bread 9

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

3 ½ cups Arrowhead Mills organic pastry flour  (4g protein per ¼ cup)
2 ½ tsp Diamond Crystal coarse Kosher salt
1 ½ tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ¾ NYC tap water

I gave them a quick whiz in the food processor. Then I placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was extremely moist and loose. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it lay inside the bowl close to the dough.

2 hours later I turned it out of the bowl onto a floured board, divided it into 4 equal portions and rolled them flat. I shaped these into loaves by folding them over into thirds and pinching the seam together.

The 4 loaves proofed for 3 ½  hours between 2 floured side towels.

I slashed the top of each loaf with a razor blade and cooked them for 30 minutes in the oven I had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour.

This time I:
1.    Made the bread entirely of one kind of flour.
2.    Upped the portion of salt to 2 ½ teaspoons as the bread was getting bland.
3.    Added extra water in the interest of creating more steam in the cooking loaf.
4.    Ended up using much more bench flour then I’d needed before.
5.    Shortened the rising time of the dough and skipped the proofing period as balls before rolling out in favor of allowing the loaf shapes to proof, hoping to create more CO2 in the shaped loafs.
6.    Only sprayed the oven walls with water once at the beginning, hoping to reduce the thickness of the crust.

With Bread 8 I found:
1.    The bread tasted much more of whole wheat then it had when this flour was part of a mix
2.    Proofing as loaf shapes seemed to accomplish nothing because, although the loaves rose a little in the 3 ½ hours, they came out of the oven in exactly this shape. The dough itself seemed to have dried noticeably from having the increased surface area for such a long period of time.
3.    The salt seemed to be in good proportion.
4.    The crust was of a good thickness.

Bread eight was born out of a desire to create a crumb that contained a lot of air. The first decision was to incorporate more water into the dough that could then turn to vapor while cooking. This seemed to be lost to the second decision, which was to allow the dough to proof in its final shape for longer. Proofing in the dough shape seems to have encouraged the dough to dry out more than allowing the CO2 byproduct of the rising yeast to be trapped inside.

Oh well, huge failure. On to bread 9.

Comments

[Eliot]

Could the metal blade be a problem? Is there a dough hook or like attachment available?

[mary]

flavor comes from slow rising time. use cold water, and use cake yeast. after the dough is mixed, let it rise, covered in the fridge, overnight. can't figure out why you're using pastry flour. king arthur should be just fine.