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So why is King Arthur flour considered the go-to? My stepmother (who is some kind of alchemical bread-wizard) always swore by it, so I was somewhat interested to see the same recommendation in the OP. (laugenbrötchen is in the oven now, doing just regular brötchen and bauernbröt tomorrow)
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Dec 16, 2012 05:10
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Choadmaster posted:Have a recipe for those brötchen? I've been wanting to do the same thing, because I really miss the delicious bread I ate in Germany as a kid. I found what looks like a good recipe on some German website but I've honestly never baked bread in my life. Suggestions would be appreciated. My father is from Bavaria, so yeah, visiting family has destroyed my capacity to enjoy bread here in the States. The brötchen is on it's first rise at the moment, so I can't entirely vet this recipe: Brötchen (hard rolls) : 450F, 20-25 min. Starter: 2 C. King Arthur bread flour 1 1/3 C. cold tap water 1/2 t. active dry yeast Mix starter until smooth, cover with a damp cloth, and let rest 8 - 24 hours. Flour: ~5 (+1/2) C. KA bread flour 1 1/3 C. water (again +/- if needed) 1 t. instant yeast 1 1/2 t. salt Mix starter (which should be like bubbly pancake batter) with 5 cups flour, water, and yeast. Knead, adding additional flour/water as necessary until dough clears the surface of the bowl. Add salt and knead. Dough should be smooth but tacky. Place in an oiled bowl, turning to coat, and again cover with a damp towel and let rest until doubled. Turn onto a floured surface, cutting out rolls with a spatula. Coat with flour and place on parchment paper, cover with damp cloth and let rest one hour. Preheat oven to 450F, placing an old metal pan on the lowest rack during this last resting period. Either leave plain, or sprinkle poppy seeds or other traditional topping on rolls, then slash with a serrated knife to form a cross or other design. Place rolls on the next rack up. Pour a cup of water into the pan that's been preheating, and use a water bottle to spray the sides of the oven 2 - 3 times in the first five minutes. Bake 15 - 20 more minutes, turning the pan if necessary to evenly brown. Cool on wire racks. As a trip report for the laugenbrötchen (pretzel rolls), I think I overdid the soda water bath, but the crusts were incredible last night. This morning, they had more of the soft-and-chewy exterior one would expect from soft pretzels. Incredible with sweet butter and raspberry preserves. Edit for brötchen: I think I would add a bit more salt to the flour, but these are incredible. 96 BELOW THE WAVE fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 19:33
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What are peoples' experience with fresh yeast (also called cake yeast)? I found a bakery by me that's willing to sell me a couple ounces, and I've been experimenting. The first attempt was an unmitigated disaster due to a lovely conversion chart I found online, but my second go is in its first rise right now and seems to be doing just fine so far. I've seen a lot of variation in converting from instant, does anyone have a rule-of-thumb they like? Also, I am majorly crushing on Richard Bertinet, both for his outrageously French accent and his kneading technique.
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Jun 4, 2013 21:09
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Unfortunately my second attempt with fresh yeast didn't go well either. Neither batch rose really at all, and if I let it sit for longer you could smell the yeast over-proofing. I did the exact same loaf with instant right after dumping failure no. 2 and it was perfect. I'm still somewhat convinced the fresh yeast wasn't good, even though I saw them opening a new block to sell me some. contrapants posted:After watching that video, I tried using Richard Bertinet's method. I made a partially-whole wheat rosemary loaf. I was under the impression that you weren't supposed to add more flour with Bertinet's method? To be fair I've only done it with straight flour-water-yeast-salt breads, so I don't know how the dough feels with a more ingredient-heavy recipe. As for bake time, I'd suggest cooking it at 400 until it's browned the way you'd like, then tent it loosely with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. That way you'll get the lovely crust, but it won't over brown while the middle bits firm up.
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Jun 5, 2013 17:06
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The Doctor posted:It's not really supposed to come together like a normal dough, the recipe is very high hydration and adding any flour makes a completely different outcome. High hydration doughs are not meant to be conventionally kneaded, they will always stick to your counter and be a thick goop. He makes it look easy only because he is an expert. If you can't use your hands to stretch and fold the dough, keep scraping it off the counter and stretching it with a bench or chef's knife. Let me say this, as no expert, the first attempt it took 40 minutes to get his results, with a lot of swearing (and swearing to God that Frenchman was lying to me). Second time it took about 15 minutes, each time since then has been about 8 - 10. The important thing is to use your hand like scoops, rather than forks, as he says. Don't spread your fingers, especially in the early stage. I also cheat and use the bowlscraper spatula on my kitchenaid to get everything mixed up at first. I also will lift-splat-stretch-cover and then grab the side (about 90 degrees) and repeat, rather than repeating from the same direction. It doesn't make a results-difference, but the motion is mechanically easier for me. edit because I missed this: WhoIsYou posted:Even if they opened it for you, that block could have been in the cooler for weeks. Good fresh yeast should be dry(ish), firm, and crumbly. If it's rubbery or wet or has any darker spots, it's old and won't be very powerful. A good ratio for different yeast types is 10:5-4:3.33 fresh:active dry:instant. Also, with fresh yeast you must keep the yeast and salt separate. Otherwise the salt will kill your yeast. I usually put the yeast in the bottom of the bowl and add the salt last on top of the rest of the dry ingredients. It reminded me of moist plasticine more than anything else, which I'm guessing is a bad thing. It didn't smell 'right' on first blush, but I waved that off because I'd never used fresh before. Maybe should have payed better attention to my gut. I did make sure to keep my salt well away. I wanted to use fresh yeast for the experience of it, honestly; I'd been reading up on it and had never tried it, and a number of folks swear up and down it gives fantastic results. Of course, I get fantastic results from instant, so I may have been trying to fix what wasn't broken. 96 BELOW THE WAVE fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 01:35
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Doh004 posted:*edit* Holy poo poo, this is the lightest bread I've ever made. It could have a much more uniform crumb, but it's so soft and tasty. Isn't it ridiculous? I'm a big girl, but I called my mother after using the method the first time, and sent the video to everyone I knew. Will definitely be asking for his Dough, Crust, and Pastry books for my birthday.
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Jun 6, 2013 17:23
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Keep in mind that after a certain point sugar will act like salt with yeast; it'll actually kill it. You don't need to use sugar to activate dry yeast. For one packet of active dry I'd use 1/3 c. warm water in a small bowl, and cover it for 15 minutes.
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Jun 6, 2013 22:52
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Romeo Charlie posted:I get to use 1kg blocks of fresh yeast, then again I bake bread for a living. Have you tried making your bread with bread improver? Maybe that will help the bread. When you say bread improver, do you mean something like diastatic malt powder or some such?
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Jun 9, 2013 17:44
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NightConqueror posted:Glad to hear it. Making mistakes and not giving up is part of baking Is it loving ever. My friends call it "bread alchemy", because sometimes it really feels like you're throwing every bit of pseudo-science at a lump of flour and water simply willing it to turn into a bread. Is it humid today? Is it not humid? Did the yeast you used yesterday with no issue suddenly experience colony collapse? Is your oven hot? Too hot? Or not hot enough. Oh, and congratulations, you're now an old German oma, and a draft is the most deadly thing known to man.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:26
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That looks lovely, and hilariously enough I was going to ask what are people's go-to sandwich bread recipes! YOU ARE THE FIRST. In today's alchemical experimentation, I added 20g of dried milk and 25g of oil to my otherwise "legal" (water, flour, yeast, salt) sandwich loaf, and it turned out frustratingly soft and perfect. As far as additives go, I'd heard of diastatic malt powder, and now you mention sodium citrate. Is there somewhere I could read up on exactly what these do?
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Jul 11, 2013 02:16
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