This week we do a little more quick bread work, then yeast breads. We'll finish up with enriched yeast doughs but that's for later.
First our quick breads. More country biscuits. I guess we'll be making these a lot since we'll be tested on it in our midterm practical. Pretty similar to last week. I think they turned out well. Flavorwise, I think they were a tad bland, could have used an extra bit of sugar maybe. This time I separated the subsequent cuts from the initial cut so that the difference can be seen after the extra kneading. It's apparent in the picture-the biscuits on the cooling rack on the right are from the initial cut while those on the sheet pan on the left are the subsequent ones. You can really tell the difference. The first cuts are perfectly shaped, perfectly browned. The next ones, not as much. They're still perfectly good. I'd smack someone if they'd refuse to eat them. But it still shows the truth in what we're taught.
Next quick bread, more muffins. Corn muffins this time. They weren't bad. To be honest, I really miss corn muffins and cornbread, I can't really think of when I've had it last. I'm thinking of making a batch of cornbread at home. Just kinda difficult since I seem to always have my breakfast and lunch for the week now cuz of class. Plus Safeway doesn't have buttermilk that I've seen and Whole Food's is expensive, so it'll be whenever I'm at Trader Joe's. We made our corn muffins with frozen corn mixed in. Personally, I wasn't crazy about it. I didn't really like the texture it imparted. They could have risen a little better, but still pretty good stuff. They had a nice crisp top which I liked.
Onto our breads. The only completed bread we made today was whole-wheat bread. It was a pretty simple straight-dough method. It didn't rise very much when we let it ferment. Our kitchen isn't very conducive to fermentation-it's pretty cool and there's drafts from the fans. I hadn't tasted the bread but it looks like it turned out well, it's pretty at least so that's a good sign.That wasn't all we did with breads. We also made the sponge for a light rye. Sponge is just the yeast, water, sugar, and a portion of the flour mixed up. It's then left to ferment a while then the rest of the flour and other ingredients are added. We screwed up the first go by adding all of our flour but our second try seemed to turn out fine.
We also prepared a batch of old dough. It's what the name implies. A bit of straight-dough starter that's left to ferment slowly refrigerated over time. It's then used in other bread doughs to impart the flavor that it obtains from a slower fermentation process. Ours didn't quite achieve a perfect windowpane consistency but it looked good and so I hope it is good for the breads we are preparing with it.
I forgot to take pictures of the sponge or the old dough, I'll try to remember them tomorrow prior to their use.
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