11/20/09 - At Home - Bread

I gave my Kitchenaid a whirl for the first time and I'm quite happy with it thus far, for the little I've done with it. I had read reviews where it is loud and can get shaky so wasn't sure. I was kneading bread so it was on low, but it was fine for me, quiet even compared to the Hobarts at school. It is nice that it has 10 speeds so you can be much more precise and can change the speed more gradually. You can tilt back the mixer which makes getting to the bowl, for scraping it down or for removing the attachment, much easier. The bowl is cool too. You just twist it into place and it stays firm. You had to clip the Hobart bowls into side arms and raise the bowl and it could get difficult and tedious. I guess comparing a home mixer to an industrial mixer doesn't really work, but those are my only bases for comparison.

Well today I made some bread. I made another sourdough, since I got a new starter going from some I got from school. This time I tried a levain that uses the starter as the only rise, no additional yeast is added. I will have to see what I think of this recipe, but that's definitly a plus. Flour's a lot cheaper than yeast. The bread was quite simple, though it definitly takes planning because it is a long process. I began the recipe last night when I mixed some starter and a portion of flour for a couple minutes and then let it sit at room temp overnight to activate the yeast and rise a bit. This morning I finished the recipe, adding more flour, water, and salt (very simple) and mixing that. It fermented another two hours, then I shaped and proofed it another hour. This time for proofing I tried something new to try and similate a proof box. I put the bread in the cool oven and then filled a couple cups with boiling water and placed those in there, with the hopes that they'd steam, raise the temp a bit, and sorta simulate a proof box. It didn't have nearly the heat or moisture of a real proof box but they didn't dry out so I guess it was okay. After 45 minutes of proofing I finally baked. I will have to think about whether or not I do this proofing method again. It simulated the proof box sorta but then I had to have the bread sit another 10 min for the oven to get to temperature, and I don't think that works very well.

Here's the final product. I did half whole-wheat flour again. I didn't get much rise again. This dough was too moist also, it was difficult working and kinda flattened when I formed it. That's my fault though, I just didn't compensate enough with flour. The only way that I can think of to get better rise is using less whole wheat flour, but if anything I'd want to increase it, so I just don't know. The fact that I don't exactly have facilities for good fermentation or proofing probably affects it too.

Last time that I made bread I raised the consideration of a milk wash to make a softer crust. That's what I tried with one of these. Unfortunately it had no effect on the crust, it was just as hard as the unwashed loaf. I tasted a tiny bit of it and it actually tasted rather chewy, but that was just the heel and pretty much all crust. I'll have to see if it's okay when I have a real slice of it. Despite having no effect on the crust, it did make it brown more and gave it an interesting speckled appeareance. Too bad it also ruined my baking sheet from the residual milk that ran off the bread. I guess it's good foresight that I had ordered a new baking sheet just this week. So my breadmaking is still a work in progress. I still want to achieve better rise and softer crust, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna get either of those with the recipes I use, the rise due to whole-wheat flour, and the crust, due to them being sourdoughs. Well, perhaps the crust is a problem because sourdoughs bake at a high temp. If I just bake lower and longer it might be better. I'll think about that next time.