Just posted a series of me making Buttermilk Bread, from George Greenstein’s “Secrets of a Jewish Baker.” This is a very nice sandwich loaf that happens to toast up well. Pretty easy to make and almost non-fail.
If you have the book, be sure to read the section on the page where I discuss the error in the book.
Starting with the Joneses 100% Whole Wheat recipe, I’ve decided to use Weebly for at least part of my web site. For the near term, I’ll be using it as the display method for the images of baking and other efforts. This represents a change in the way the images will show up, but I think, (hope?) it will allow visitors to find what they want to see easily while allowing me to cut the time involved in getting a recipe published from many hours to one hour, which means more new things for people to see, read and try.
One of the nice things about the Weebly platform is that it will allow visitors to move from picture page to picture page without gong back to the main site. I think this is valuable, but time will tell.
Take a look.
Just made this lovely bread. It’s quite quick and easy and tastes good. It has a slight sweetness to it and toasts well.
Take a look. I think you’ll like it.
It’s in All Recipes, Easy and Whole Grain.
I just posted a new bread, Brazilian Fruit Bread. I made it for Easter for friends who were entertaining future in-laws from Brazil. Everyone loved the bread, but the Brazilians said they had never seen this bread in Brazil. Who knew?
You can find it listed under All Recipes, Sweet Breads and Festive Breads.
I’ve tried a new layout on the page. Let me know what you think of it.
A poster on a discussion board I frequent posted a note about a loaf that looked fine until it started to bake, then sagged in the middle of the loaf during baking. The poster was using a bread machine that would bake 2, 2.5 or 3 pound loaves and the effort under discussion was a 3-pound loaf. The question was not only what happened but if it might be related to the size of the loaf — was a 3 pound loaf actually too big for the machine.
I’m not an expert on bread machine baking, so I am operating at a disadvantage here. Other responses were to cut the yeast, cut the water, etc. All over the lot; not surprising, since this seemed like such a strange problem. Actually, it wasn’t a strange thing at all, just a bit of a twist on the flying crust, tunnel crust, problem.
Here’s what appeared to happen.
First, the bread machine is a closed environment, so the dough crust doesn’t dry out during final rise. This means that if the dough expands and then the crumb falls back, the crust can follow, instead of being stuck up in the air high and dry, as in a flying crust.
Second, the bread machine warms up as the dough is sitting in it, while an oven is already heated when the dough in put into the oven. This means that the bread machine dough doesn’t get a blast of hot air first during baking. The dough continues to rise normally until the bread machine reaches a critical temperature, then goes into high activity as it gets heated, then dies. The continuation of the normal activity leads to a bit of over rising, much like a loaf of dough that has been left on the counter a bit too long.
Third, I wasn’t sure what the hydration of the dough was, but in general, the potential for a flying crust seems to go up as the hydration goes up. I don’t think the bread here was particularly wet, so there isn’t anything to change in the hydration.
The combination of the first two things appears to have caused the collapse in the center of the loaf during baking. What happened was a flying crust that didn’t fly, that crashed back into the crumb.
My recommendation was to cut the yeast a bit and, if possible, cut the final rise time a bit. The goal is to reduce the amount of final rise enough to make the dough capable of expanding without then falling back.
Yup, you heard it here first. Winter in New Jersey officially ended today when I made my first batch of pita for the year. Let the Picnics Begin!!
I tried something I had been wondering about all winter. Why haven’t I been able to get 100% of my pitas to puff up? I’ve solved it.
I lowered the rack to the lowest point in the oven, let the oven get good and hot and baked at 500F / 260C for 3-4 minutes.
Results? 100% puffed pitas.
I’ve modified the pita site to change the position of the rack.
We took a cue from ancient Rome and decided to add a forum to the site.
This is in the test stages for the next few days, so take a look, sign up and post something.
As the forum develops, we’ll add categories for just about anything that pops up and has some interest beyond a single post or comment. So let’s see what happens and where this thing goes.
Barry Harmon
I just added a short note on wheat flour — what it is, where it comes from and some information about the different ways wheat flour is measured. I’ll be adding to this from time to time.
I just posted a series of making a Challah from George Greenstein’s “Secrets of a Jewish Baker.” I made the dough, then used Maggie Glezer’s technique to do a four-bread wreath Challah. Her book, “A Blessing of Bread,” made it all pretty clear.
This is a wonderful bread, worth every bit of the trouble of braiding.
http://www.artisanbreadbaking.com/bread/challah-greenstein
And the companion series on braiding.
Tags: bread braiding, bread recipe, challah, festive bread
I recently had the importance of measurements brought home to me in two unrelated events.
The first was a poster on a discussion board I frequent. He had made a bread and it had turned out to have a thick, whitish crust and to be really icky. I posted a few comments and asked some questions and it turned out that the recipe was in cups of flour and he had used the “scoop and dump” method of measuring. He had too much flour by, probably, a lot. Compounding the problem was the fact that he used all purpose flour in a French baguette recipe that was written for bread flour. Now you can make good baguettes with all purpose flour, but it requires a bit of extra care and some adjustments to the recipes.
The other instance was an email I received from a reader of the blog who described his travails making Pani di Como Antico. In fact, he titled his email Pain di Como Antico, as pain in the you-know-what.
He described two trials of the bread, one turned out a good crust and a dense, soggy interior, while the dough was dry and easy to handle. His second attempt had no oomph at all, the dough just spread out and did nothing.
After a bit of back and forth, it turned out that his scale was out of whack by 10-20% and that he was making a dough at 60% that should have been in the mid 60s.
Two instances where inaccurate measurements led to problems.
Bottom line is that for most of us, it pays to use accurate measurements.