I made this Italian dough as per recipe except, being I have crappy flour, cut way back on the water. It went like this: 3.5 cups of AP flour, sea salt, 1/2 cup of water with sugar and yeast. Mixed, adding more water, a tbsp at a time until I had a shaggy dough. If I had followed the recipe, I would have had, by this time, pancake batter. I kneaded, adding more water by dipping my fingers as I worked the dough, for 10 minutes and ended up with a respectable ball. I let it rest for three hours and baked in a pre-heated (15 minutes), oven with a bowl of water below the rack. Instructions called for 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or until “golden brown.”
Based on past experience I went for 450 degrees.
The pix shows what I ended up with after 45 minutes. A cadaverous-white loaf. And you need a hack saw to get through that crust to a crumb that is anything but airy.
Okay. I’m ready to toss in my apron here. Any one have any suggestions? Much appreciated.
Katie
Hi Katie,
There is something fundamentally wrong going on. Could you post your recipe to give us an insight. Don't give up as I'm sure we can help. Baking is a learning experience.
Cheers,
Gavin
Thanks Gavin, and here’s the recipe with notes where I varied to suit my situation. And this is the biggie: while the recipe calls for AP flour, the only flour available where I live has 9.4% protein. From what I understand most AP flours are closer to 12.5% and that is why I have to cut back on the water.
Okay, the recipe:
Italian Bread : Quick Method
That’s it, Gavin. As I said, I depart from the recipe with the quantity of water. I start with 1/2 cup and add more by the tablespoon until I get that shaggy dough. Then I knead, wetting my fingers to add more moisture as needed. A little too much water and I end up with a sticky mess.
Thanks for taking a look... Katie
Something is way out of whack with the measurements. 3 1/2 cups of flour should be about 435g. 1/2 cup of water, 4 oz, is about 120g. This would make for a hydration of 120/435 = 27%, which is so low that it would not be a workable dough. But getting a "shaggy" dough shows that there was much more water than that.
No, most AP flours don't have 12.5% protein. 10 - 11.5% is more like it; even King Arthur's is labeled as 11.7%. What is the brand of flour, and is it bleached or not?
You didn't say if the dough seemed to have risen or not. That would be important to know. That amount of yeast should have risen that much dough in those 2 1/2 hours.
Something is also off with the baking temperature and time. For a loaf with that much flour, at 450 deg. F it would have been overbrown but possibly not cooked enough on the inside. Your loaf just looks way underbaked. The original instructions time of 20 - 25 minutes at 400 deg F would have underbaked too, but not as badly.
You didn't say what surface you baked on. A sheet pan, a baking stone, or what. 15 minutes is short for preheating an oven, especially if it had something with some thermal mass in it. Home ovens can be way off from the temperature setting, but this seems extreme even so.
You need to help us understand your measurements and baking setup. Something is very wrong about the amount of water for the flour, and the oven temperature, at the very least.
TomP
Only thing that comes to mind is the missing of 1 rise. It will make a difference. Enjoy!
Well I’m not sure as to the total amount of water added. From my previous posts you’ll know that I’ve had a problem with dough ending up like batter and no about of folding and slapping, stretching or resting would change that. Only adding more and more flour... a cup or more.
I blamed the Blanquita enriched wheat, pre-sifted flour. No mention on the pack about bleach.
With the loaf in the photo, I started with the 1/2 cup of water and, mixing in the bowl, added more water, table spoon at a time, until I had something I could knead. What I called a “shaggy dough.” It was still pretty dry but I added more water by simply dipping my fingers in a cupful and kept kneading, for about ten minutes. The dough did rise during proofing, maybe not quite doubling in size. The photo shows the top grill plate from the stove which I use as a pizza steel. It is about 1/4 of an inch thick. The stove is propane and I’ve read both pros and cons about using propane vs natural gas. Maybe I have a gas stove that was never converted for propane use. I don’t know. I live in a rental.
Anyway, adding water to the flour, slowly, seems to give me a workable dough but maybe I don’t have the feel for it yet. As far as the stove, I can try 550* next time and wait, watch, and see.
As always, much thanks, Katie
Your stove and flour complicate the situation, all right, as other people have posted. Don't go trying 550 deg F. Instead, try to find an oven thermometer so you can check the temperatures - plural because the oven probably won't have a single temperature. Check in several places. Cheap thermometers might be inaccurate too, but would be a starting point. You can also get a rough check on the oven without a thermometer. Here are some possibilities:
https://www.food.com/recipe/how-to-test-your-oven-temperature-without-a-thermometer-450973
https://food52.com/story/20189-how-to-find-your-oven-s-hot-spots?utm_source=chatgpt.com
There is the old-timers' method (my mother used to hold her hand in the oven like this) - it's going to be somewhat subjective but should give you the idea (sourced from a chatbot but in line with what I've read in the past):
Carefully hold your hand just inside the oven door (not touching racks or sides).
Make sure to try this when the oven heating unit is not on, otherwise the radiant heat from the unit (that is, the bare flame, if you can see one) might make you remove your hand too soon.
Preheat the oven longer, at least a half hour.
Some flours simply can't handle too much water. Beyond that they just become more and more watery and start to fall apart over time and handling. I've had flours like that. Your flour may be like that, especially since it seems to be a pastry flour and most pastry doughs use a low water level. If that's the case it may be impossible to make a loaf of bread from it without using a loaf pan. I don't know if you can get bread flour where you are, but if not maybe you can get some wheat gluten (also called "vital wheat gluten") and add it to your flour. That might be enough to make the flour usable - maybe.
You can also extract gluten from some of your own flour and add it to the dough for bread. Read up on how to do it on line. But if the flour has poor quality gluten that might not do the job.
If you have a probe type thermometer - one you can stick into a piece of meat - you can check the interior temperature of the loaf. It should be above 200 deg F at the end of baking and preferably up near 210 deg F, That's at sea level. If you are high enough above sea level to lower the boiling point of water, the desired temperature is a few degrees below boiling.
If you manage to get a reasonably acceptable loaf but it doesn't brown, add some sugar to the dough, or something else that contains sugar (honey, malt syrup, etc.). Sugar helps to create browning. It shouldn't take much, maybe only a few tablespoons.
TomP
Don't forget - a dough will get thinner as water is absorbed. Buy a cheap scraper (anything will do) and use that. Don't add more water. Enjoy!
On a fundamental level, the reason a crust browns is something called the Maillard reaction. Without getting too technical, the sugars in the dough, either added as in your recipe or from fermentation in sourdoughs, reacts with water to get that caramel color.
This is very difficult with any gas stove because these ovens have to be vented to reduce the risk of carbon monoxide escaping into the home. The water bowl you place in the oven turns to steam, but it goes right out through the vent and doesn’t have time to react with the dough.
You might want to try the Dutch oven baking method which will help to contain the steam long enough for the dough to react.
There may be issues with the recipe, too, I didn’t analyze it thoroughly. One really odd thing I noticed was the use of coffee creamer. That’s a totally new one on me.
-Brad
Thanks Brad but this is a third world stove: no vent ;-)
The only sugar in this is the teaspoon used to activate the yeast. So would a little more help?
I'd have to look into a Dutch Oven. It's not likely I could buy one here and would have to have one air freighted in.
I like the idea of creamer. It helps me control the amount of liquid, as opposed to using milk.
Katie
Katie,
It could be almost anything that would trap the steam. It doesn’t need to be a Dutch oven, although that has the additional advantage of uniform heat. People have used an inverted pot or roasting pan lid as long as it stays in place during the bake. I wouldn’t try using, say, aluminum foil.
I don’t think adding sugar would help much but you can try. I wouldn’t raise the temperature above 450*, in fact maybe drop it back to 400* and let it bake longer.
Could you post a photo of the crumb of your last loaf?
-Brad
According to their website https://harinablanquita.com/producto/harina-todo-uso-5-lbs/ this is a soft wheat and generally used for pastry. If you can find a flour that says “hard ” wheat it will make better bread because it has higher protein.
This flour may be better suited for soft rolls rather than loaves.
-Brad
Thanks for all the hard work everyone.
The Blanquita flour is all that’s available here. Except for oat flour. And answer me this... If you cover the bread, how do you know when it’s done? Just kidding. The only thing I have is the stainless steel mixing bowl and it’s very light metal. I’ll have to look in the stores to see if I can find something more suitable. Maybe a farm bucket...
I guess what I really need is an oven thermometer. I can’t trust what the stove is telling me. If I can just get it to a true 400, I’ll know by looking when the bread is done... Katie
I should have said it remains covered for only the first 15 minutes or so. This allows the growing loaf to expand before the crust sets too hard, which prevents the expansion where you want it. Otherwise it could expand anywhere there is a weak spot, called a blowout.
The crumb doesn’t look as bad as your description implied. You might try a longer final proof and use the poke test to determine when it is ready to bake. You may need to shorten the first proof as well.
Good luck.
-Brad
The crumb looks all right. It's not especially open but it doesn't look underproofed or uncooked. And not everyone likes a very open crumb.
The right baking temperature gets the crust and the crumb properly cooked at the same time. There is always a tradeoff. Too high, and the crust will be cooked first. Too low and the crust will be undercooked by the time the interior is done. If the dough is very wet both interior and exterior might be done in the sense that the crumb temperature is about right but there can still be excess moisture inside. Baking longer at a lower temperature after that will drive out that moisture without overcooking the crust.
The larger the loaf, the longer it takes for heat to penetrate inside, so the crust tends to get done sooner than the inside. So the baking temperature needs to be lower than for a smaller loaf.
In this case, the crumb seems reasonably baked but the crust is pale, thick, and hard to bite through. This suggests that the baking temperature was too low to cook the crust in time, and then the loaf was baked for much too long a time. That last part of the bake would have dried out the crust and made it thicker. The lack of browning could have fooled you into thinking more baking was needed.
If I baked a loaf that seemed done inside as measured by a probe thermometer but the crust didn't seem to be ready, I would probably turn up the temperature, perhaps to 450 deg or more, for a short time (7 - 10 minutes) to see if the crust browned up and crisped more. The short duration at this higher temperature wouldn't overcook the interior. If the crust didn't shape up I would probably stop there, especially of the crust seemed hard and stiff.
If I baked a loaf where the crust got nice and brown relatively quickly but the inside temperature was low (below 200 deg F perhaps and below 190 deg F certainly), I would lower the temperature below 400 deg F, say 370, and continue the bake.
Of course, to make this work you need to have a probe thermometer and be able to rely on the oven temperature setting to some degree. Even without a good oven calibration, the you can make relative temperature changes in the right direction and the result should be better than nothing.