Have you heard of the five minute score? I read about it on Instagram and wanted to give it a go with a bake today. The idea is that if a dough might be a bit over proofed, when you score it, it is likely to spread pretty fast before the crust has a chance to set a bit to prevent spreading. So instead of scoring immediately you wait for five minutes. You bake your dough without steam for five minutes then remove it to score it and continue the bake with steam as usual.
I tried this for the first time today with meh results. I think I would shorten the five minutes to four and ensure that I scored more deeply the next time. The bloom on this wasn’t as great as I would have expected for this dough.
Background on the dough, this is a 20% whole wheat miso sourdough. Cold retard was started after a 95% rise and a pH of 4.24. The next day the pH was 3.95 at the time of bake. So really I didn’t think this was over proofed but I wanted to explore this idea.
Here is a time lapse of the bake, really I expected a better bloom.
were not meant to be re-invented.
LOL Alan so true, but I love to experiment. Have a look here at this highly successful use of this method.
I didn’t peel back the bit of crust at the score that seems to be something that may have helped as well. I will try this again at some point if I think I’ve over proofed.
I wonder if freezing for a while before scoring, then baking would help? Never tried it, though.
I have tried freezing over proofed dough for 30-45 mins prior to baking and it definitely helps, but if done correctly, I think the 5 minute score would be even more effective.