I FOUND A BAKING STONE!!!!!!
For baking bliss just go to Spotlight in Plaza Sing and ask for a pizza stone. You read it here first. Unless, of course, you read about it on the Singapore Expat forums just like I did. I couldn’t wait to try out my new, sexy baking stone so I decided to experiment using some of the crap dough still sitting in my fridge since my last post. “If the dough is unworkable I can always cut it into rolls.” I reasoned.
White Bread from a Hoegarden Poolish.
And somehow I’ve been saved.
Unbelievably, yesterday’s dough came together beautifully during the twenty four hours it spent in the fridge. If God turns out to be as forgiving as strong white bread flour then we’re all going to rise on the second day.
My review:
Appearance: Another set of conjoined twins. I slid the first loaf into the centre of the baking stone, paused to savor the magic, and then realized I’d left myself little or no space for the second loaf. F#$%!! I squeezed the second loaf alongside as best I could and shut the door to prevent it from falling out. Still, overall I’m quite happy with the final results. The loaves are an appealing golden brown hue and have split along the center just the way I hoped for.
Crust: The loaves emerged from the oven with a thin but crunchy crust. The baking stone helped with crust formation on the base. However, after thirty minutes of cooling the crust had already softened. I expect that this was due to the warmth and humidity which blights every aspect of life in Singapore. If anyone has a suggestion on how to maintain the crisp crust then please let me know.
Texture: Fantastic. Look at those lovely large gas pockets. The bread is airier than my views on the American presidential elections. The baking stone seems to have given a nice bit of extra oven spring but the big difference came from the use of a poolish. I’ll describe poolishes at greater length in a future post. The one I used was a simple mixture of flour, yeast and Hoegarden all left to ferment together overnight.
Taste: The extra fermentation also improved the flavor of the bread. It has a faintly sour taste just like you get with the good quality baguettes or rustic loaves.
Wife’s review:
Context: The night before making the dough, I prepared the poolish. In my nerdy enthusiasm, I happily prattled on to my wife about the benefits I was hoping for:
Me: “….and then you leave the poolish in the fridge to ferment over night. This slows the growth of the yeast thereby giving more time for lactobacillus and other bacteria to grow and develop the flavors….”
Wife: “Deeeeeeaarrrrrrrr. I don’t want you growing stuff in our fridge.”
Me: “Nonsense. It’s perfectly safe, I’ve read about it in a book. When it comes to our kitchen, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Wife: “Where is our stove top lighter?”
Me: “I don’t know. I seem to have lost it.”
Her review comments and their meanings.
“It tastes like those fancy artisan breads”. (It’s tasty but I refuse to encourage further biological experiments.)
“I liked the olive bread”. (…..which didn’t involve growing yucky things in our fridge.)
“How about a fruit smoothy?” (God, I’d better use up all the fruit in our fridge. Christ only knows what’s started growing on it by now.)
4 responses so far ↓
Michelle // March 14, 2008 at 10:09 am |
Maybe if you’d used Tiger instead of our precious Hoegaarden stash I would have been keener on it. :<
For everyone’s reference, the stove top lighter is still missing.
Hsien-Li // March 17, 2008 at 5:10 pm |
hey alec,
i read somewhere that crusty baguettes are made by spraying water on the loaves before they are baked. somehow it creates a thicker, crunchier crust. i’ve tried it before and it works. perhaps u can tell me how it goes with u?
w. // March 30, 2008 at 2:05 pm |
Hsien-Li’s right – one way to try to effect a better crust is by introducing moisture/steam into your oven for the first 5-10 minutes of the baking. This does two things – it prevents the crust from forming too early which gives you a better risen loaf, as well as helps to gelatinise the starches on the surface which makes the crust crisper.
And while Singapore’s humidity definitely is one killer for crisp crusts, another thing you can try is to bake the loaf at a high temperature for the first 10 minutes, then turning it down, and giving the loaf a longer total baking time.
Anyway email me if you want more details, I think my comment is getting rather long as it is
kneadyguy // March 31, 2008 at 10:38 am |
Thanks for the suggestions Hsien Li and W. I’ve been experimenting with the steam idea for some time now. It’s a really critical area for the home baker so I’ll be covering it in some detail in my techniques section.
I’m still experimenting with the technique but I can already observe that adding steam makes a big difference to the amount of oven spring. It also gives a much more attractive color to the crust. However it has very little influence on the actual texture of the crust.
The key to baking bread with great texture of crust and crumb is to use the slow fermentation methods.
Some extra heat in the oven might also help but I already crank my oven up to 250 for the rustic loaves. I even let the baking stone pre heat for about 40 mins, much to my wife’s horror. Our kitchen is like a sauna on baking days.
I’ve recently discovered one great cheat to achieve the thick, crunchy crust that I’ve been yearning for. If I freeze the loaf, then defrost and then bake for 5 mins at 200, the end result is perfect. From a technnical side it feels all wrong but it tastes soooo right.