October 23, 2015 - 10:40am
Kens Artisan Bakery Country Brown
Next up was making baguettes based on Ken's Artisan Bakery's Country Brown batards and boules. The other day I did the same to his bakery's Country Blonde. Not much to add except that I'm in the midst of a tear for getting batard and boule formats squeezed into baguettes. Must be an affliction, Doc.
These are significantly higher whole grain breads with lower hydration, with that combination resulting in a baguette that doesn't display quite as much oven spring as do other breads that I've been baking. Still, a nice dough to work with and to shape. And a pretty fair final result.
The lead picture are the four "all dressed up" and a minute shy of hitting the oven deck.
It's a nasty job, but someone's gotta do it!
alan
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your scoring opens up very nicely!! and baked to perfection look at that color. I bet the crumb is gorgeous
The color of the breads always seem to come out a shade redder than they are. I like the black background of the stovetop. The light on the overhead vent probably works in concert with the black surface to highlight the red a little. OTOH, the pictures of my batards being held up to the white background do still demonstrate a fair amount of red. It is not long before the crust "oxidizes" and the breads begin to move toward a browner hue.
As far as your comment in reply to mine about your boule - hardly a professional! I am just another home baker getting better with time. And to prove that point here is what one of my first attempts at baguettes looked like in Oct. 2013.
If that's "professional" I'll eat my hat (and while I'm at it, pass me the butter and I'll eat the baguette too!).
That was a number of months before I even knew about TFL and then more months prior to my first post. It is really only through perseverance, analysis/research, and working through most of my own baking related issues that I reached the point that I am at now. If you decide to look back, you will see that virtually everything that I did for well over a year was baguettes. So I did put my time in. But I'll take any and all compliments ;-)
alan
PS crumb shot added.
I'm sure they taste as good as they look. How open was the crumb on this one?
Ian
crumb shot added.
I wish I could get the scoring and bloom you seem to get every bake. Nicely done and it looks great!
Happy baking, Ski
See my comment to CeciC above. That will help to explain why I can get a good shape and score most of the time. T'werent by just good fortune. Lots of somewhat ugly ducklings early on. And I've gone through a small handful of stages where the score wasn't cooperating or the seam turned out to not be on the bottom and the baguette blew out a bit on the side. Fortunately, the ship righted itself in short order.
alan
a run at her 36 hour 100% whole wheat baguettes. These look too good to eat bur i bet they are tasty warmed up with some butter and maybe some jam - for breakfast.
Well done and happy baking
You suckered me into this one a few months ago, and at 100% WW and 105% hydration I was licking my wounds in the aftermath. My memory ain't yet that bad. Worst bake I had in many many moons.
Not going to make that mistake again. No Siree-Bob
However - in the interest of, er, I dunno what, but in that interest, I may take up the txfarmer's 36 Hr. bags w/ increased whole grain. I've gotten a really good result from doing PiPs 100% WW batard, but that was at a mere 88% hydration.
I think that I still want to first continue on the riff of getting batard and boule formulae into baguette form. A few more to go and then I'm free as a bird to take you up on something that may yet again put egg on my face.
alan
months ago:-) You could do it at 100% hydration as a slippery slope...... eeerrrrr...... I mean......stepping stone:-)