Hello,
I am new to this site and passionate about baking artisan loaves, and pastry. I am interested in any critique and general information, I am wanting to make the most professional loaves while sticking to my Basque roots. As a scientist, I am fascinated by the science of bread, I am particularly interested in the history of beer and its relationship with bread, as they are very similar in their creation.
That being said, glad to be here!
Below are some photos of a baguette I recently made with a new recipe from the book Artisan Bread in Five minutes a Day, I tried their Master Formula recipe-it was an interesting dough, as I usually make a poolish, or a biga and retard that overnight before making the final dough-their formula was bulk fermented and then retarded overnight so I did not anything to the dough the next day.
It resulted in an interesting bread, some of the loaves came out with more of a closed crumb, but the baguette came out quite well with the open crumb i was looking for.
How do I get a thinner crust on the baguette? More steam, oven spring?? Any suggestions would be great!
I read somewhere recently that sugar makes the crust thinner. Worth looking into. It may have been on the glass or crystal bread that was posted about here not too long ago.
Great looking baguette.
I agree with Michael, i also read about adding oil and sugar making the crust thinner. Search for crystal or glass bread and you'll find the thread.
Ru
Great! Thank you for the advice and the compliment, I will search for that!
I agree that you have made a nice baguette. Congratulations!
Will you share some details on your actual baking process? Type of oven, temperature, time, steam options... anything you can add here. From my experience the bake determines the crust.
I make a lot of baguettes and have not added sugar or oil to my formula. My customers are quite satisfied with the crust and crumb (me too!). Flour, water, salt, poolish and levain.
I am in a rental apartment so I have a standard Frigidaire oven, not sure on the model. I can take a pic and I will post it here later on after my next bake. It is a conduction oven, that is about all I know about it, highest temp is 500. I start baking at 500, for just a few minutes, then lower the temp to either 450 or 475 depending on the bread I am baking. I have a cake pan that I put water in and place under my bakers steel to provide steam. I bake my bread on the middle shelf, and the steam is on the lowest rack.
I have never added sugar or oil in recent breads as I found the oil made the dough a little chewier for my tastes, and the sugar-I never thought it added much, but I will try it again with a different flour this time and see if it provides the crisp crust I am after.
That looks nice! I read steam and high temperature is very important for a thin crust. To add to the oil and sugar, I also read that rice flour makes for a thin and delicate crust. Here it is.
Thank you! I will do another bake today and see how it comes out with the K.A. all purpose flour and I will add a bit of sugar and some rice flour
I've gotten a great crust with the emile henry baguette maker. Basically a rectangular cloche for baguettes.
The changes depend in part on how you are baking the baguettes. On a stone in a conventional oven? With steam? For how long (steam) and at what temp?
Generally, shortening the time they are baking in a dry environment will help...so not necessarily more steam, but perhaps longer period of steam (before venting). So if you are baking on a stone, then using a big square roasting pan (even the foil disposable ones) over the top to keep steam in for all but the last 5ish minutes will help. Otherwise, there are quite a few threads on steaming in conventional home ovens (magic towels, etc.).
Also, while a bit counter intuitive, you might try a bit higher temp. to decrease the overall baking time (and give a bit of an extra boost to your spring), combined with sustained steam. I do mine at home on a very thoroughly heated thick stone at 470F and only vent the last 3-4 minutes.
I don't have a stone, I use a baking steel it is a very thick and heavy baking steel that does not leave the oven. I usually start at 500, bring down to 475 or 450 when baking at 500 for a minute or two. I place a steam pan under the bread for the whole bake.
I will definitely use the roasting pan method over the bread, I have been reading that it is very helpful at trapping the steam in there for the crust.
Thank you! I will try the higher temp at and vent for the last few minutes.
What kind of flour are you using? Many European breads are made with a lower-protein flour, so in North America it's worth a try to switch out strong bread flour for all-purpose flour. I've done this with one of my breads and the crust is much more delicate (not tough and chewy as it was with all bread flour as the unbleached portion).
I've also found with experiments I've done lately into different techniques that the amount of mixing / kneading does in fact affect the crust. I got a beautiful thin, crispy crust on a 50% whole wheat lean Italian bread after mixing it at high speed in a stand mixer for 18 minutes! So maybe the 'no knead' technique is also leading to a tough crust (just a thought; nothing against the 5 minutes a day techniques as I make some of their recipes too).
I use King Arthur Bread Flour for my breads, occasionally I will use a Tipo 00, but I have come to find that it only really browns at high temperatures exceeding 700 degrees, without assistance of oil. so I only use that for pizza crust now. I will definitely try the K.A. All purpose for my next bread! I use the "French" method for kneading where you slap it around a bit and fold it over haha
The most shatteringly shrapnel shard-like crisp crust I ever got on a baguette was when I tried this tin foil hat:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21300/super-low-tech-039tin-foil-hat039-no-knead-loaves-amp-baguettes
I cranked my oven as high as it would go (500F) and let it preheat over an hour with baking stone in place (middle level of oven). I baked 12 mins with the foil cover and 12 mins without. It is a simple method; you don't have to bother with any other steaming contraption when you cover the loaf like this.
It is my opinion that the more the foil hat conforms to the shape of the loaf (leaving some room for the loaf to expand, of course) the more effective it is. That and extremely high heat was, for me, a winning combination. On that day, anyway.
Wow great idea, I have been reading a bit more about people using foil and the throw-away aluminium baking pans to cover the bread to bring steam in closer to the crust, I will try this method as well!
Thank you
it's fun and quick to play around with the foil, because you probably already have some. You can decide if the "covered loaf" effect is for you without trips to the cookware store and investing big bucks
I molded my tent on the bottoms of two loaf pans
https://shop.bakingsteel.com/collections/steels/products/baking-steel
This is the baker's steel that I have and bake all my breads on. It is much darker now after being seasoned with many breads over the past year.
As far as thinner walled, do take the advice of some folks above and see postings for glass bread or "pan de cristal". Reports are when done right the crumb just about shatters when cut or bit into.
A very well heated baking surface that has a modicum of thickness and good heat retention will be a valuable tool in getting a thinner crispier crust as well. That will also depend on the formula/recipe that you use as well as the skill set applied when creating them.
Sufficient steam, and "plenty of it", will be essential in helping to get good oven spring, as the dough's surface is retarded in the oven from setting and carmelizing too quickly.
Oven spring? You will need to work on your scoring skills, and area where for almost all of us, there is no substitute for practice. Here is a quickie guide that I just provided for someone else: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/347920#comment-347920 .
As for open crumb, that will come with time and skill, but I'd advise to not make that a priority. It is the golden ring that many of us reach for, and a demonstration of some level of skill, but those big holes just don't have a lot of taste to them ;-) .
As far as flour goes, I'm sure that using higher quality flours (read as more expensive as well) will give some better results, but personally I get good results from typical supermarket brands like Pillsbury and Gold Medal (I see that you are in Or-e-gun, my former home, so these are readily available).
I love the fact that I'm now starting to see a brigade of baguette bakers joining me here on TFL. With Txfarmer seemingly gone, there is still a bit of a dearth of baguette activity going on around these parts. But we're gaining ground recently! Bravo. alan
Nice puercos pata negras in your photo too.