King Arthur (KA) French style flour
Has anyone had any experience baking with King Arthur (KA) French style flour? I ordered and received a few 3 lb. bags and have been using it to make baguettes (using the poolish and scrap dough method). I haven't had as much success with this flour as I have had with KA all-pupose flour. With the KA French style flour the baguettes don't seem to get enough good oven spring and the crust is hard, despite using steam in the oven at the onset of baking. The interior of the loaves are a bit tacky (the texture of the interior/crumb is slightly damp and tacky, similar to what happens when malt powder is added to the flour mixture, but I'm not using any malt powder). I also scored them and baked them until they were golden brown, 20-25 minutes. After several attempts at baguettes; making the dough wetter, being careful not to deflate the dough any more than necessary during shaping, etc. I went back and read the labels on both the KA French style and KA all-purpose flours and found that the KA French style flour has only 3g of protein per 30g or 10%, whereas, the KA all-purpose flour has 4g of protein per 30g or 13%. My understanding is that a minimum of 11%-11 1/2% protein is needed to make good baguettes, boules, etc. when using pre-ferment. My assumption is that protein translates into gluten during the mixing process, right? Anyway, I sure would appreciate hearing from anyone who has had experience with KA French style flour---or if you could recommend a better flour other than KA all-purpose (if there is one) for making baguettes.
Thanks,
holds99
Comments
Hi holds99,
See: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4789/demi-baguettes-using-ka-frenchstyle-flour
Regarding % protein translating into gluten forming ability, that's not necessarily so. Gluten is formed by the combination of two other specific proteins found in flour, glutenin and gliadin. Flour can have higher levels of protein other than glutenin and gliadin, and thus have a high protein content, but that would translate to poorer gluten forming ability. As a general rule of thumb, though, most people tend to equate higher protein levels with higher gluten forming ability.
Holds99 - I recently purchased that flour and I loved it. I've only used it one time so far to make the Parisian daily bread recipe in Daniel Leader's new book, Local Breads. I often make that recipe because it is a delicious baquette recipe in a short time period for those days when you need fresh bread more quickly.
I usually use more water than the recipe calls for but other than that compared with the KA Artisan flour I generally use for that recipe it was very comparable and I was really pleased with the French style flour. My crust was exceptional, very crisp, the crumb was beautiful and open and soft but not too soft and they had great oven spring. I'm going to buy more of it to keep on hand.
Zolablue,
Thank you for your post and the tips re: making baguettes. I recently ordered and just received Daniel Leader's book, so your comments are very timely. I will take your advice and make the dough a bit wetter, as you suggest. I have read nothing but great comments on Leader's book.
Thanks again,
Howard
Oh, good that you have the recipe. Look on page 66. I wanted to mention that I also do not do the autolyse on this either. He calls for 20 minutes but I've done it both ways and since it is a small recipe and with his lower hydration the autolyse just served to make the dough seem drier in my experience thus more difficult to mix well.
I just dump everything together, add a bit more water as it is mixing just until I see the dough become the consistency I'm looking for and mix it for about 5 minutes on medium speed (DLX) so I'm also not mixing it as much as Leader states. I don't worry about windowpane either on that recipe. I do a couple folds at 30 minute intervals and then let it rise. When it is time to shape the dough I turn on my oven. Generally the baguettes only need about 30 minutes to rise after shaping.
That bread is so good for being a quick recipe and I can have it done, meaning from beginning the process to baked loaves out of the oven in four hours! It is what it is and I find it a lovely flavored French baguette to bake in time for dinner. Try it and see what happens. (Sometimes I add a little piece of my sourdough starter just for extra flavor and it is really good, too. I might slightly adjust the salt depending on how much of that goes in.)
Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. I'll being making the baguettes within a week or so and will follow your advice and also let you know how they turn out. How do you like your DLX?
HO
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http://www.swissbake.ch/product/t55-french-style-flour
or
You can visit this blog for making Baguette
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51283/french-baguette-recipe
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