Simplifying complex recipes
Sometimes I wonder why some formulas are so complex such as the brioche recipe from Tartine. It calls for a starter, leaven, and poolish, all of which get added to the final dough. I've tried both that formula and Lazy Man's Brioche and found no reason to prefer the complex formula. Another example is Reinhart's whole wheat sandwich bread. I had worse results with it than with a simpler formula offered up by barryvabeach. I don't want to sacrifice quality when extra effort rewards it, but all else being equal I'd much rather save time and energy. Why are some formulas so demanding? Could anyone control for all the variables and test every variation? The more steps in a formula the less likely that any one step greatly impacts the final result. I've done my own experiments and seen others that control for one variable such as gluten development, folding, etc. But I get the feeling that a lot of formulas could be improved by simplifying and reducing the number of steps involved.
There is one way to test your theory: take a recipe, reduce it to the essentials, bake it and see how it turns out. If you can't tell the difference between the simple and complex versions, that tells you something.
Your theory may be perfectly valid: some recipes are unnecessarily complex.
I agree that in many cases, particularly for home cooks and bakers, simpler formulas are more reliable and the results are close enough that the additional effort isn't justified. Obviously I am not a purist.
For a long time I've imagined creating a cooking site called something like "Good, Better, Best" where are recipe for something like Pad Thai or Bigos or Jambalaya was given in three different versions: a good version using only ingredients that are easy to find a normal grocery store and with the cutting of any corners that can be cut, a second version that required a bit more effort and perhaps a few unusual ingredients, and a truly authentic no-short-cuts-and-no-substitutions version. My cooking typically falls around the second one.
Excellent idea.
Stop imagining and start planning!
Sometimes details are necessary to get the recipe to work as the author recommends. To say the bread contains flour water, leaven and salt does not tell you how much of each, how you should mix them, how long you should ferment, how you should shape the dough, how long the dough should rise, at what temperature it should bake, what the internal temperature should be, etc.
If you can do without these details, by all means do so.
Ford
I understand the importance of precise ratios of flour/liquid and time/temperature. But it seems some steps are unnecessary. Does it really matter that a formula contains both a leaven and a starter? From my experience either one would work fine on its own. Maybe the author of the formula has a strong preference for a certain combination of tangy natural leaven flavor and the consistent results of commercial yeast. Another example is wait times between steps. Some formulas have extended rest periods between nearly every step. Certainly autolyzing has its uses. But what if longer kneading produces the same effect? Both are intended to develop gluten. Stretch and fold doughs and intensive kneading both develop strength but in different ways. It seems the most important thing is experience if you are aiming for a certain result.
Lucy and hard place. I would like a simple flour, water, salt and SD recipe....and she comes with 15 grains, half of them sprouted, 3 different kinds of grinds for the flour, 4 levains one white liquid, one stiff rye one YW medium multigrain and a 24 hour poolish, sourdough starters retarded 12- 20 weeks, retard the levains for 24 hours, and the dough too, caught n between Lucy 4 methods to developing gluten, long autolyse, machine, slap and folds and stretch and folds with baked and oven top malted scalds, aromatic and non aromatic seeds of every kind imaginable. dried fruits and nuts and all kinds of liquids from potato water, whey, dried fruit soaking water, beer, water milk cream and then wants to pumpernickel everything over a 10 hour low and slow bake with a 48 hour retard before you can cut the bread and actually eat it .
i mean -enough is enough. to turn a 1 day bake into a a 7 day one if you don't count a possible 5 month retard for a SD starter of some kind is sort of weird, compulsive and probably unhealthy if you ask me. If I complain, she starts ankle biting and upchucking on my toes among more horrible things we don't talk about in public and starts calling me a woosie bread baker who wants to bake nothing but crap bread which is way over the top if you ask me especially after all of these years doing her bidding. I'm just about at the end of my rope and near ready to give up baking bread entirely!
I think it's better to bake what you like the way you like it and not worry the least about what anyone else thinks about it. There isn't any right or wrong or bread police.... if you discount my whacky Baking Apprentice 2nd Class: Lucy! Now is she is really giving me the eye and must know what I've been typing, Oh Dear!