The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Random Expansion-- throw away the lame

Tommy gram's picture
Tommy gram

Random Expansion-- throw away the lame

I let nature take its course and instead of scoring the dough, I let the dough tear itself during oven spring- something like the Incredible Hulk's shirt. It saves me the shuffling around looking for my razor blade during that critical oven loading time, not scoring the dough saves me so many motions which- in my modis operandi- is performed like a magicians trick, sleight of hand style.

Comments

yy's picture
yy

Nice bloom! Was the loaf placed seam side up in the oven?

Tommy gram's picture
Tommy gram

Inserted randomly into the 530 deg clay thing and covered.

The seam from rolling the dough will give you big ears. Every time is different. I can read my fortune in the result.

Laurentius's picture
Laurentius

How did you get such an elongated loaf out of that roundish Dutch oven??

Tommy gram's picture
Tommy gram

A buddy found this one (for some reason I can't figure out how to upload phot, will try later) at a thrift store and got it for me. The handle broke - I still use it - I just need to wear two mitts to take off the top.

There is a place in Chicago called Sassafras located on Carroll street that has a nice web site -I bought a new one for 50$ or something.

Made of a terra cotta clay I warm it up just like the Dutch oven. Had the first one for about four years, so it's not as brittle as I thought- it can take a certain kind of knock without breaking.

Also I found my razor and am not lettting all my bread burst naturally anymore, so I should address that part of my manifesto.