Sharing today's bake
Sharing today's bake and practicing with photos for the first time.
This originally started out as an 87% hydration white loaf, and I was practicing with Bertinet's slap-and-flip method of kneading. But it was just too wet, and I couldn't get it to develop. Admittedly, this is only the second time I've tried this technique. I added enough flour to get it down to 75% hydration and finally was able to start getting it to form up.
I slapped and flipped for over 10 minutes and it was still an unmanageable mess until I added the flour. Should I have just stuck it out and kept going, or should 10 minutes have been enough to develop the dough?
Side view to show the ears. (Sorry it's a bit out of focus). The loaf rose well, and had great oven-spring. There was just a tiny crust blowout low along the bottom edge, but otherwise the crust came out great. We just moved into a new home (only there for 3 weeks so far) and I had to break the oven in. I think it was probably the cheapest range the builder could find to install, and it cooks a little unevenly. One side of the loaf was a bit lighter in shade than the other. So I guess I'll be rotating my loaves from now on. I just hate how much heat you lose every time you open the door.
This is the crumb shot. I would have preferred it to be a little more hole-y, given how nicely it rose. But all in all it was a good loaf and went well with dinner tonight - vegetable meatball soup. Yum!
There's a project I've been wanting to post for a while now but I've not tried using pictures before. If this comes out well I'll give that post a shot. But it will be kinda picture-intensive so I might have to set up a picture hosting account somewhere else first.
Let me know if you all can see these or not.