As a relative novice to bread baking most people I discuss such things with say ‘are you really going to bake your own bread for the restaurant’. The easy gun-ho answer is, absolutely!
Whether I’ll be that sparky come week 3 opening who knows but the discovery of the New York Times method about 18 months ago led me to believe it is possible bake high quality loaves from crusty artisan whites to complex, seedy wholemeals with little more than quality ingredients, perseverance and a bit of time to let the flour, yeast, salt and water do its magic.
However, banging a bit of flour and yeast that’s been bubbling away for 18 hours in a scorching hot pot is all well and good but a bit hit and miss for regular bread production. I’ve decided to be a bit more scientific in my approach. Here are the results of my first 2 trials:
Bread 1 – 6th May 2008, 10am
3 cups Bacheldre wholemeal
1 1/4 cups of water (vegas cup)
1 green spoon maldon
1 green spoon yeast
Kneaded for 30 secs to bring ingredients together, very stiff dough
Bread 2 – 6th May 2008 7pm
400mls water
1 green spoon maldon
1/2 green spoon yeast
No knead
Both went in at 11.50 am next day. 20 mins 240 deg with lid on. 40 mins 180 deg lid off.
Cups? Green spoon?? Well I borrowed the cups route from our American cousins in the original recipe, but its not their kinda cups, its actually the Vegas mug (brought back from our recent trip) to be anally precise. I will get around to weighing a cups worth of flour and revert to weights from now on but it is v accurate. The green spoon is a large tea spoon that is perfect for measuring regular measures of dry material.
The first batch is a very dry, stiff dough. The extra long proving time was to compensate this, however even after 26 hours, the bread hadn’t really developed. When baked, it hardly rose and was very heavy with a nutty crust. Interesting but not really a result.
Bread 2 was the more classically ’shaggy’ dough which rose beautifully and given the shorter baking time at 240° had a nice thin crust, good for sandwiches and toasting for scrambled eggs etc. It was however, very spongy – almost like a pre-toasted scone – I’ve had this before with this technique and I think its basically under cooked but an hour should be plenty – too much water I think.
Will be trying another no kneed method with more yeast and a shorter prove time tomorrow and will post the results.
Bread 1
Bread 2
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