He shoots, he...

I tried making the poolish ciabatta from the Hamelman bread book today. I was not paying much attention when I added everything to the mixer and I must have added too much flour or too little water, so it was clear it was not going to be a ciabatta after all. So a french bread loaf it turned out to be.

One thing I did do was focus more on the scoring. I did a few things better this week:

• While shaping, I got the surface tension tighter and kept the loaf supported between towels so that when I scored it it didn't just spread out like a pancake.


• I scored at an angle, not straight down. Something around 45 degrees.


• I scored quicker and deeper, somewhere between 1 and 2 centimeters deep. See?

Definitely one of the nicest grins I've gotten on a loaf yet:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I found an iron pan at Goodwill this week. I used it to create steam and, yes, iron definitely holds its heat. The crust was very nice tonight.

I may try again Sunday.