Pain Sur Poolish photos
Okay, now I am trying to figure out how to post photos without having them appear in the Gallery :)
I just discovered "Flickr", so I will try to post a link to my site to show my first attempt at Floydm's Pain Sur Poolish". I ended up adding 1 1/2 extra cups of flour, but next time I will try to follow his advice and keep the dough as wet as I can handle :)
Both loaves. I have a tiny oven so I can only bake one loaf at a time.
Crumb of the first loaf. At least I think that is what you call a "crumb", judging from other people's descriptions on this site?
Crumb of the second loaf.
The very pale loaf was the first loaf I baked. I did not use a wash or glaze, although I sprayed the outside of the loaf lightly with warm water before putting it in the oven...I read somewhere that was a good way to create more steam (I also always have a small pan in the bottom of my stove and I throw a cup of water into it to produce steam just as I put the loaf in the preheated oven). Now I am not so sure about the loaf-misting idea because maybe it is responsible for the pock-like marks on the crust of this loaf??? I think I also had issues with the oven heat for this loaf--I have a gas oven with no temperature indicators at all. I baked it for 40 minutes and it was still that pale!!!
The darker loaf was the second loaf. I put it in the fridge while the first loaf was baking, then I used an egg white wash spread on with my fingers...maybe I deflated the loaf a bit too much this way and this is why the shape is like a perfect semi-circle??? I made sure the oven was very hot this time (the flames sounded very loud), and it only took 25 minutes to bake even though I turned it down to "halfway" (whatever temperature that might be) after 15 minutes.
My major trouble is definitely telling when the loaves are done. I did the hollow-sounding test, and they both seemed done, but when I cut them open an hour later they both seemed a little too moist in the center for my liking...or am I being too impatient cutting them open so soon? I should probably invest in an oven thermometer to test the loaf temperatures...
I would be happy to receive *any* suggestions, criticisms, and/or comments about my loaves and/or best methods for posting photos. I am really looking forward to learning from the members on this site!!!
Comments
I edited your post above to include a photo link, just to show you how to do it. By all means, take it out if don't want it there.
To find the name of the image, I clicked on the image in your Flickr gallery to get to the single image page, then I right clicked on the photo and selected "Copy Image Location" (or something like that... the text varies from browser to browser). Voila: paste that into an img src tag and you are there.
(I intend to upgrade this site to Drupal 4.7 in the next 2 weeks and I hope to include better tools for posting images, but an img tag will continue to work too).
Thank you for the tip on how to link photos! I never expected that I would learn about HTML tags when I joined a baker's forum :) Always more to learn...
Your loaves look very nice. Yes, it is pretty likely that if you sprayed the loaves directly it caused some unevenness in coloration.
Darker color happens when sugars caramelize. You can get more caramelization a number of ways: turn up the heat (which it sounds like you already did), allow it to ferment longer so more sugars are released from the grain, or, when all else fails, add a tablespoon of sugar, honey, or malt to the dough.
An instant read thermometer is totally a worthwhile investment. Under 10 bucks, and it takes all of the guesswork out of baking.
The crumb in your loaves looks quite nice. It has that... gelatinized look that I dig. It looks like you are on the right track.
Thank you Floyd! Very useful information about the crust colour. My husband and I were discussing the possible reasons last night and I thought it might have something to do with the heat but I wasn't sure. I have read something about the sugar content affecting the colour, but I hadn't connected fermentation time with that idea. Great info!
I'm going to keep my eyes open for oven thermometers this week...the hollow-sounding trick also seems to be "hit and miss" for me!
thanks rmk129 for posting those photos. Such even expansion, you must have a well-insulated oven that evenly distributes the heat.