Hard red spring flour, retardation and softness
Hi,
I'd like to ask you how you treat your doughs made with hard red spring flour to get a very soft crumb. Every time I use it I have to retard the dough for a lot of time if I want to avoid that tough rubbery mouthfeel that I can't stand.
Let me make few examples: croissant retarded for 2 days in the fridge still had a very perceivable gumminess that only after 4 days was completely lost. The dough was decently rich, with lot of sugar, some egg yolk and 10% butter. Predictably even plain bread doughs after 1 day in the fridge come out rubbery. Same for brioche.
The only way I found to get a soft crumb without retardation was using a preferment made with a 200% hydratation rye sourdough, but rye doesn't fit in every recipe:-)
I tried to mix HRS flour with soft wheat flour, but the volume of breads decreased a lot without really softening the crumb.
I don't want to give up to the advantages that HRS flour brings and I don't want to give up to crumb softness. I don't even want to prepare doughs 4 days in advance to eat some bread, brioche or croissant.
Water roux works only to a certain extent, it doesn't mask completely the hardness of the crumb.
Is there a solution? Do you have a working method?
Nico