One of the great things about blogging is you are able to show your "warts and all". Some of my cooking is rather proficient - I don't mind saying so myself. Without doubt I have attained a fine understanding of Asian cooking, and I think I'm not bad at European styles too. One feather, which seems particularly absent from my chefs hat, is baking. I do seem to be rather rubbish at baking...
Ostensibly, this loaf seemed to be a success. The crust was, well, crusty! The base, when tapped, elicited a hollow echo. It smelled delicious and its appearance was pleasing.
When I cut through the bread it was still rather doughy, so I returned it, reluctantly to the oven for a further spell inside. Again, after another 10 minutes, the same result. A doughy middle.
I do not know what I did wrong, but boy did this piss on my chips. Whenever I see the tag, "artisan baker" and whenever I gape at the astronomical price for a sourdough loaf I will just cast my mind back to this complete and utter baking failure.
I think I'll stick to flatbreads!
heh thats not a bread, thats a monster XD
ReplyDeleteif you'd like i can ask jeroen for his recepy, he's a master when it comes to making bread. we never eat bought bread anymore, once you're used to eating freshly baked bread you'll never want anything else ever again. the difference is in structure, when i eat bread from the baker (which lets face it alot of bakers just buy premade mixtures and hop it in the oven)its just too fluffy and too light and here they always cut your bread to thin. dont come to belgium if you like good bread we dont have any either :/
I would appreciate some good advice actually. Let me tell you what I did:
ReplyDelete: Mix of 75% wholemeal 25% white organic flour.
: 2 tsp yeast in warm water
: salt, about 1 tsp
: olive oil, about 3 tablespoons
Mix to a nice dough, then knead for 10 minutes, until nice and elastic.
Leave to rise for 1 hour.
Knock down. Shape into loaf, slash with knife, allow second rise for 45 mins.
180C fan assisted oven, 20 minutes, then 10 extra.
Still doughy!