The Bread Thread

[hellymedic]

Sainsbury's do seem to be selling whipping cream (green pot ~40% fat, as well as single cream-red pot, 18% fat and double cream blue pot 48% fat).

Tbh, I don’t buy cream that often so probably just haven’t noticed it on the shelves (among the million other varieties that are available these days).

Apparently the ‘extra thick’ stuff is just double cream that has been rapidly heated and cooled.

The 'Extra Thick' stuff has the same fat percentage as the standard double cream, I see...

[Hot Flatus]

Last night's effort. Been experimenting with using starters at different time intervals after feeding. Used one that hadn't been fed for about 28 hours and was pretty acidic. Tasted nice.

Got one rising in todays cooler weather. Going to prove in in the fridge overnight, see how that affects flavour.

[Mrs Pingu]

Last time I made sourdough it was when it was warm and my starter was all frisky. This week it's been all cold again so in an effort to frisk my starter I put it on the top of my yoghurt maker. I forgot to turn it off overnight and thought I'd killed it.

I really want one of these now. I know it's too expensive but it would allow me to incubate starter, prove dough and make yoghurt in the same piece of equipment.
https://brodandtaylor.uk/product/brod-taylor-folding-proofer-slow-cooker-fp-205/

Why doesn't anyone make a slowcooker that you can accurately control the temperature of? And that will go low enough for starter? (yes ok, that is essentialy what Brød & Taylor have done here but...)

[Ham]

Baguettes R us, Pt IV

Par-baked



T55, 70% moisture, three foldy-style gentle knock backs, pukka baguette tin.

Think I may have got it pretty much nailed, User Acceptance Testing coming soon.

[T42]

 

Our oven isn't deep enough to make full baguettes, so what MrsT turns out are more like bâtards.  "Ma femme fait des bâtards" isn't something I say out loud, though.

[citoyen]

"Ma femme fait des bâtards" isn't something I say out loud, though.

I first came across that gag in the Jacques Dutronc song Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille - "Les boulangers font des bâtards"

[Jakob W]

Baguettes R us, Pt IV

Par-baked



T55, 70% moisture, three foldy-style gentle knock backs, pukka baguette tin.

Think I may have got it pretty much nailed, User Acceptance Testing coming soon.

How did you proof them? I got a couple of bags of T55 with my last Shipton Mill order, so am tempted to give them a go. I don't have a baguette tin, mind, so am pondering if I can do demi-baguettes under a cloche.

[T42]

"Ma femme fait des bâtards" isn't something I say out loud, though.

I first came across that gag in the Jacques Dutronc song Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille - "Les boulangers font des bâtards"

That's what I was thinking of. Great song.

[Ham]

"Ma femme fait des bâtards" isn't something I say out loud, though.

I first came across that gag in the Jacques Dutronc song Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille - "Les boulangers font des bâtards"

That's what I was thinking of. Great song.

I'll just file that away.

[Tim Hall]

First loaf with my Manitoba "as strong as a lumberjack" flour.

Used the Flatus recipe and kneaded by hand started sticky but got better as the gluten developed. Got adventurous and shaped it to fit my long proving basket. Shaping still needs practice and the dough stuck a bit as I tipped it onto the baking sheet, causing a bit of a collapse. However, oven spring to the rescue:

[Ham]

How did you proof them? I got a couple of bags of T55 with my last Shipton Mill order, so am tempted to give them a go. I don't have a baguette tin, mind, so am pondering if I can do demi-baguettes under a cloche.

Do you mean in the tin? Just with a tea towel over them. By the time you get to that point, the dough has moved away from being a 70% moisture sloppy bastard.  The consistency is developed before you put it into the tin for the last proving. Multiple gentle knock-backs after 20 min seems to be the way to go. I don't use my oven for raising, and allow it to dry out slightly .


Here's the fully baked and the texture I've ended up with. Room for improvement, still, but I'm happy with it so far (and the crust is PROPER)

[Mrs Pingu]

so how much does the panel reckon I should start tweaking it down by?

Try 60%. Which may not be as huge a difference in the actual water content as it sounds - maybe a couple of tablespoons worth, depending on the size of your loaf.

I've had decent results at 55% - never as light and airy as the higher hydration levels but much, much easier to handle.

Who wants huge holes in their bread anyway? You need a bit of structure to hold the butter.

Right. 67pc (there is no symbol on this phone, WTF?) hydration experiment has begun....

[Jakob W]

Another tip for increasing hydration whilst keeping the dough workable is to use 'bassinage': keep back some of the water (mix the initial dough at 60-65% hydration), and sprinkle it in when you do later stretch-and-folds as the gluten develops.

[Mrs Pingu]

I've just attempted to shape a batard. Not tremendously successfully but we'll see what it turns out like.
Usually the 72% dough I just give a last stretch & fold before pouring it into the banneton.

I really noticed the difference in stretching distance with this lower hydration.

[Mrs Pingu]

It kept more of it's height than usual when I turned it out of the banneton. Up until I slashed the top.   

[pcolbeck]

Slight failure this morning. I have been making 50% rye 50% strong white loaves successfully in the Panasonic for a while. Today I tried swapping out the light rye flour for dark rye using teh same program and the top was collapsed and some flour in one corner wasn't incorporated, just on the outside the inside was fine. The loaf texture is fine.
does dark rye need more water or fat or perhaps less ?

[Hot Flatus]

Less, I think

[Little Jim]

I am looking for some suggestions for bread making on the BBQ on the off-chance that the weather could be good enough to get the BBQ out this weekend.

Mrs LJ is the household baker, I'm generally not allowed any where near the oven.  She makes most of our bread and from time to time does a batch of basic white dough which then gets divided up into "individual" portions and frozen,  These then get resurrected from time to time for such things as "nan" bread to be cooked in the frying pan (yeah, I know, but it is still infinitely better than the crap Sainsbury's frozen ones), pizza bases and garlic bread.  I've recently been trying to do some on the BBQ with fairly underwhelming results. I have been flattening the dough out to a sort of small pizza base size, letting it prove for a bit and then cooking on the grill - it is a Webber charcoal BBQ so does do a sort of oven effect. The first batch was more akin to a Jakob's Cream Cracker, not burnt but a bit (lot) over cooked.  Second was starting to get a bit black on the outside but only just cooked in the middle but much better.  For my next attempt I am wondering about keeping the coals over to one side of the cooking area and using indirect heat to cook the bread but I would appreciate some help and ideas please.

[Jakob W]

I think you probably need something like a pizza stone/steel to preheat and act as a heat sink - a cast-iron frying pan would do. Not sure how well the toppings would cook, but worth a go I'd say.

[Little Jim]

Thanks Jakob, although re-reading what I wrote I didn't make it very clear.  I am not trying to do pizza on the BBQ; what I'm after is some sort of bread to eat with the cooked BBQ meat and veg, so any sort of "flat bread" I guess.  Either individual "pitta bread" sized bread or a larger one that can be cut up.  I guess it is my technique , such as it is, that is the problem.  I am wondering if it would work better with indirect heat rather than straight over the coals.  The lid thermometer does register about 160 deg F generally, although I can get it hotter by altering the air flow a bit.

[pcolbeck]

The lid thermometer does register about 160 deg F generally, although I can get it hotter by altering the air flow a bit.

Are you sure? That's only about 70 deg C. A Weber Kettle BBQ should be able to get up to over 550 deg F (nearly 300 deg C) if you let it rip. Mine will bury the needle against the stop at the hot end with decent charcoal and all the vents open fully.

Never tried making any kind of bread on it though so cant help there I'm afraid.

[Ham]

I'd use a piece of oiled foil to balance heat & burn to go for pita style (heat from one side) as opposed to tandoor naan (effing hot all about)

[pcolbeck]

You could try this flatbread recipe.

https://www.weber.com/AU/en/recipes/pizza-and-bread/homemade-barbecued-flatbreads/weber-1902536.html

Other things I have tried from Weber's website tend to work OK.

[Jakob W]

Ah, gotcha. If you've got a cast-iron pan/griddle I'd try it on there as per that Weber recipe above, but Ham's suggestion of oiled foil and indirect heat should work as well.

In general, flatbread should be reasonably forgiving - in a Neopolitan oven, pizza cooks in 60-90 seconds at ~450°C, but there you've got radiant heat all the way round (I guess a tandoor must be very similar when cooking naan). The biggest problem is going to be if it's pure radiant heat from the coals on one side and not much on the other; even there I'd have thought you should be able to manage ok as long as the breads are reasonably thin and you flip them in time.

[Little Jim]

The lid thermometer does register about 160 deg F generally, although I can get it hotter by altering the air flow a bit.

Are you sure? That's only about 70 deg C. A Weber Kettle BBQ should be able to get up to over 550 deg F (nearly 300 deg C) if you let it rip. Mine will bury the needle against the stop at the hot end with decent charcoal and all the vents open fully.

Never tried making any kind of bread on it though so cant help there I'm afraid.

  I'm an idiot!  You are quite right, I didn't look at the gauge properly, it is generally at about 230 deg C (just past 12 o'clock), and yes, open everything up and it all starts glowing red.

Thank you for the suggestion from the Weber website - I had forgotten that they do quite a few recipes and some of the bread ones look to be suitable.  I will try a piece of foil next as Jakob and Ham have suggested or I might even borrow one of Mrs LJ's small baking trays and use that