Trevor's sandwich bread, bake 2
One of the advantages of doing the same recipe back to back combined with having reasonably decent notes is it's easier to reproduce the last bake.
Tweaks for this bake: No steam (sprayed with water instead), and a foil tent for the second half of the bake. Otherwise, I did everything the same as bake #1 (same hydration, fermentation times, all of it). Oh and I followed minioven's advice and made sure the rim if the pan was in the center of the toaster oven.
The crust is more evenly colored on the sides and bottom, and the top is not so overcooked which is appreciated.
Update, crumb shot below. I'm not a good photographer, and phone cameras don't always capture things as well as possible. That compression of the crumb on the sides/bottom is much better than the last loaf. The crust is a bit more chewy than we care for in a sandwich bread maybe. Overall it's a reasonable bake, especially for a toaster oven, lol. This one probably won't be high on my list of what to bake next, only because there are others we like much more. On to exploring the nuances of our new oven! First up, verify internal temps. 🌡️
Mary
Comments
Ah that's much better browning Mary, you should be pleased with that. 😍
Thanks Benny!
I learned some helpful things with this bake, about recognizing mid-bake when a loaf will benefit from a foil tent, as well as allowing better access of heat to the loaf. Putting the wet towel too close (on the shelf below) in this little oven lowered the temperature too much in that immediate area. And spraying the loaf right before baking was plenty in that confined space.
On to the next bake! 😊
Mary
I'd say you nailed it! Nice even sandwich loaf crumb.
Do you think the chewiness in the crumb is due to the toaster oven or just the nature of this particular bread?
I'm leaning towards it being (at least in part) due to the high percentage of bread flour. Most of the breads I have made are a higher percentage of whole grain (some 100%), with either some AP or BF added in for a better gluten network.
But the small oven likely contributes to drying things out more as well. I noticed the last loaf started to stale pretty quickly. Internal temperature at end of both bakes was 208F, a couple of degrees higher than I usually go. My guess is I need to adjust either bake time or temperature down just a tad, to avoid over baking in the toaster oven. At least with uncovered, no steam pan bread.
Mary