is how my wife likes her bread, but I just can't seem to be able to bake a loaf that can be cut as it comes out of the oven, without the center being gelatinous. My wife doesn't like waiting for an hour or even a half hour for my bread to set. She was spoiled by a trip to the east coast where we stumbled on a tiny bakery that makes the Caribbean bread that I adored when I was there as a child.
They always severed that bread still warm from the oven, so warm that first timers would be warmed about steam burns when you first tore a piece of the bread off (yes it really was that steamy).
With what I think I've learned fro TFL in the past year, that bread should be gelatinous, but it isn't, the crust is thin, crisp and very lightly colored (which is my wife favorite crust, no mahogany crusts for her) with an airy and fluffy interior. These breads can have crusts that are so light in color that they look like the par baked "take and bake" loaves you find in the supermarket.
From looking at the recipes here all they are making is french bread, but I'm perplexed, how so you make a loaf that is so delicately light, using a classic french bread recipe, that is still warm (kinda hot) and steamy when you serve it yet it seems to be completely baked on the inside.
What am I missing?
Personally I don't think you are missing anything. It is just science. The starch is forming a gel which requires a cooling to hold it's structure. Many consider cooling as an one of the essential steps in the process. If your bread is over 160F will be gelatinous and not have set.
After it is set you can warm it back up and serve it that way. But really the best flavor is going to be at around room temperature.
which is pretty sad for a semi-retired engineer. I know that when I bake my own loaves that If I cut them before they reach at least 195 degree F and before they have stood at room temp for over half an hour I get the gelatinous interior yet when in the Caribbean I watch many times as they pulled the loaves out of the oven, people would scramble to buy them then within 5 minutes they were tearing into the steamy interiors, half burning their mouths, and dunking them into their volcanically hot morning coffee (you would think they were in the Arctic) yet the interior was light and fluffy. I'm just stumped.
Carrebean bread is a yeast bread. It is very different from sourdough bread.
Yeast bread can be cut fresh from the oven but the crumb structure will be better after a cooling period.
they make two yeast breads, which is all I bake. After studying their recipes and comparing them to what I see here on TFL I suddenly they are making French bread and Italian bread (i.e. a lean bread and one with olive oil or other fat in it). I have varied temps, hydration, lots of stretch and folding, no stretch and folding, etc. but I just can't get their results. The bakers down there are so secretive that I don't know their actual recipe or if the difference is in their technique. Home bakers in the region do not duplicate the bakeries results either, the home bakers make loves that look like mine so I'm completely clueless and would really like to duplicate it to make my wife happy.
the tangzhong method for making their bread.
Have you tried a recipe like this one:
http://www.joepastry.com/2013/making-pain-de-mie/
The crust is thin and the crumb is soft but stable.
I know they don't use pullman pans (they don't have any, and this recipe called for it to stand for an hour before cutting, but It does have the same very light looking crust. I've personally watched dozens of times, the loaves being pulled straight from the ovens, dropped into paper bags, the customers would pinch the corner of the paper bags to carry them without burning, set them on the table and coffee would usually be served within 5 minutes. The bread would be broken by hand and handed to the next person who would do so in turn. Each person's eyes would roll as they enjoyed dipping a piece into their coffee and savoring their half wet, steaming piece of joy to start their day.
I suspect that the loaves are being steamed almost the entire time thatchy are in the oven (which I've tried to duplicate without success) but that still does not account for being able to cut into it 5 minutes after baking and not being gelatinized.
The loaves I'm talking about look like traditional french baguettes, but with a very lightly colored crust, so light that I call them blonde loaves. I've been searching for pics, online, that I could share here but they are all normal colored loaves. If I can find one or get someone to take a pic for me, I'll post it here. Thank you Ingrid.
Are these non-wet loaves the same shape as the ones you bake? If they're long loaves with a small diameter, they may be able to cool/release moisture from the middle faster just because there's a shorter distance from center to crust.
Maybe they add oil, and that's keeping some of the water out? That's a guess.
Maybe add an egg white and/or more salt - that tends to tighten the dough, which may squeeze out the moisture. Again, guessing.
I have tried a variety of shapes but have not had any luck. They do have two basic products they offer, they both look almost the same. The first is essentially french bread made with flour, water, yeast and salt, the second is essentially an Italian loaf: flour, water, yeast and olive oil (or butter). They never use egg in any way. That is as much as I could get out of them when I lived there. Thanks for the guesses.
I see two mentions of the bread being torn and none about the bread being sliced. The bread you describe, and any other bread I can think of, won't stand up to a knife just after being pulled from the oven. The inside, even if completely baked, is too soft to stand up to the downward pressure of a knife blade. Even the crust on many breads is still too soft to do much more than support itself. If Mrs. Boule wants her bread hot from the oven, she needs to be ready to tear it instead of slicing it.
Like others have mentioned, I suspect that there is a lot of steam in the oven to keep the crust thin. I would also guess that the oven temperatures are relatively low (350F? 375F?), based on your description of the crust color. That might also allow enough time for heat to penetrate to the center of the loaf before the crust is well browned.
Best of luck with your experiments.
Paul
that I can't imagine anyone being able to cut it with a knife. Mrs Boule loves that bread (she's on a low crust diet ROFLOL) and really enjoys just tearing into it. I di not think about baking it at low temp, Thank You Paul, that really makes a lot of sense to me.