Mr. Hamelman's Un-Kneaded, Six-Fold French Bread (For Stuffing!)

breadsong on 24 Dec 2010 at 17:16

Hello, I wanted to have some good bread to make the turkey stuffing with. Mr. Hamelman's formula for Un-Kneaded, 6-Fold French Bread looked good so I wanted to give it a try. Instead of the 5 baguettes as instructed, I roughly shaped two big loaves. This dough was 73% hydration.
We couldn't resist and cut some to make sandwiches for lunch today.
Another really, really good bread from Mr. Hamelman!!!



Merry Christmas everyone! from breadsong

Hello LeeYong, All that water and an oven preheated to 500F, then a 460F bake, seemed to do the trick. I love a crackly crust and haven't always been able to get one - was pleased with how this turned out! Happy holidays to you, too!
from breadsong

 

I just made two batches of sour dough, one with King Arthur AP and the other with KA French Style.   I used exactly the same approach for both.   The French Style crust cracked like crazy and the AP didn't.   What flour were you using?    Thanks.

Hi varda, I used a 50/50 blend of 13% spring wheat bread flour and 10.5% winter wheat all-purpose flour (neither were King Arthur flours).  This is probably not helpful to you! I don't know if the King Arthur people can comment - they have a bakers' direct line that I've called once or twice with questions (the people I spoke to were very helpful).
Regards, breadsong

That gives me something to work with.   You attribute the cracking to your oven preheating and cooking temp.   I have seen other baking strategies for achieving the same effect.   But I wonder if it's really mainly due to the flour mix.   In my case, the loaves made with KAAP had nicer crumb and really even a better textured crust than the lovely cracked loaves made with the french style flour.   Ah well, can't have everything.  

Hi, Varda.

Your experience is consistent with mine. You get a crackling crust more easily with lower gluten flours. From my memory, KAF French Style flour has about 1% less protein than their AP flour.

David

Great loaves! 

 

Is this recipe part of his book Bread?    I have it at home, but I'm not there right now to check it out.