I haven't posted lately cuz not much as been up. No class this week cuz of the holiday. I finally did a bit of baking at home, some more bread. Just making bread every week or 2 doesn't seem too interesting but I learn more with every go, so it is beneficial. I am continuing to make my sourdough recipe. I like using the starter since yeast can get costly. It is a lot of work however, but split into a few sessions it isn't that bad. I made a larger batch today, making two large loaves. No wash of any kind this time, the milk didn't seem to help and the only other kind of wash that can soften a crust is milk/egg yolk, and I don't wanna waste eggs on that. The result's kinda pale but I'm just eating it myself so I don't particularly care about it's aesthetics.
Today I did try something slightly different in baking, however. A couple months ago when I was buying supplies for my baking class, I for some reason decided to buy a silicone bread pan. I had never used it, resigning it to the back of one of my cabinets. Not really sure why I never thought of using it before, but I decided to give it a go today. One of my issues with my bread has come from the fact that I'm making it using half whole-wheat flour. With that, it does not attain the rise or structure that comes from using bread flour so I generally end up with flatter loaves. Using a form, I can obviously control the shape better. It worked out pretty well. As you can see it did bulge, seeing as the silicone is very malleable. I think I just put too much dough in. The results of the bread was a step up today, and I'm not 100% why. I did achieve a somewhat softer bread than previous. I think perhaps it was the baking time, I baked it slightly shorter than I had previously, but I'm not sure if 5 minutes would make that big a difference in the crust. Another change was how I applied moisture. During my proofing, in addition to my mock-up proof box with steaming water, I sprayed the loaves a few times with water from a spray bottle, and I also did so prior to baking. Normally, moistening the dough would create a crisper dough, but perhaps since it was moister going into baking, it did not crisp up as much. I'm not sure, I guess I'll see in future attempts.
I also used my Kitchenaid for the first non-bread application, making cornbread. It's much easier than a hand mixer, that's all I really gotta say.
Also I know I haven't posted anything about my job, that's just cuz I'm lazy. I'll get to it eventually.
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