Mr. Hamelman's Un-Kneaded, Six-Fold French Bread (For Stuffing!)

breadsong on 24 Dec 2010 at 17:16

Hello, I wanted to have some good bread to make the turkey stuffing with. Mr. Hamelman's formula for Un-Kneaded, 6-Fold French Bread looked good so I wanted to give it a try. Instead of the 5 baguettes as instructed, I roughly shaped two big loaves. This dough was 73% hydration.
We couldn't resist and cut some to make sandwiches for lunch today.
Another really, really good bread from Mr. Hamelman!!!



Merry Christmas everyone! from breadsong

Amazing crackly crust! Wish I could get my crust looking like that! Great job!

Happy holidays!

LeeYong

Hello LeeYong, All that water and an oven preheated to 500F, then a 460F bake, seemed to do the trick. I love a crackly crust and haven't always been able to get one - was pleased with how this turned out! Happy holidays to you, too!
from breadsong

 

I just made two batches of sour dough, one with King Arthur AP and the other with KA French Style.   I used exactly the same approach for both.   The French Style crust cracked like crazy and the AP didn't.   What flour were you using?    Thanks.

Hi varda, I used a 50/50 blend of 13% spring wheat bread flour and 10.5% winter wheat all-purpose flour (neither were King Arthur flours).  This is probably not helpful to you! I don't know if the King Arthur people can comment - they have a bakers' direct line that I've called once or twice with questions (the people I spoke to were very helpful).
Regards, breadsong

That gives me something to work with.   You attribute the cracking to your oven preheating and cooking temp.   I have seen other baking strategies for achieving the same effect.   But I wonder if it's really mainly due to the flour mix.   In my case, the loaves made with KAAP had nicer crumb and really even a better textured crust than the lovely cracked loaves made with the french style flour.   Ah well, can't have everything.  

Hi, Varda.

Your experience is consistent with mine. You get a crackling crust more easily with lower gluten flours. From my memory, KAF French Style flour has about 1% less protein than their AP flour.

David

David, thanks for providing an answer & for this helpful information about lower-gluten flour.  Regards, breadsong

Great loaves! 

 

Is this recipe part of his book Bread?    I have it at home, but I'm not there right now to check it out.