Hey..back from 2 weeks of vacation..went through bread baking withdrawal...well honestly..
it wasn't hard to give it up for 2 weeks..but..first thing home.. had to feed the starter!!!
and had to bake..so bagels!! First time..they were awesome. BBA recipe was right on..the dough
felt great..you know right away when you have a winner.
I just finished two sourdough loaves. There was so much oven spring, they both blew their seams at the bottom, and one split the top crust, in spite of the slashes.
So, I do have to make my slashes deeper, but I wanted to ask you all: do you do anything special to seal your seams? I press mine closed against the counter, then give them a pinch along the whole seam.
Tnx!
-Joe
I thought I posted this already, but it doesn't show up. Hmmm...
Anyway, here's my take on Floyd's Pan de Provence. I didn't have any orange liquor (the wife wouldn't let me use Blue Curacao!), so I substituted 1 tsp orange extract plus water to 1/4 cup.
I was going to wait until tomorrow to open it, but couldn't. :) It was soooooo worth it!
-Joe
It looks like many of us here bake Reinhart's bagels (in Bread-Bakers Apprentice). So I am curious to hear further comments. What temperature? cook times? substitutions? Using in what kind of oven?
I have just completed my 8th attempt and finally seemed to have achieved the lift, texture, flavor, and 'toothiness' I've wanted. I changed to a 14 minute cook time at 500F (and didn't reduce heat to 450 as Reinhart says). I do have an old Magic Chef oven (terrible insulation), so maybe that's the problem, but I do have an 1" slate paver lining the bottom that retains heat very well.
Here's a nice pair of loaves from Bread Alone. It's made from a 100% rye starter. It includes all the fresh herbs I had in my fridge (tarragon and thyme) and 4 cloves of garlic.
I wanted to make the dough in the evening, shape it, and retard it in the fridge overnight. I got a bit of a late start, and the dough had almost-but-not-quite doubled in its first ferment by 1am. I had to be baking it by 7am, meaning it'd have to be out of the fridge and warming up by about 6am (which is when I got up to heat the oven). So I didn't think it'd have enough time to get a good rise in the fridge.
From Reinhart's recipe in The Bread Baker's apprentice. We've got poppy, sesame, sea salt, and onion. There are also a half dozen cinnamon raisin.
I brought them into work, and they were gone very quickly :)
-Joe
