Baking with Myhrvold's "Modernist Bread: The Art and Science"

[Raamo]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

Well Dutched or not it worked just fine.  Mine was a gift and came without any labeling. It was part of a larger batch I believe.  

 

Bread seems like the place it might not matter - other baked goods if the PH is important to obtain a desired effect - it would be more important to get the right kind of cocoa.  

[Anna N]

7 hours ago, Raamo said:

 

Bread seems like the place it might not matter - other baked goods if the PH is important to obtain a desired effect - it would be more important to get the right kind of cocoa.  

Yup. And I do know that. And there’s no real explanation about why it matters here.  My assumption would be it has more to do with colour than with flavour and/or the pH.  I understand that even the pH becomes irrelevant when there is only a small amount of cocoa being used relative to other ingredients. 

 

Edited January 17, 2018 by Anna N
Typo (log)

[ChezAndré]

For the Modernist Pita, Soy lecithin is added but i do not recall reading the rational for it.... did i miss that detail explanation as to why i t makes sense?

[Raamo]

Today I made White Sandwich Bread, not sure why they say to egg wash or put oil on top - got WAY too dark, it's rich enough I am not a fan of eating this "fresh" but it makes awesome toast and since there's 40g of sugar in the 1kg loaf - the toast browns nicely.

I made  this in the pullman loaf - but left the top off - which is pretty much required if you're trying to use 1kg of batter.

 

Not sure what I'll do next, this one supposedly gets stale after 48 hours - but since it's bound for toast and possibly french toast I'm not as worried.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'm not sure where to begin:  last night my baguette was clearly overproofed before I even shaped it.  Since the advent of Modernist Bread all my baguettes have been more or less overproofed.  This time I preformed CPR and the result was one of my best baguettes ever.

 

What am I doing wrong?  After autolysis I mix for 10 minutes on speed 1 of the KitchenAid and 2 minutes on speed 2.  I fold the dough, wait 45 minutes and fold again.  After another 45 minutes I divide the dough, pre-shape, wait 20 minutes and then shape.

 

Please critique.

 

If it's not clear this recipe is French Lean Bread.

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

On 1/20/2018 at 9:35 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Since the advent of Modernist Bread all my baguettes have been more or less overproofed.

How does the yeast quantity in MB compare to recipes you've used in the past? Or do you think it's the technique of testing for proof that's causing a problem, rather than the time? How long would you say you end up proofing after you shape?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Chris Hennes said:

How does the yeast quantity in MB compare to recipes you've used in the past? Or do you think it's the technique of testing for proof that's causing a problem, rather than the time? How long would you say you end up proofing after you shape?

 

Thanks, Chris.  Yeast amount is same.  Technique of testing proof (index finger) is the same.  Final proof time has been as short as 20 minutes.  It used to be more like an hour.  The major difference is I used to mix in my Zojirushi bread machine, and now I am mixing with the KitchenAid.  Unless I am mistaken the Zojirushi mixing was less aggressive.

 

I have a baguette and a boule in final proof as we speak.  But the last baguette, the one on which I employed CPR, was wonderful.  When I sliced it lengthwise for the crumb shot (sliced actually for my library lunch sandwich) I was breathtaken.

 

Update:  tonight's baguette seemed a bit overproofed at 26 minutes, but we'll see how it turns out.

 

[Eric Srikandan]

@JoNorvelleWalker can you show us the overprooved baguette?

 

Also, how warm is  the area you are prooving? Curiously I find my dough takes a longer time to prove than suggested in MB. 

My kitchen measured 22c with my thermapen in the air.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Eric Srikandan (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, Eric Srikandan said:

@JoNorvelleWalker can you show us the overprooved baguette?

 

Also, how warm is  the area you are prooving? Curiously I find my dough takes a longer time to prove than suggested in MB. 

My kitchen measured 22c with my thermapen in the air.

 

 

 

Excuse the shaping, I was rushing it.  Usually I do slightly better.  This was with 26 minutes final proof.  Kitchen temperature was 73 (23 Celsius).  Note after I started running the ovens the kitchen got much warmer.  If I'd known you were going to ask I would have used my Celsius thermapen.

 

And I'm thrilled you didn't request a picture of the boule as I rather missed with the peel.

 

[Raamo]

Made Hamburger Buns for the 3rd time.  More I make this the better I feel I can troubleshoot the recipe.  This time I didn't use the fan in the oven, this was the minimum time in a 375F oven.

 

 

[Eric Srikandan]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

 

Excuse the shaping, I was rushing it.  Usually I do slightly better.  This was with 26 minutes final proof.  Kitchen temperature was 73 (23 Celsius).  Note after I started running the ovens the kitchen got much warmer.  If I'd known you were going to ask I would have used my Celsius thermapen.

 

And I'm thrilled you didn't request a picture of the boule as I rather missed with the peel.

 

 

The Baguette looks lovely. I'd be curious to see the unbaked dough in it's overprooved state; and although your kitchen temps are marginally higher than mine, I can't imagine it would make such a big difference.

 

26 minutes final proof also doesn't sound long - maybe your yeast is particularly hyper? When I made some small loaves with the French Lean dough, they still took over an hour for final proof (and they were 80g portions).

 

[kevinkeating]

Hi all, new to this forum, but wanted to share my success with the MB baguette last week (French Lean, direct method because I was short on bread and time). It's the first full recipe I've made from the book, though I've been using it as a resource for the other bread I bake ever since I got it. Made three short baguettes (150g each) in my little IKEA apartment oven, with a tray on the bottom for steam. No crumb shot, but it was soft and fairly open (mixed by hand). I'm in Italy, so my flour isn't exactly comparable to the American stuff, which is always a fun challenge when using any recipes from the US, but I used a mix of stone-ground type 0 flours (which refers to the level of sifting - with 00 being finest/most white, then 0, 1, 2, then whole wheat or "integrale") with different protein contents (one high, one lower) and proofed on a linen couche, seam up, then transferred to an upside down preheated baking sheet.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

5 minutes ago, kevinkeating said:

Hi all, new to this forum, but wanted to share my success with the MB baguette last week (French Lean, direct method because I was short on bread and time). It's the first full recipe I've made from the book, though I've been using it as a resource for the other bread I bake ever since I got it. Made three short baguettes (150g each) in my little IKEA apartment oven, with a tray on the bottom for steam. No crumb shot, but it was soft and fairly open (mixed by hand). I'm in Italy, so my flour isn't exactly comparable to the American stuff, which is always a fun challenge when using any recipes from the US, but I used a mix of stone-ground type 0 flours (which refers to the level of sifting - with 00 being finest/most white, then 0, 1, 2, then whole wheat or "integrale") with different protein contents (one high, one lower) and proofed on a linen couche, seam up, then transferred to an upside down preheated baking sheet.

 

 

Looks darn good to me! Welcome.

[rotuts]

@kevinkeating

 

very nice !

 

like the pointy ends.

[kevinkeating]

12 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@kevinkeating

 

very nice !

 

like the pointy ends.

 

16 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Looks darn good to me! Welcome.

 

Thanks so much! (Big fan of the pointy ends, too...gives a nice dark toasty crunch to whoever's lucky enough to grab "le quignon")  

[Eric Srikandan]

On 16/01/2018 at 6:08 AM, Chris Hennes said:

Nutella Babka (p. 4•225)

 

I had an unopened jar of Nutella in my cupboard that expired something like two years ago (I don't exactly eat a lot of Nutella). Of course, expiration dates for such things are a bit sketchy, and it still tastes and smells fresh, so away we go using the thing up. I used basically the whole thing for this loaf, which is a 25% butter brioche with Nutella swirls (they also have a more homemade filling, but librarians will eat anything so I'm bringing the Nutella into work tomorrow!). The baking time was a bit suspect, but I just kept a careful eye on it and pulled it when I couldn't imagine wanting the crust any darker.

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by Chris's Nutella Babka , I think I'm going to give this a try this weekend. Although I will make the Babka filling as per the book. We don't have pastry flour however - will ordinary plain do or should I mix in some cornflour as per DIY cake flour?

[Chris Hennes]

For the record, I used about 75% cake flour and when I ran out of that, King Arthur all purpose 11.7%.

[Kerry Beal]

Second chance sourdough 

 

 

 

 

[Eric Srikandan]

Well, rolling the Babka was a challenge. The dough was quite sticky and stuck to everything. A little bit of spray release helped a little but it definitely looks messy. Let's hope they taste better than they look!

[Eric Srikandan]

I've baked a monster! Smells amazing though.

[Smokeydoke]

@Eric Srikandan I wonder why it unraveled? It looks delicious, though.

[Eric Srikandan]

28 minutes ago, Smokeydoke said:

@Eric Srikandan I wonder why it unraveled? It looks delicious, though.

I think I let the dough get too warm/soft. Getting it in to the tin was really challenging and so I just stuffed it in.

 

Just tasted the end bits that were trimmed from the "log" and baked in small loaf tins. Tastes fantastic and the Babka filling is really good.

 

I will take one of the loaves to work tomorrow and grab a crumb shot then.

[Chris Hennes]

@Eric Srikandan -- for the record, I put my dough in the "blast chiller" (a.k.a. outside on my patio) until it was cold enough to firm up and be rollable. And I did use a pretty large amount of cooking spray during the roll-out.

[Chris Hennes]

I had another go at the Naan tonight. Of course, I'm drifting pretty far afield of their recipe at this point. I replaced the durum flour with Atta, a finely-ground whole wheat flour, for flavor, and I incorporated the bromelain from the Modernist version into the non-Modernist. I also decided to try them without docking the dough. I'm still not getting the softness I'd like out of the finished product, but the flavor was quite good in this batch.

 

[Eric Srikandan]

Not an amazing distribution of the filling. However still tastes good. I think as per Chris's comments really chilling the dough before rolling will improve things.