March 20, 2015 - 11:39am
Soda Bread "Spillover"?
Hoping for some guidance.
Tried making a soda pan bread using this recipe,(about 115% hydration with baking soda as leavener and acidulated milk as liquid) and got a great result.
The second time I tried it, I used Red Fife instead of stone-ground whole wheat - you can see what the result looked like in the thread photo.
It doesn't seem to have affected the quality of the bread itself.
Any ideas?
All help appreciated.
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baking soda didn't get mixed as well into the dough at you would have liked?
.... but I did whisk the dry ingredients together pretty thoroughly before I added the wet.
Hmmm .....
One thing I notice from the picture is the the side where the bread busted out looks a little lighter than the rest of the loaf. I wonder if the crust set a little fast on the darker side, before the leaveners were spent, so they were forced to expand out in the one weakest spot, where the crust was softest.
Did you rotate the pan during the baking process? Pretty much no oven heats evenly. If you try this again, I'd recommend rotating the pan about halfway through the baking process, or a little sooner.
It also wouldn't hurt to get a thermometer to check that your oven is heating to the right temp; it's possible the top is cooking a little faster than it should due to the oven being a little too warm.
.... on this version. My first one came out OK without rotating. My oven is hotter around the sides than in the middle, but in both cases, the pan was in the middle of the baking stone (I keep mine in all the time).
That said, though, spinning at, say, mid bake may not be a bad idea - thanks.
I'd follow the suggestion that the baking soda might not have been mixed evenly.
However - why not make it as a traditional (well in Ireland, I guess) rough round cob shape with a cross cut deep into the top? that eliminates (or hides!) any issues like that.
Sort of like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_bread#/media/File:Soda_bread.jpg
it's how I've always made soda bread. Tear a chunk, cover it in butter and off you go.
-Gordon
.... that all the ingredients are well mixed, given two educated guesses about baking soda distribution.
I decided to try this soda bread recipe because I've only ever used baking soda as a leavener in things like bisquits, and the "quick bread" feel of the recipe I tried made me comfortable. I'll have to try some of the ones listed about the boards here with a lower hydration to see how things go.
Thanks, all, for the advice!