loaf no. 2. How you do that is up to you.
A cooler proving environment [ie. different room] may work best; refrigeration might be the better option. If you go down the chiller route, I would suggest you maybe chill the loaf first, rather than transfering it to the fridge later in the proof. Once the fermentation is underway, the heat generated at the centre of the loaf can make it difficult to hold back the proof...even in the fridge!
Best wishes
Andy
If I have a lot of bread to bake I stick it in the fridge and pull the pans out as I go. example: i'll pull the pans out in hour shifts so as one is coming out of the oven, another goes in, and one comes out of the fridge. if that makes any sense.