[Modernist Cuisine at Home] Sandwich Bread

[Anonymous Modernist 14405]

I tried making the Sandwich Bread from MCAH last night. It turned out okay in terms of crumb size and flavor (a little too salty for my taste, but that's easy to fix). When I tried make a sandwich with it this morning, I toasted the slices and it nearly fell apart coming out of the toaster.

What can I do to make the bread stronger?

[Judy Wilson]

hi mrestko,

I'm not sure about the toasting issue, but as far as salt goes, did you use kosher salt or a fine table salt, and did you weigh it out or did you use the volumetric measurements? We tested the recipes with kosher salt, so if you used a finer-grained salt, and used volumetric measurements, that might have affected the saltiness.

Hope that helps!

Judy

[Anonymous Modernist 14405]

I used kosher salt that I weighed out, I think it's just a personal preference thing.

Do you know if a low hydration level would cause the bread to be weaker? I'm think that maybe because I heated the water mixture and then let it cool on a countertop, maybe a significant quantity of water evaporated (though this seems unlikely). Should the dough be tacky at all when it's done kneading? Mine was pretty dry when I shaped it and put it into the pan to rise.

[Sam Fahey-Burke]

mrestko,

The dough should be pretty moist when it‚’s finished mixing, but it might need additional water. Flours can also vary a lot from brand to brand. For the best results, we recommend bread flour from the brand King Arthur.

Sam

[Anonymous Modernist 16780]

I tried this white sandwich bread recipe and the finished product was very dense and tasted doughy and under cooked.

On my first attempt, I made the full quantity, weighed exactly as specified in the book (850g flour, etc.). This came out very undercooked when i cut into it after it had cooled down, and my attempts to cook it longer didn't really do much except for overcooking the crust. I attribute this failure to my terrible oven thermostat, as I don't believe it returned to 190°C even after 15 minutes.

The second attempt was slightly better, as there was no clearly undercooked sections inside, but it still tasted very doughy. This time, I very closely monitored the temperature with a digital thermometer, with the probe sitting on the rack in the middle of the oven with the bread. Although the temperature dropped to about 180°C when I first put the bread it, I got it back up within about 3 minutes and managed to keep it between 189 and 194°C for the remaining 17 minutes, for a total of about 20 minutes cooking time as specified in the book.

I also scaled down the recipe on my second attempt to compensate for my smaller bread tin. The book specified 400ƒâ€”120mm, but I measured mine as 300ƒâ€”130mm. So I scaled the recipe down by 20% (from 850g to 680g flour, and other ingredients accordingly). For the ingredients with small quantities, I used a 0.01g precision scale, so I know they were accurate.

For the ingredients

* I used all purpose flour, or at least what I presume is equivalent in my country. This particular one I used says it contains 13% protein (13g/100g).

* I used a fine grain sea salt. I don't really know what kosher salt is and it doesn't seem to be available in my country. But since I weighed it, I assume this shouldn't be a problem.

* I wasn't able to find butter milk powder or non-fat milk powder, so I used regular milk powder with fat. I hope that isn't a problem.

* I omitted the sesame seeds and poppy seeds, which I assumed were optional.

Any advice on how to improve my results would be appreciated.

[Judy Wilson]

Have you calibrated your oven? You can find out how to do that here: http://modernistcuisine.com/2013/01/how-to-calibrate-your-kitchen/