Ixak

January 10, 2016 at 1:13pm

My variation of the recipe above: I was trying to coax a little more sour out of my homemade starter, so I thought I'd try an overnight rest in the fridge (as mentioned on the 12/31/15 comment). Used KAF bread flour in lieu of the vital wheat gluten, and used turbinado sugar. Fed my room temp (69F) starter about two hours beforehand. Used kitchenaid mixer with a dough-hook for 5-6 minutes and finished kneading by hand. Even with only 4.5 cups of flour, dough wasn't all that slack, but it felt pretty good, so I went with it. Stuck it straight in the fridge (in an oiled bowl) and it was off like gangbusters. Checked an hour later and it had more than doubled in size already, despite the chill (45F). Punched it down and reworked it into a ball again, and went to bed. In the morning 7 hours later it was huge - probably triple original size - so went straight to shaping despite concerns of over-rising. Made two 12" Italian loaves and three 14" baguettes, covered with plastic wrap, and let sit for 1.5 hours (room temp still 69F). Fortunately, there was still some rise in them, and they puffed up despite the previous manhandling. Egg yolk glaze, some various sprinkles, and into the 450F oven. Started with the loaves on the top rack and baguettes in the middle rack, rotated the sheet pans at the 10 minute mark to account for possible uneven heat distribution (gas oven), switched loaves down to middle rack and baguettes up to top rack at the 15 minute mark, rotated pans again at the 20 minute mark, and pulled them out at the 25 minute mark (all times are approximate). As recommended, put baguettes back into the cooling oven with the door cracked to develop crust. Final consensus - Still not much sour. Crust developed nicely. Chewy, but otherwise unremarkable crumb with small but consistently-sized aeration throughout. Overall, I'm quite happy with the outcome, and will definitely try again.
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