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Doh004 posted:I think I'm really bad a kneading or knowing when I'm done kneading. I've watched videos on how to do it all, and I get it in my head, but I've never had a dough that I could take a piece out of, stretch it, and do the window pane test. Instead, it just tears from where I'm pulling. That said, I don't bake with white flour, even though I should as I'm starting out, because I won't eat it (I live by myself). Like axolotl farmer said, it sounds like you're not kneading enough. From what I've read, there isn't a "wrong way" to knead as long as you're somehow stretching the dough to form gluten. Pushing the dough into itself isn't the important part. That just resets the dough ball to a position that it can be stretched again. The windowpane test is to see if there's enough gluten in the dough. If there is, then the dough will stretch when pulled, meaning it will be able to hold air pockets when they form in the oven. It's kind of like blowing up a balloon. If there isn't enough gluten, then the dough will tear when an air pocket pushes inside the loaf. This means the dough won't lift; it will tear and allow the air pocket to escape, creating flatter bread. That might be why the dough deflated. With no gluten, any change in the dough can cause an air leak. Note: I'm an amateur that only ever used white flour, so this might not all apply.
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# ? May 6, 2013 16:56 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 19:33 |
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You will never be able to do the windowpane test on a rye dough, so don't worry. Just stretch the dough, fold over, turn 90 degrees, repeat. Do this until you feel that the dough has firmed up, then shape the loaf.
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# ? May 6, 2013 20:41 |
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I done a bread. It's this recipe with 50/50 whole wheat and AP. e: hueg crumb pic Totally Reasonable fucked around with this message at 21:59 on May 6, 2013 |
# ? May 6, 2013 21:11 |
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Holy poo poo I want that loaf in my mouth yesterday.
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# ? May 6, 2013 21:19 |
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Yeah, that is a really pretty whole wheat loaf. Good job, it looks delicious.
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# ? May 6, 2013 23:39 |
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Shbobdb posted:If you want a stout that is a) more flavorful than guinness and b) not going to break the bank, try Northcoast Old No 38. Lots of flavor there, it should come through in the final bread. Not sure we have that here (UK), but i will look out for a strong stout, plenty of choice here. Yes, teh bread was most definitely not cheap.
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# ? May 7, 2013 14:51 |
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Try Courage Russian Imperial Stout. Or any number of porters. In my (limited) experience in the UK most stouts are fairly light Irish dry stouts in line with Guinness/Murphy's. That makes a lot of sense but those beers are light enough on flavor that there isn't much to come through on a bread. A fun beer to make bread with is German Rauchbier. I like it in rolls. Nice smoky rolls to eat with butter or ham by the campfire.
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# ? May 7, 2013 15:18 |
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I made another bread It's a spelt sourdough, with a cup of soaked flakes of rye, wheat, oats and barley, with the same mix of flakes on top, plus ground linseed (flax seed) for my omegas. You can't tell from the picture, but the loaf is really big - more than 1kg, I estimate (ate most of it before weighing). I spent more time than usual kneading and letting it rise, so it's very soft and airy, but with a nice, crisp crust. My poor diet
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# ? May 8, 2013 02:42 |
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When letting my dough rise I find that the flour under it starts to get absorbed and the dough starts to stick to whatever its on. I'm already using too much flour under it to compensate. Is my dough too wet? Its tacky, but doesn't stick to my hands when I'm handling it. I'm reluctant to make it dryer since I feel like it would be harder to work with.
OtherworldlyInvader fucked around with this message at 23:50 on May 9, 2013 |
# ? May 9, 2013 23:46 |
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Use cornmeal instead of flour. Flour is always going to absorb the water in the dough. Or just use parchment paper.
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# ? May 10, 2013 00:13 |
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Lightly grease the bowl/surface with olive oil to prevent sticking while preserving hydration. The small amount won't effect the consistency or flavour.
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# ? May 10, 2013 00:17 |
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contrapants posted:It's actually used kosai03's recipe again with a few modifications. I used your recipe but used 1 cup of whole wheat and it came out amazing. Thanks for posting! It was still a little sweet and white for my tastes so I'm going to cut a tablespoon of sugar and add more whole wheat next time but this is for sure going to be a staple at my house for pb&j bread.
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# ? May 10, 2013 00:35 |
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Plus_Infinity posted:I used your recipe but used 1 cup of whole wheat and it came out amazing. Thanks for posting! It was still a little sweet and white for my tastes so I'm going to cut a tablespoon of sugar and add more whole wheat next time but this is for sure going to be a staple at my house for pb&j bread. I made the bread again, and I think I solved the sweetness problem. This time, I used 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup water, just like the recipe said. However, the recipe also says to use 4 teaspoons of rapid rise yeast. I am using regular active yeast. I did the conversion wrong, and I subtracted 1/3 of the amount instead of adding 1/3 of the amount. Using 5 teaspoons resulted in a breadier, less sweet bread. It was also a little smoother; the milk may have contributed to that. Also, for the curious, this is to show the amount of oven spring I have been getting. The dough was not visible from the side when I put the loaf pan in the oven. This past weekend, I also tried my hand at bagel making using this recipe. I made the dough the night before and refrigerated it overnight. I couldn't get them to be very circular, and the ends wouldn't stay together. This might be because the dough was still slightly cold or because they were coated in oil. I think next time I'll poke a hole through the center and stretch them instead. Even though they were crescent shaped, they were delicious. I wish I had made them all garlic, but I was afraid the garlic would burn and would taste awful. Even though the garlic is blackened, it was not hard and did not taste burnt at all.
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# ? May 10, 2013 17:12 |
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The saddest boule: ...becomes the ugliest brioche: edit: Crumb: Nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. Totally Reasonable fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 10, 2013 |
# ? May 10, 2013 19:04 |
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contrapants posted:Also, for the curious, this is to show the amount of oven spring I have been getting. The dough was not visible from the side when I put the loaf pan in the oven. How long are you letting the dough proof, and how long do you let it rise in the pan? If you add more yeast it will generally rise faster but taste 'yeastier'. You can get away with less yeast if you let it rise more. If you use less dough it won't exploded out of the pan. But the finish product looks tasty
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# ? May 10, 2013 19:26 |
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Bob Morales posted:How long are you letting the dough proof, and how long do you let it rise in the pan? If you add more yeast it will generally rise faster but taste 'yeastier'. You can get away with less yeast if you let it rise more. I've been letting the first rise go for about 2 hours. The second rise in the pan is about 30 minutes. Baking is about 20-30 minutes. When I used to try this with a bread machine, it was always extremely yeasty tasting. Now that I can watch for when the dough doubles in size rather than being stuck with a timer, I haven't gotten a yeasty-tasting bread anymore. I don't mind the size of the bread. It fits perfectly in my sandwich container that I bring to work. I think it's a little bigger than store-bought bread, but not by a tremendous amount. I've been going through yeast rather quickly now, so now that I've good a good recipe that I know I can do, I'm going to start experimenting with using less yeast and longer rise times. I know yeast don't multiply linearly, so I'm assuming is more exponential. If I put 1/4 of the yeast into the dough, will it double in size in four times the amount of time (2 hours -> 8 hours)? How long would it take before the dough spoils instead of rises? If I halve the amount of ingredients to make a smaller loaf, do I halve the amount of yeast, too, or would I quarter it?
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# ? May 10, 2013 20:05 |
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So in the past two weeks I've made my first two loaves of basic white bread, and have been pretty successful. I'm trying my first no-knead loaf tonight/tomorrow, using the famed NY Times recipe. One question: The standard recipe says 1/4 tsp of instant yeast. I only have active dry yeast. I can't seem to find a good answer on how much ADY to use. The same 1/4 tsp, or should I use more? I'll add it to water before mixing the dough.
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# ? May 11, 2013 19:14 |
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SupahCoolX posted:So in the past two weeks I've made my first two loaves of basic white bread, and have been pretty successful. I'm trying my first no-knead loaf tonight/tomorrow, using the famed NY Times recipe. One question: The standard recipe says 1/4 tsp of instant yeast. I only have active dry yeast. I can't seem to find a good answer on how much ADY to use. The same 1/4 tsp, or should I use more? I'll add it to water before mixing the dough. I wouldn't worry too much. But I would mix the yeast in warmish water for 15 mins before adding to the dough. As you said...
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# ? May 11, 2013 21:41 |
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I use this for conversions. Basically you'll just want a heaped measure. It really shouldn't matter too much though, it'll just affect your rising time.
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# ? May 11, 2013 23:21 |
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Does anyone have any advice on how to knead super sticky doughs? I made challah last weekend and it turned out pretty poorly (dense, uneven areas of texture within the loaf, chewy in a bad way), probably because I didn't knead it enough. But what can you do to keep kneading when half the loaf comes off stuck to your hands or smeared on the counter when you do one knead? I didn't have a bench scraper, so I used a health insurance ID card instead
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# ? May 11, 2013 23:53 |
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I tend to keep a bowl of water nearby when I work with sticky doughs. Keeping your hands a little wet should keep the dough from sticking to them.
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# ? May 12, 2013 00:21 |
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Wet hands definitely helps, what I usually do is use my chef's knife as a bench knife and do a really good stretch and fold. I will also knead with a tool like a wooden spoon or spatula (blasphemy!) and use it to fold and turn the dough in a bowl if I'm lazy that day and don't feel like getting sticky or cleaning counters. A bench knife is a really good idea though, you could probably get one at the dollar store and it makes cleaning dough off counters so much less horrible.
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# ? May 12, 2013 01:53 |
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I use a kitchenaid. I've done hand kneading, and a proper scraper and wet hands makes a huge difference.
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# ? May 12, 2013 08:19 |
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I made my usual rye mix bread. Made from rågsikt, which is 60% wheat and 40% fine ground rye.
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# ? May 12, 2013 08:32 |
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snailshell posted:Does anyone have any advice on how to knead super sticky doughs? I made challah last weekend and it turned out pretty poorly (dense, uneven areas of texture within the loaf, chewy in a bad way), probably because I didn't knead it enough. But what can you do to keep kneading when half the loaf comes off stuck to your hands or smeared on the counter when you do one knead? I didn't have a bench scraper, so I used a health insurance ID card instead When you're working with wet dough, you can start it by mixing either with a spatula or by hand in the bowl. Then turn it onto the counter and begin stretching and folding it as shown in this video. If you start with cold water and extend the bulk fermentation time to 2.5-3 hours, you can do the same stretch and fold a couple more times every hour or so to give the dough more strength. You'll definitely want to pick up a bowl scraper (<$1) or a bench scraper ($5-$10) to help work the dough. For a challah specifically, you want a fairly firm dough. You should be able to knead it easily on the counter without having it stick. Next time work in more flour. Use a strong bread flour or high-gluten flour and knead for at least ten minutes.
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# ? May 13, 2013 00:42 |
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This has probably already been asked, but instead of using bread flour, can i use just standard all purpose flour but knead the poo poo out of it to compensate for the low protein content (gluten)?
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# ? May 13, 2013 14:45 |
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Yes.
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# ? May 13, 2013 15:37 |
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No, not really. Bread flour can take a lot more kneading than regular flour. After a while, the gluten starts breaking and the dough will just collapse into a puddle.
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# ? May 13, 2013 16:32 |
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Sometimes I feel like I bake in a different dimension than everyone else. I recently made The Doctor's eggy loaf recipe: 4 large eggs 2 cups warm whole milk 1/2 cup warm water 1 tbsp yeast 1 tbsp brown sugar 1 tbsp oil or butter (optional) 1 tsp salt 8 cups whole wheat flour OR 7 cups flour and 1 cup gluten And the dough was ridiculously hard by 5th cup of whole wheat flour. I stopped adding flour at that point and still ended up having to add another .8 cup of water for it to be kneadable. I let it rise twice, and tossed it into a 350F oven for 30min and it ended up just not tasting very good and from the crumb it looks like it rose some - there're holes... So, I have a few things I might've done wrong: 1) I use the same instant yeast I always have that The Doctor also uses(saf's), but I usually add this directly to the flour as per the instructions on the package. In her post, she proofs it - I thought this actually lowers its yeasting power? 2) How to scoop 1 cup of flour. I use the scoop and level method but maybe my flour was packed particularly tight? I don't know why I can't bake a loaf simple bread.
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# ? May 13, 2013 17:14 |
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Rurutia posted:Sometimes I feel like I bake in a different dimension than everyone else. I recently made The Doctor's eggy loaf recipe: Stuff like hydration and rise times depend on ingredients (different flours and yeasts) and environment (eg relative humidity). Start simple!
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# ? May 13, 2013 18:01 |
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We love making bread, but seem to have issues. We use a kitchen-aid stand mixer and dough hook to mix it up, and then let it rise. Is this enough kneading, or should we take it out of the bowl once it's mixed and knead it by hand before it rises? We seem to get good results when we let it rise, and after we do this, it gets divided and put into loaf pans to rise once more, before baking. Again, it seems to rise fine. Pu tit in the oven, and bake it, and it seems to always come out smaller than when we put it in. When it comes out of the oven, it never looks right. It's usually compressed, and when you cut into it, it looks heavy. It tastes good though, so we keep trying, but have yet to make anything that looks even remotely as good as the pictures here. Any suggestions? Next time we can try, I can take pictures of each stage if that helps someone figure out where we're going wrong.
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# ? May 13, 2013 18:51 |
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Zhundult posted:We love making bread, but seem to have issues. We use a kitchen-aid stand mixer and dough hook to mix it up, and then let it rise. Is this enough kneading, or should we take it out of the bowl once it's mixed and knead it by hand before it rises? We seem to get good results when we let it rise, and after we do this, it gets divided and put into loaf pans to rise once more, before baking. Again, it seems to rise fine. Pu tit in the oven, and bake it, and it seems to always come out smaller than when we put it in. What recipe are you using? I'm going to assume some kind of white sandwich bread. How much are you letting it rise at each step? Double?
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# ? May 13, 2013 19:07 |
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therattle posted:Stuff like hydration and rise times depend on ingredients (different flours and yeasts) and environment (eg relative humidity). Start simple! I'm afraid I don't know the meaning of the word. Yeah, I've made the no-knead and some other breads before that came out ok. I think the crumb always comes out a bit dense and the bread a bit dry for my taste so I'm trying to do more enriched and fluffy breads. I decided to start over from first principles. I think part of the problem is that I'm using whole wheat bread flour. So going for a ~70% hydration, I'm starting with: 250g whole wheat pastry flour 63g whole wheat bread flour 52g vital wheat gluten to make up for the missing gluten in the pastry flour Total solids: 365g For my own purposes, I consider eggs half liquid, half 'flavor' addition. So then I used: 56g (1) egg 33g olive oil 160g warm milk 44g warm water Total liquid: 265g liquid Hydration: 72.6% I just finished the first knead and the dough came together surprisingly well. I had to do some slap and fold kneading to get it to come together, but now it's sitting in my stand mixer for the first rest. I'm planning on resting it for about 1.5 hours in between kneads until it passes windowpane and feels like a workable smooth dough. Any criticisms of my thought process/method is welcome. edit Whoops. 3% yeast and 2% salt. So 11g of yeast, 7g of salt. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 20:25 on May 13, 2013 |
# ? May 13, 2013 19:27 |
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Bob Morales posted:What recipe are you using? I'm going to assume some kind of white sandwich bread. How much are you letting it rise at each step? Double? Yes, basically a regular white bread recipe. And doubling at each rise stage. I can post the exact recipe later if that helps after I get home.
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# ? May 13, 2013 19:49 |
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Rurutia posted:Sometimes I feel like I bake in a different dimension than everyone else. I recently made The Doctor's eggy loaf recipe: I have a weird feeling you must have missed a measurement somewhere. This dough is practically cake batter until the fifth cup of flour is added, any less than eight cups and it would be extremely sticky, something to fold rather than knead. I have screwed it up before by not measuring out my milk properly, I've also noticed that if you do all the eggs and milk cold out of the fridge it's a pain to knead. I have a hard time believing it was cold ingredients though, hard by the fifth cup of flour just doesn't seem possible.
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# ? May 14, 2013 02:26 |
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WhoIsYou posted:When you're working with wet dough, you can start it by mixing either with a spatula or by hand in the bowl. Then turn it onto the counter and begin stretching and folding it as shown in this video. If you start with cold water and extend the bulk fermentation time to 2.5-3 hours, you can do the same stretch and fold a couple more times every hour or so to give the dough more strength. You'll definitely want to pick up a bowl scraper (<$1) or a bench scraper ($5-$10) to help work the dough. Bread flour next time for sure. The recipes I was working with said it didn't matter but I guess that my kneading has been subpar at best and I'm not developing any kind of spring!! The next challah I bake will be beautiful and I'll post a nice picture here for everyone to see. I've only ever made bread machine bread before which is hardly even work. Thanks to everyone for their advice
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# ? May 14, 2013 04:16 |
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Everyone worried about the kneading not being up to par try giving your dough a couple of folds while it is proofing. Gently take the ends and fold them over like folding a letter in thirds. It helps to be doing your proofing in a square shaped container but a bowl will work too. Give it 2 or 3 folds over the length of the proofing time and it will strengthen the gluten with each fold.
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# ? May 14, 2013 05:02 |
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The Doctor posted:I have a weird feeling you must have missed a measurement somewhere. This dough is practically cake batter until the fifth cup of flour is added, any less than eight cups and it would be extremely sticky, something to fold rather than knead. I have screwed it up before by not measuring out my milk properly, I've also noticed that if you do all the eggs and milk cold out of the fridge it's a pain to knead. I have a hard time believing it was cold ingredients though, hard by the fifth cup of flour just doesn't seem possible. I'm convinced it's because of how packed my flour is and I didn't sift it before I did spoon and level. But I made sure everything was warm. I suspect your dough is supposed similar to what I did today by weight which worked great. It was rich, very soft, and very tasty. I did end up overkneading the dough because I kept trying to get window paning but with how much fat was in the recipe I think I was expecting a bit too much transparency. But I think I realized it early enough that the bread still came out well. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 06:08 on May 14, 2013 |
# ? May 14, 2013 06:05 |
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snailshell posted:Total frustration - total agony. I made pita this weekend using a no-knead recipe due to my kneading failure last time. That was an even worse failure, but I kind of understand why now. The Richard Bertinet video about sweet dough gave me an idea of the right technique, but I didn't do it for nearly long enough, especially using all purpose flour like I was. If you feel like pita again, I've always had good luck with the recipe and tips here: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/03/pita-bread/ (though I did use my stand mixer to knead for me).
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# ? May 14, 2013 17:05 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 19:33 |
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Speaking of pita... It's yet another KAF recipe. I like this one, since it was finished in <2 hours. The next batch will be 50/50 whole wheat/bread flour.
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# ? May 14, 2013 22:10 |