Beginner Baguettes - Take III
Thanks to a lot of wonderful feedback, I've made some modifications to suit my space better and to contribute to improved bread making.
1. Trying a stone dutch oven to explore the difference in the baking process using stone. In just two bakes it is very clear how dramatic a difference the stone makes.
2. Modified the recipe to proportion for size and what I can consume, or share. Using 146 gram loaves for 10.5 inch baguettes. 3 per 1/2 recipe of txfarmer's practice baguettes. While I realize this makes them technically no longer baguettes per se, it does allow me to practice more and the same basic skills apply - dough handling, proofing, shaping, scoring, etc. all of which I need to practice as much as possible.
So for the third round, I made the following changes -
- Smaller baguettes in stone dutch oven. Preheated at 475F to account for heat loss, turned down to 450F for bake. In hindsight I realize this is not necessary because I am not using full oven steam. My oven was again too hot - not horrible, but still too high. This is an area I need to adjust.
- Substituted 24 grams of sourdough discard at 100% hydration for 12g flour and 12g water. This was to test flavor impact, not for leavening.
- Used a makeshift peel for the first time - this helped tremendously with maintaining shape.
- I followed the same timings as the recipe with the following modifications -
- I did 2 stretch and folds at each interval instead of one, by the time I got to preshaping I actually had lively dough, this was a definite improvement and works well with my cheap generic AP flour. That "keep a tight skin on the surface of the dough" is making more sense. I think I will focus here mostly in the next batch as I still think there is room for improvement in my understanding of the concept and I may need to work this flour even a bit more.
- I covered the bake for 7 minutes - still over proofing at this point. Removed cover and baked for 15 minutes, then turned off oven and cracked the door for 5 minutes. 3 minutes less than suggested but my loaves were crusted. I need to adjust here, but in coordination with the heat adjustment in #1 I think.
- I placed two baguettes in the dutch oven, rotated the pan 180 when removing the cover. They were too close together and with the parchment divider, there is a strip on each that did not bake as evenly. If I do this again, I will change their position so the sides in the middle become the sides on the outside when I remove the cover.
- One batch of dough I put in the refrigerator to bake the next day but that became two days. Brought to room temperature, shaped, rested and baked. A boule this time, to match the shape of the dutch oven and what it is probably best for. The dough was not very lively by this time. It did rise a touch and did have oven spring. Covered for 6 minutes, finished for 15, then 5 with the door cracked. I did not adjust the heat issue, didn't realize I was probably over heating until after I did this one. Still over proofing in the cover time.
- My scoring is still pretty abominable but I did have one good one, ok one "better" one, enough to make me smile huge taking them out of the oven :)
Overall I changed too many things at the same time but I think it was a good thing. Without any prior baking experience, I learned a lot about the look and feel of the dough during the process compared with the two other tries so it ended up being a big confidence booster. With the flour I started with I am fairly sure the protein count is much lower than KAF AP so while it feels like I am manhandling the dough it seems to work better. I'll go back to super gentle when I try the KAF for comparison.
It is quite silly to try to make baguettes in a dutch oven but it's all practice. Baking tiles and a lame are on my next forage list.
I am reading through the Bread Baker's Apprentice and I like the stages of bread part. I'm finding his pre-ferment part is taking a bit to grasp - not the concepts but the terminology mixture, I think I need a spreadsheet to sort it. Looking at the basic sourdough, ciabatta and pain a l'ancienne as very interesting.
Dutch Oven quarter size baguettes -
The crust is a bit too thick for the crispyness I love but the crumb is pretty close - makes a very versatile bread for everything from dipping, buttering, sandwiching or just biting into with this degree of holeyness in the crumb. I still want to take it further but this was a very nice eating experience from fresh out of the oven and cooled, to the next morning.
Boule with dough refrigerated 2 days - oops! life got in the way
Airy and light, a creamier interior than the fresh baked baguettes but still much better than I can find locally. Photo is bad, in reviewing it looks like the top of the slice is underdone but it wasn't. I grabbed a quick photo after eating what is missing :)
Comments
Life got in the way with mine today too and the 12 hours retard ended up being 21 hours - Over proofed, little spring and no ears. Tasted great though. Next time they will be better. That has to be the best saying for baguette mastering.. Love the bold bake on thus version. Just keep after it ans eventually baguettes will be in your rear view mirror.
Happy Baking
Hahahaha, so true!
One of the biggest challenges for me in even trying bread was the preconceived notion that it wasn't flexible, that it was a very restricted process. I'm loving the 'saves' everyone has done when life gets in the way. Tastes great, next time it will be better - I think that is the best saying for everything tasty :)
The "bold bake" reference, that is the darker, more caramelized crust, yes? I love that and the flavor it imparts to a basic white bread with very little interior crumb, but I'm getting a lot of flack from my guinea pigs (shared bread folk). Made a batch of onion soup just for the baguette croutons and the flavor balance of the crusts takes it to another level.
Happy Baking right back to you!
Nothing silly about making baguettes in a DO when you are documenting and analyzing everything the way you are. I can tell you will have this down in record time.
For a lame, just use a razor blade on a wooden coffee stirrer, not as nice as some of the pro handles, but zero functional difference. I had a photo in one of my last couple of entries.
Sounds like you are starting to get a good idea of how the dough should feel at each stage. I baked nothing but DO boules for a year and a half, but it did help me understand gluten development and dough handling. I think my S&F is unconventional, I do the usual few pulls over the dough, but then several one-handed tightening moves to get the dough back into a ball. I'll have to video it one day. It's probably not necessary at all, but I can't stop myself :)
Great job, I look forward to your next bake!!
Go TFL Team Baguette!
-Gabe
PS, I am impressed with the way you listen to the dough and do what you think is best for the current situation rather than going exactly "by the book." It took me ages to figure that out!
It's silly, it makes me laugh to make tiny 1/4 baguettes in a round contraption. But yes, mastering something includes finding ways to succeed then excel, in even less than ideal circumstances, so in that way it isn't silly, it's a baby step to getting better.
Yes I saw your coffee stirrer lame, I think I bookmarked it. I only have x-acto knife blades at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the dough handling has more to do with the scoring for me right now AND has more impact on the shaping and the finished bread so it will be interesting to see the comparison of what I am using now, to a lame, in the next few bakes as I get the dough better. Improving but not quite there yet.
Your extra moves probably do more than you think in getting that tight skin on the dough as it moves between each stage. I'd watch a video, you might have some twist that is easy and helpful.
"PS, I am impressed with the way you listen to the dough and do what you think is best for the current situation rather than going exactly "by the book." It took me ages to figure that out!"
Nothing impressive, just a different approach. For example, Soup talks to you through aroma, taste, texture and appearance - you can watch and change these things as they occur and measure their development over time. Bread doesn't say much in taste until it's baked so texture/feel and appearance stand out. Aroma too, but incredibly subtle in these beginner baguettes. Oh and sound, that crackle song when you take them out of the oven, that's unique to bread. But your statement sounded like a compliment so I will say Thank You :) If you were making great breads you enjoyed then it didn't matter, until it mattered and you wanted something different. Just another approach. I can't wait to get to that aroma factor with sourdough :)
And yes, bread singing is awesome. My wife thinks I'm a nutter when I make her come and listen to it :D
First let me say that there has been significant improvement between the last baguettes and these baguette/"sandwich rolls". It seems as though everything has improved, so kudos to you!
This next part is directed at Gabe and Anconas, but also to anyone around these TFL parts that wants to break out of the "fold in a bowl" method of handling dough and get in on the French Folding and Letter Folding techniques. I will preface what comes next by saying that by no means am I an expert or an authority - anything but!, on any of this stuff, but have been playing around just long enough to have a feel for what to do and how to do it (within my narrow domain). Which does not deny validity of any of the other dozen or so methods within easy YouTube reach.
Okay, now that my disclaimers have been documented, onward and downward to the folding. In early Sept. I made good on a promise and created a video for a distant acquaintance on the making of the Bouabsa Baguettes. The three links below are segments of the much longer video and these target French Folds and Letter Folds/Stretch and Fold. As each dough formula yields a different goopy mass to begin mixing, the Bouabsa goop may not look like your goop. But the technique is essentially the same.
1. French Folds, Part 1- www.youtube.com/watch?v=W30fggDJSSQ
2. French Folds, Part 2 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCU8ULBPsY
3. Letter Folds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=yStZN7SaZV0
An important thought to keep in mind - as I mention on the video, the technique that I use is not mine alone, and there are numerous right ways and numerous wrong ways to get the job done. I believe that there are few and far between truly unique approaches and methods, and therefore everything is pretty much a copy or offshoot of someone's work that has come before.
I hope that you take the few minutes to watch and see if you can glean any value for yourselves from them.
alan
Thanks, I was delighted with the results here compared to the prior two. I feel like I've taken a big leap forward in understanding this very basic version of this bread from the first attempt to the third. In the overall scheme of things that is still very little since I started without a clue but that growth of understanding is fun and magical.
The letter fold technique is what I have been using but only once, every 45 minutes like the tutorial says, until this time when I did it twice each time. If you compare the state of my dough when I was doing it once, to the state of your dough when you call it highly extensible when you initiate the stretch and fold, my final dough in the first two takes was almost that extensible. In the third take, this one, when I doubled the stretch and folds/letter folds, it was much more alive as dough but not in any way too elastic. This brought to the feeling that I wasn't getting the right dough development for my particular flour.
The french slap and fold I have practiced on a scrap batch of dough. I found Babette's video - Gabe this is the one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dUZ0O-Wv0Q&feature=youtu.be. The scrap batch was a high hydration sourdough (used kefir, that's why it was scrap) and super sticky. I had a blast and played with the dough and that technique all day, working it up until it slapped and flipped with that wrist motion that wraps it back on itself. I'd let it rest and play with it some more. I was practicing the technique for the pure fun of it but I was learning a great deal watching the dough strengthen and then relax when it was resting. Unfortunately, the kefir bacteria and yeasts seemed to take over and the last time I let it rest it turned into slurry. (I decided to go true sourdough and leave the kefir parts to things on my bread, not in it)
Based on that limited experience, I was coming to understand the Too Weak dough, in my first two takes, and the potentially Overworked dough, with a huge gap in the what does that mean to what I am working on and when does the slap and fold apply. You have helped greatly in understanding something in this gap.
Your videos are wonderful, thank you for sharing them. As I am learning more, I am coming to realize that the types of bread I enjoy come with high hydration sticky doughs and the slap and fold for me was the easiest low touch method for starting to develop a sticky dough. I'm only dealing with 75% hydration right now, but I will give it a go.
Off to watch the full vid on the Bouabsa.
Thanks Alan! Very good and helpful videos.
To be honest I had seen the phrases "french folds" and "letter folds" and really had no idea what they were. I do now! There's a french letter joke here somewhere but I'm not going there. ;)
At about what percentage hydration would you say these folds are necessary?
And is the french fold the same as a "slap and fold"?
Thanks!
-Gabe
No, it isn't not a french bread style ;-) .
When dabrownman says he uses "slap and fold" for initial dough development, I believe that he is referencing the same activity as French Fold. Interchangeable.
Well, Letter Folds aren't "necessary" if you follow the methodology of Mssrs. Forkish et al, who advocate doing the folding in the mixing bowl. His concept - I'll call it accessibility though simplicity, excepting the arming yourself with a battery of jumbo mixing vessels, etc. is of doing all in a single bowl, ala Lahey http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread . But, let's just say you wish to do it for the fun, education and tactile & visual stimulation of it all (that's where I'm coming from in my own warped little world). Well, like most other things in life save for when to walk the dog, I really don't have a clear answer.
In my own roulette wheel of doughs that I work on, the hydration varies between ~66% (not too frequently) and 75% (more the norm for me), with the rare exceptions of a Forkish boule dough which seem to go as high as 78%. And the Letter Folds seem to work well with them all. As you've probably well noticed by now, with each ensuing set of folds and as the dough develops, the folds maintain some of that incredible extensibility, but can't/shouldn't be drawn out as far. My personal rule is to try to extend the dough but never tear it. The tearing will interrupt the gluten strands.
It is really what feels "right" to you, and with each new batch you should continue to develop your own idea of how to proceed based on feel and experience. Even since the videos, I've modified my Letter Folds just a little by very lightly pressing down on the dough as I fold it. Is that really better? I don't know and harken back to my earlier disclaimers and personal "weasel clause" about being no authority on the matter. But it feels right to me, both in a tactile and conceptual way.
The only dough I do above 78% is ciabatta, which is at 83-84%. But the entire folding methodology to keep the billowy ciabatta dough from collapsing, for me anyway, is the gentle fold in the container after a first vigorous fold in the container. I've never had the nerve to try that on the work bench.
If you watch the way that The Weekend Bakery does 80% baguettes, you'll see that just those few extra percentages of hydration makes their dough close to unworkable by hand, and they can't accomplish the Letter Folds the same way. http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/baguette-movie/ .
alan
PS My french maid told me the french letter joke, but since I don't speak French, it went right over my head!
I'll have to try it - looks fun. Will check out the bakeries, too!
If you can't make it to Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery, see if you ever are nearby to 250 W Broadway in Manhattan. That's where the Grandaisy Bakery is. Lahey's former wife, so I understand, as part of the split, took over the old Sullivan St. Bakery along with his formulae and changed the name to Grandaisy. She has since move to the W. B'way location, and her breads are really good. If not still doing it, Grandaisy was the supplier of breads to some of Mario Batali's joints.