Batch Bread - A Tale of Trial and Error

The Batch Bread, from 100 Great Bread Recipes, looked simple enough. And with only a couple of ingredients it should have been. Oh how I was wrong. I followed the recipe and the bread at first try looked like it was going to turn out great.

I thought like most bread I was supposed to slash the top so that the bread would expand properly when baked. As it turns out, I was not supposed to. As soon as I made the first cut, I realized I made an error. The bread immediately deflated to about half the height.

Upon further reading instructions, no where in the recipe does it state to slash it. It baked up fine with a decent color and the flavor was excellent. It was light, but not fluffy, which I attribute to the whole cutting thing. Ok, back to the bread again two days later.
Second batch, pretty much turned out the same way, but this time I didn't slash it before putting it in the oven. This time I decided to prepare an egg wash. If you recall in previous posts, the egg wash used for the roles made them turn out pretty and shiny and perfect.

Now if you remember from the paragraphs above this bread is supposed to light and fluffy. It's sweet, light and makes a great sandwich bread. What does that tell you? The bread being light and one loaf, being huge, is very heavy. This egg wash acted just like the slashing and just added to the weight.

The wash started collapsing the bread. What the hell?! Why can't I just freaking follow directions? Another two days later, I followed the directions to the tee (except for the extra water.) This one turned out absolutely perfect. The dough rested for an hour and came out like this.


After two hours of rising, you can see just how large this bread got. It's freaking huge. As previously stated I took this opportunity to follow directions. I didn't have any egg wash, and I didn't slash it. After baking, it turned out so good. It was freaking great. It baked up high and the crust turned out perfect. It was my most perfect bread.

Ye Old Bread Shope

The first breads I attempted to create from 100 Great Breads was a Crusty Cob. This bread, which date back to medieval times, was known as one of the oven bottom, as this was invariable where it was baked. Baked to a deep color, it's a great British loaf.

Sweet. I played Dungeons and Dragons. I could just picture myself speaking some kind of thick Cockney accent that no one but Ozzy can understand, all covered in flour shoveling loaves into a gigantic hearth. More close to reality, I'm not British and don't have a hearth. The bread turned out ok, the first batch being tossed.

I added more water to this one, about 1/4 cup more. I don't think I kneaded it as well as I should have, since it did turn out to be somewhat dense. Not very dense, just a little. I only kneaded it for 5 minutes per directions. However, I now know how and what these directions really mean. The color and taste turned out ok. It was a little salty, but this recipe did call for 1 tbs of salt. Compared to the loaf I'm making tonight which was only 1.5tsp and 1/2 cup of sugar.

By the way, I really love making the round loaves, free form style. Something about bread pans (traditional) that bother me.

A new year, and new books

This year for Christmas my lovely wife and boys bought some great books to enhance my bread baking skills. Actually it was to bring them up to snuff.

The first book I got was The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This cook book is right up my alley. Not only is it a great recipe book, but much like 50 Great Curries of India, this book contains a gigantic section on history, theory, science, technique and philosophy.

It's a highly rated bread making book and almost exclusive used by us armatures on Thefreshloaf.com. I have only read a couple of pages so far and it reads like more of a story of bread making discovery as the author recants his tale of bread bakings highest honor and achievement, Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. I have not created any breads from this book, as I have not dedicated anytime to reading it at a great extent.
The second book I got I have already created two breads from and tonight I am working on a third. 100 Great Breads, is a British book as everything talks about grams and such. Luckily for me the author includes measurements for us dumb Americans.

I screwed up one recipe in this because I didn't read his one page introduction. All of his recipes use cake yeast, which if you don't know what is, just know that it's different than the dry yeast you know and love. The first recipe I made was supposed to be your basic white bread. It was horrible, I followed his recipe but it turned out too hard.

I figured it was something I did, because after all he's British so he knows what he's talking about, right? I read the introduction and learned there that he uses cake yeast and if I'm using dry, I should cut the amount by 25%. That's a lot if you know anything about baking bread. Oh yeah, and your wheat type might vary so you may need to add more water. Now you tell me! I should have trusted my instincts. While I did end up throwing away the dough, I wasted time mixing and kneading.