Sunday, October 3, 2010

When I got home from work at the end of Day 1 my "old dough starter" had about doubled in size. Before starting on dinner I mixed up my second stage starter, incorporating the "old dough starter" with more flour and water. I let that rise in a Tupperware container covered with plastic wrap until 10:00PM. This is what it looked like :



I took that starter and mixed the final dough in my Kitchen Aid. Right after mixing this is what my final dough looked like:



I covered it and left it out on the kitchen table overnight

The next morning it had really risen!




I folded I the dough over onto itself several times as best I could, it was really sticky and soft. Then plopped it into 3 flour dusted, towel lined bread pans. The bread pans were to keep the bread in a form as it rose since it was so loose it wouldn't have risen into a loaf shape if I had left it out on a flat surface to rise. I covered the bread pans and went to work. When I came home from work the loaves looked like this:

I preheated my oven to 500 degrees then took my peel style cutting board, sprinkled with rice flour and turned the dough out of the towel lined pan onto the cutting board. It immediately became very pancake like. The dough was too soft to hold the shape. I threw a cup of water onto a cookie sheet I had at the bottom of my oven to "steam" my oven and then slid the 1st loaf of bread in.

After 5 minutes of 500 degree cook time I lowered the temp to 400 and baked another 15 before I fetched my bread from the oven and this is what it looked like:

VERY FLAT!! I wasn't too happy. But I cut it open and liked the look of the inside:


The taste was quite good too. I baked two more loaves, one of them very similar to the 1st, the last I folded over a few times then shaped into a long baguette. That went into the oven about a half hour later. I don't really like the tiny size slices of bread that a French style baguette provides but that was the best looking best risen loaf of the three.

I think there's two things that didn't work here. 1st my dough was too wet for the type of loaf I wanted to make. I think if I cooked in in some type of a pan the result might be better. If I want the more rustic free form bread then my final dough will have to be a bit drier. Also I was surprised that the loaf didn't gain much height when I put it in the oven. I think it is necessary to at least fold the dough over a few times within 2 hours of baking it. Having not worked the loaf at all for 8 hours prior to baking it didn't work. 8 hours of rising meant there was no more rising left for the dough to do when it hit the oven.

So next I will make the same recipe in the same steps using slightly less water in the final dough and giving the dough a fold and final shape 45 minutes before baking it.

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