Steam Punk

After the thoughts I'd noted in the previous post I was determined to see improvements in bread appearance.

Last week's loaf (shown above) sports a very satisfying, rugged tear right down the middle. Clearly there's still room for improvement but what gave the loaf a shove in the right direction? A generous blast of steam from my water sprayer every ten minutes. Normally the loaf just gets one quick spray before being hurled into the oven.

I've been pretty hesitant about creating too much steam. While it must be true that a lot of oven cooking generates moisture, I'm not convinced that your common domestic oven has been designed to cope with high levels of steam. I want to make cool looking bread but I don't want to wreck my oven.

I did a google search on the subject. I expected to find forum titles such as "When I'm baking bread I like to steam out the oven with gay abandon and now my ovens gone all rusty boohoo!" But no. No reported steam/rust complaints.

Well, I've got an engineer coming round to fix the pilot light on the cooker in a few weeks time so I'll ask him what he reckons. If the Smeg man says, "Steam BAD! Smeg man SMASH" then I'll know I'll have to tolerate bland bread.

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This weekend I baked nine small, tasty baquettes and a big barleycorn loaf (300g strong white flour, 200g barleycorn flour, 350g water, 10g yeast, 10g salt / mix in bowl, knead for five mins / rest ten mins / knead a little more, form into a ball / rest 60 mins / shape / proof 60 mins / bake 30 mins 250ºc). No photos as they weren't the prettiest loaves you'd have seen. They did however, taste fantastic.

Loaf Shape Woes

This weekend I made a batch of Lemon Barley Cobs (no photo this week). They all baked well and tasted really good (sounds like a boast but the author of the recipe takes the credit) however, I'm still unsatisfied with the overall look of the loaves.

The main problems: the clumsy transfer of proofed dough to the peel, and my inability to get the dough into the oven quickly and smoothly. The shape of the baked loaves thus end up looking anything from wobbly and misshapen to downright vulgar (see earlier post, Handmade in Britain).

The most disappointing aspect however, is the fact that my loaves lack the lovely, dramatic tears you get from professionally baked bread. I'm not sure if it's because I'm slashing the dough too deep / too lightly, if it's down to dough being over-proofed / under-proofed, or if it's a result of my aforementioned loaf/oven interaction.

Top Tip #1

Don't pummel your dough in a blanket of flour: learn to tenderly knead it on a clean surface without any extra flour.

When I first started baking bread about ten months ago, I found the most vocal sources on the internet peddled the above heavy duty technique. After consulting a few authoritative books - and a little of my own trial and error - a simple, more considered approach emerged.

It might seem strange at first, working wet sticky dough in your hands. But any additional flour spread accross the work surface gets picked up by the dough and makes a much denser bread - a brick! Kneading without the extra flour makes for a far quicker method - just keep folding in air, with a gentle, consistent mix for no more than five minutes. Then cover your dough with a clean tea towel and leave it to rest for a further five minutes.

Return to the dough and behold, although still a little sticky the dough is now a smooth cohesive whole; it should feel light and airy. Give it a dozen more kneads and then, with a sparing amount of flour form the dough into a ball on the work surface and transfer to a bowl to rest and rise. Simple.

Lemon Barley Cob

Thanks to the weather gods, we were treated to a wet and windy Sunday this weekend. So we stayed in and baked stuff.

I made a Lemon Barely Cob (from Dan Lepard's bread book). Using white leaven, strong white flour as the base we added into the mix barley flour, lemon juice and zest, and a spoon of honey.

A great bread roundly praised by my lovely wife, Ms G. A nice soft loaf, the lemon and honey doesn't overpower the bread but gives a gentle sweetness particulary in the crust. Sprinkled with a light dusting of salt flakes the bread has a nice spiky crunch. The perfect bread to go with oily sardines, roasted peppers and tomatoes, or a slice of Red Leicester.

Leaven and hell

This weekend I made another pair of Dan Lepard's white leaven loaves.

It all went fairly well. Though I'm beginning to wonder if Mr Lepard's timings aren't a bit wierd. As already mentioned he seems to double all the baking times - I think his timings for the proofing stage are also too long as the baked bread appears to be overproofed.

I am pretty confident that I'm following the recipes closely, including temperatures of the water and leaven, and the locations for resting and proofing dough. Maybe my leaven's too strong. Well, the next time I make them I'll try just two hours proofing time, instead of the suggested four and a half.