So my muffuletta bread has been coming along fine recently. Only thing is the shape. It's almost too much like a spaceship. When I make the sandwich, it has this weird high point in it that you almost have to unhinge your jaw for. Wondering if anyone can tell me how to get a more uniformed thickness like tpassin has in his loaf (pic #3). I can give the full recipe if needed. Let me know and thanks.
tpassin loaf
I'd say yours looks great, except for having so much bread in each bite. How much flour did your loaf use? Mine used 300g. Bear in mind that I have never seen a muffuletta in person so I was just guessing at what to shoot for.
TomP
SO the reply you posted to the original was this;
Recipe
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- 300g (100%) - KA bread flour
- 190g (63%) - water
- 13g (4.3%) - EVOO
- 6g (2%) - salt
- 6g (2%) - yeast
- 1Tbs - sugar
Process
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- 2 PM - mix all ingredients until all flour is moistened. Stir as flour is added.
- 2:35 - start kneading for 5 - 6 minutes.
- 3:25 - ~50% risen. S&F on bench ~ 1 min, into bulk tub.
- 4:25 - ~ doubled, rolled out into circle, put on parchment on baking sheet, sprayed with water and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
- 5:30 - egg wash & bake @ 425°F 15 min. **
- done after 15 minutes, internal temp 208 - 209°F.
A couple questions I have. Do you think it was a 9" round? When making the sandwich 9"-10" is desired. Second, you say you "rolled out into circle". Can you detail that a little more as far as I assume you used a rolling pin and how thick was it? Third...did you go from the 2 hours fermentation to the oven? My recipe says to proof for 2 hours, punch down, form into rounds then cover and let rise a second time for about an hour. Wait, it looks like you maybe let it rise a second time between 4:25 and 5:30. I just realized that. Ooops. Thanks!
Those were, I think, my complete set of notes of the bake. I rolled it with a rolling pin, and would have stopped when it got to or close the the 9 inches because I wouldn't want to fight with a risen dough. I don't recall what the thickness was but probably not very thick. I'm sure I didn't force it down to a really thin disk.
It occurs to me that one could dock the central part of the round of dough to reduce some of the rising in that region.
Thank you! The quest continues.
tear out a bit of the crumb when making the sandwich if you think there's too much bread in the center. I recall that the one I had a Central Grocery in New Orleans was "bread forward", although notsomuch as the one in the picture you posted. No matter what, your sandwich makes my mouth water...