The Bread Topic (2016–)

[Orbit]

Newbie question: Can you put pizza dough in the freezer for use later?

[ptw1953]

I do exactly that; although if left in the freezer for more than a month, I can feel the difference when rolling it out.

 

So I make 8 x 160g balls per month, well wrapped in cling-film, and in a ziplock bag, for the 12" thin-crust pizzas we enjoy the most...

[Orbit]

8 minutes ago, ptw1953 said:

I do exactly that; although if left in the freezer for more than a month, I can feel the difference when rolling it out.

 

So I make 8 x 160g balls per month, well wrapped in cling-film, and in a ziplock bag, for the 12" thin-crust pizzas we enjoy the most...

Thanks! I'll be sure not to leave them in too long.

[andiesenji]

4 hours ago, Orbit said:

Thanks! I'll be sure not to leave them in too long.

You can "recover" any "tired" frozen dough.   

Allow it to thaw completely.  Cut it into chunks.  If you have a bread machine, put it into the machine with 1/2 cup flour and 2 or 3 tablespoons of water  and 1/2 teaspoon years.   Or throw everything into the bowl of a mixer with the dough hood and let it go until it again looks like "live" dough.

I have used this method with dough that has been frozen for a year or more, vacuum sealed.  

 

Also works with overproofed dough when you have fallen asleep and not heard the timer. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Another week.

 

 

 

Cheese is waiting.

 

 

[andiesenji]

On 8/25/2019 at 2:52 PM, andiesenji said:

You can "recover" any "tired" frozen dough.   

Allow it to thaw completely.  Cut it into chunks.  If you have a bread machine, put it into the machine with 1/2 cup flour and 2 or 3 tablespoons of water  and 1/2 teaspoon years.   Or throw everything into the bowl of a mixer with the dough hood and let it go until it again looks like "live" dough.

I have used this method with dough that has been frozen for a year or more, vacuum sealed.  

 

Also works with overproofed dough when you have fallen asleep and not heard the timer. 

 

This is sort of a baker's "secret"  because baker's have accidents too, just as home bakers do. And bakers are FRUGAL, truly!

 

I started worked in my mother's bakery when I was fifteen.  At first it was just a couple of hours after school, mostly doing cleanup, scrubbing sheet pans, cake pans, sweeping, scraping and scrubbing the bench, and all the other cleaning tasks where I was needed.

Then she wanted me to learn to read the formulas, load the mixers to take some of the load off the bakers so my hours were extended to later in the evening.

Bakeries operate at night - back then, in the mid-'50s there was no AC and it was cooler at night in the summers (Wisconsin).

There were occasional mistakes.  A mixer bowl of dough was stuck into the walk-in and forgotten until too late to fix it and bake it off for that day.  Or on one occasion when we had a huge order for our regular bread for the town picnic, two racks were shoved into a corner and totally forgotten.  Way overproofed, slack, flaccid dough, dumped onto the bench.  Not enough for the big bread mixer so it went into one of the 80 quart Hobarts, along with some water, flour and a quarter pound of yeast (we used fresh block yeast).  

It was like magic, when the two bakers lifted the bowl and dumped the dough into the small dough trough and rolled it into the proofing cabinet, it was ALIVE!

From that point on, it was treated just like freshly mixed dough and it was scaled, sheeted and panned and baked off perfectly.

 

And that is how I  knew how to resurrect  "ruined" dough.  

And you can do the same with dough that hasn't risen because maybe you forgot to add the yeast.  

 

I hate to see any food thrown away if it can be fixed.

[andiesenji]

I have some baking things I want to sell. NEW!   2 linen-lined Bannetons  and extra heavy  raw linen couche yardage. I have 2 yards 31" wide.

I had forgotten I had these -  it has been more than 10 years since I purchased them and apparently "put them away in a safe place"  which turned out to be so "safe" I lost them.

I have had this HUGE box - my portable fridge/freezer for my van came in it  and I have written on the outside "CAMBRO & ETC"  as it is where I store the biggest Cambro containers 22 quart and smaller, when not in use.  I haven't needed any for years, obviously.  I had some other boxes stacked on top.

I cracked one of the large lids for a 12-quart Cambro so moved the other boxes off, opened the box, retrieved the lid and then noticed there was an opaque white plastic bag under the stack of the big containers, stored upside down.   I pulled the bag out and "discovered" these two, never used bannetons -  I had 4 smaller ones that I used a lot - and this large piece of linen couche cloth.

I know I bought either 3 or 4 yards of the linen and cut off some because I used to have the floured material in my freezer.

The large banneton is for 4 pounds of dough,  11 1/2"  loaf.    The smaller one is for 3 pounds of dough, 10 1/2" loaf

Anyway, I have no use for these. I don't bake that much any more so want to sell them and will put them on ebay later but thought I would offer them here first as I will sell them for less to eG folk.     P.M.  Me if interested. 

The weight of the three items in a box  18 x 15 x 9 is less than 4 pounds.  

You can go to the USPS site and calculate shipping to your zip code via Priority mail.

I have to use Priority because I am unable to take packages to the post office.

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by andiesenji (log)

[Ann_T]

Made two batches of dough on Wednesday, both 500g batches.    

One made two pizzas for dinner Wednesday night and the other went into the fridge until yesterday.

 

Baked four small black pepper can cheese baguettes.  I fold the cheese in during shaping, rather than during the initial stretch and folds. 

 

 

One with just cheddar, one with a combination of cheddar and Gouda and two with Gouda. 

 

 

[andiesenji]

20 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

Made two batches of dough on Wednesday, both 500g batches.    

One made two pizzas for dinner Wednesday night and the other went into the fridge until yesterday.

 

Baked four small black pepper can cheese baguettes.  I fold the cheese in during shaping, rather than during the initial stretch and folds. 

 

 

One with just cheddar, one with a combination of cheddar and Gouda and two with Gouda. 

 

 

GORGEOUS.  I am drooling here.  Love cheese bread done this way.

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Are there any trucs in making cheese breads?     Regardless of how much or what kinds of cheese i use, it seems to disappear into the bread, adding little in flavor.      Thoughts?

[Kerry Beal]

At what point in the process are you adding it?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

8 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

At what point in the process are you adding it?

 

After the first rise.

[Ann_T]

@Margaret Pilgrim, @Kerry Beal, I never add the cheese during the kneading/stretch/fold stage because then it just seems to disappear into the dough and you can't really see it.

    I like the cheese to be visible and the flavour more pronounced so I don't add the cheese until I am shaping the baguettes.  After the bulk fermentation.

 

I grate it fairly coarsely and just top the dough with the cheese, and then as I fold into the shape, I add more cheese which gets covered as you continue to shape.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Ann_T (log)

[andiesenji]

I listed the Bannetons and the couche material on ebay.

I checked  several sources for prices, which retail averaged between 125. and 140.  so I listed the bundle for $80.  

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Something I've noticed about my recent weeks or months of baguettes (or batards, or whatever you should want to call them):  the crumb has been fantastic.  But the crust has been soft.  I don't achieve the marginally deficient crumb with shatteringly crisp crust I was used to.

 

Should I have to have to choose, I suppose I would take crumb over crust, but I'm not sure why I cannot have both.  Maybe I just need to bake my baguettes longer.

 

 

Edit:  though it may just have to do with humidity and summer in new Jersey.

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[Ann_T]

@JoNorvelleWalker, not an expert here, but I'm guessing it is because your loaves are not baked long enough.   Sometimes I take them out a little sooner than I should

because if truth be told, I don't really like the really dark crust that some prefer.   When I do that, the crust softens up.  I tried to leave them in long enough so that they sing when they come out of the oven.

 

  Yesterday I made two batches of dough, both 500g.  One is still in the fridge and will get baked today.  I had to go into Victoria yesterday afternoon so both batches went into the fridge and Matt took one out for

me around 4:00.   

 

Started in the CSO on the bread setting and baked for 12 minutes and then transferred to a stone in the Oster for another 8 minutes.      Instead of taking 20 minutes each

in the CSO, I can bake four in half the time and still get the benefit of the initial blast of steam.

 

The last baguette came out of the oven just before bed.

Sliced this morning.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

This morning I re-gelatinized the starch of the baguette by the Modernist Bread method, reheating to 77C.  The crust was lovely for my lunch.  Now I've re-gelatinized the boule.  About to go enjoy it with fruit* and cheese for my dinner.

 

 

*liquid and solid.

 

[ElsieD]

Here in Canada at a store called Bulk Barn we can buy Sourdough Flour Mix.  It makes pretty good bread.  The instructions that comes with it call for baking it in a bread machine which I have done a few times but today I used the dough  cycle and baked it in the oven.  I used my pan de mie pan which is why it is squarish.

[andiesenji]

ElsieD, it looks perfect to me.  

Also, love your teapot.  

I have a collection of teapots.

I never met a teapot I didn't like!

 

[dtremit]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Here in Canada at a store called Bulk Barn we can buy Sourdough Flour Mix.  It makes pretty good bread.  The instructions that comes with it call for baking it in a bread machine which I have done a few times but today I used the dough  cycle and baked it in the oven.  I used my pan de mie pan which is why it is squarish.

 

I wonder if that mix uses a "devitalized sour"? I noticed those on the Lesaffre site recently when trying to figure out the difference between the different SAF yeasts 🤣

[dtremit]

Delayed photos of latest experiment. Decided to split my usual dough in half. I mixed the dough, autolysed, mixed in the salt, then divided. This half was machine kneaded, and baked in a Lodge combo cooker. Other one is resting in the fridge; I'm going to leave it for a few days and then try baking it off the same way. I noticed recently that I was really pleased with the flavor of my bread after a few days' dough rest, and if I can reduce the kneading at the same time, all the better.

[ElsieD]

43 minutes ago, dtremit said:

 

I wonder if that mix uses a "devitalized sour"? I noticed those on the Lesaffre site recently when trying to figure out the difference between the different SAF yeasts 🤣

 

This is the ingredient list from their web site.

 

Ingredients:

Wheat flour unbleached, San Francisco sourdough (wheat flour, salt, fumaric acid, sunflower oil, sodium diacetate, lactic acid, modified palm oil, silicon dioxide, ascorbic acid, L-cysteine hydrochloride, amylase), sugar, shortening powder (coconut oil, maltodextrin, sodium caseinate, monoglycerides, dipotassium phosphate, silicon dioxide), whey powder, wheat gluten, malt flour.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Here is a forum question.    How long does your home bake bread maintain its first day flavor and texture?    DH tires of our loaves in 24 hours.    Of course, they have value in different guises, but they lose their ethereal-ness early on.    I don't find this astonishing.   For me, after it loses it virginal bloom, I grill, toast and sop. 

 

Your opinions?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Here is a forum question.    How long does your home bake bread maintain its first day flavor and texture?    DH tires of our loaves in 24 hours.    Of course, they have value in different guises, but they lose their ethereal-ness early on.    I don't find this astonishing.   For me, after it loses it virginal bloom, I grill, toast and sop. 

 

Your opinions?

 

A few hours at most...but I bake but once a week.  I am not virginal.