Do We Really Need Steam?

I was exploring English Muffin bread, and there seem to be mostly just two recipes "out there." One is the King Arthur version, the other uses an egg. Neither one tastes anything at all like an English Muffin. So I went looking.

I found a recipe for classic English Muffins, which also used (what they called) a biga. To me, it's actually a poolish, but hey...who am I to argue? I made that recipe, and just dumped it into a loaf pan instead of frying them in a pan. (I did a couple of rises to double, but no real shaping -- it wouldn't hold a shape.)

This recipe was so wet, it was extremely hard to work with. It's supposed to be fried, like crumpets, so it's more like a heavy batter. Learning how to work with high-hydration dough, I was able to manipulate the dough. To me, it seemed a lot like ciabatta. But Holy Smokes, did this dough rise!

Long story short, when I finally reworked the recipe, I ended up with a fantastic Italian Sandwich Bread! Seriously good stuff! I suspect the Italians had their bread, and the British came along and fried it.

For about 15 years I've been attempting to replicate a particular type of sub roll. My examples are from Turano or Gonella in the Chicago area. Another example is Amarosa out of Philadelphia. And there's a place in New Orleans that sounds similar. It's been impossible. There's a recipe here on Fresh Loaf I was about to try, when this astonishing miracle of serendipity happened.

I'm now making the 8" rolls, and will also add in whey. With just plain water the bread was superb (I'll do a recipe later), but the rolls have slightly too much crust. Obviously: Steam!

Have you ever put a pan of water in the oven and watched it boil? Like when you're braising a casserole or meat/poultry? The water's happily boiling, but...there's no steam! Why not?

Check this out from a thread on the physics and thermodynamics of steam and vapor:

Steam in general refers to the gas phase of water. Steam can be the same as water vapour in some contexts. In more casual usage, steam can refer to the mixture of vapour and aerosol liquid water droplets suspended in the vapour. The "steam" you see rising off boiling water for example, is the second type. What you see is actually condensed liquid water; as water vapour itself is not visible to the naked eye.

I tried several mechanisms to get steam, and came to understand why surface area matters. However, I got curious and put a plain pan of water in the oven at 350F. No steam. Then I put a Pyrex pie plate in the same oven and before I even could set down the pan on the rack, it clouded up with "fog." That's the same as steam, I believe.

Why do we want steam at all? Most here know it's because it retards the formation of the outer crust, keeping it soft so the inside of the bread can continue to expand. We want the "skin" of the loaf to stay somewhat cool until the loaf has risen all the way. Then, remove the steam and allow the final browning.

Hmm. So what's actually cooling that "skin?" Isn't it the water, at just over 212F, being cooler than the surrounding hot air (at 350F)? In fact, isn't the reason I got instant fog on my glass plate is because I was putting a room-temperature surface into a super hot atmosphere filled with.....water! As vapor!

The loaf going into the oven is, what...around 80F or thereabouts? Somewhere around room temperature. Ordinarily, the humidity in the preheated oven is extremely low. "Ovens are designed to remove humidity to promote even baking. A 350-degree oven has a relative humidity approaching zero." - AI

The small amount of water in the outer skin will boil off quickly in the hot oven, leaving the flour (and possible fat) to start burning: the browning. Adding continual water will prevent the flour from drying out and burning. Ergo, steam provides a source of water. The steam doesn't matter. We perspire when we're hot because the heated "water" of the perspiration evaporates. The exchange of energy removed heat from the body. But the surface of a loaf of dough has no way to "perspire" or sweat. :-) Gotta spray it with water, like keeping a cat cool.

If I put a wide pan with some boiling water into the oven, it can sit while I'm preheating or for some time. It will continue to emit water vapor, since a) it was 212F when I put it in, and b) the oven is well above 212F. Ergo, there is constant water vapor in the oven "air."

When I then put in an 80-F piece of dough, it will immediately develop condensation on the surface -- the "skin." Right? The exchange of energy between that condensation, its evaporation, and the gradual increase in temperature of the dough "should" produce the same effect as steam. Right?

I shouldn't need to actually see billowing clouds of white steam. Those clouds are really only the water vapor condensing rapidly in the hot air. It may deposit on the dough, or maybe all over the oven, but it's no different than actual fog or morning mist over a river. 

Seems like it, anyway. So I'm going to try for my thin crust with just a 10x13" roasting pan and about 1-2 inches of boiling water....just sitting there. It's a lot easier (and safer) than throwing water into a pan that's already hot. And less cumbersome, and I don't need lava rocks, towels, or anything else. Just boiling water. :-) We'll see.

Side note: I tried the steaming cotton towels rolled and put in the preheated oven. It sort of works, but the bottom of the towels remained wet, while the upper parts dried out fairly soon. Surface area exposed to hot air. The towels may have a lot of water, but it doesn't "wick" to the upper surface quickly enough to compensate for evaporation.