Loaf 31 – Lean Bread in New Bannetons

Posted on Mar 16, 2012 in loaves

We got together with Sarah’s family and decided to take bread as a gift. I’m confident with Reinhart’s lean bread recipe now, so that was a given; but I acquired some new bannetons to try out my shaping skills with. The one I have been using at home is for much bigger loaves that I’ve been making, but my new ones are for 1 lb. (~500g) loaves. I got them at San Francisco Baking Institute (sfbi.com) along with the new lamé and a linen couche.

I was much more aggressive in my shaping this time – I wasn’t afraid to press out the bubbles prior to proofing. This made for a nice even crumb, but I’d still like to see some larger holes. Reinhart’s process doesn’t call for a pre-shaping step, but after I made the first loaf for an oval banneton I found the dough was just not cooperating well – it was too sticky right out of the refrigerator. For the other three loaves I did a simple boule and let it rest for 10 minutes before shaping – that seemed to help a lot. The pictures below show the difference between the two oval loaves. I’m pretty sure the fat one was the first loaf that gave me the shaping problems.

I mixed a 50/50 blend of white flour and rice flour to use in the bannetons. I was generous with it and they worked perfectly. The new lamé made a big difference – the sharp razor made the job much easier. It looks like I should have cut deeper, especially on the round loaves, though.

When they came out of the over the crusts were very hard, but by the time they had cooled the crusts had become soft. I read up on this, and it’s likely because the dough is very wet, so after I remove them from the oven there is still enough water in the dough to make steam that softens the crust. I’ve been checking the internal temperature before removing them from the oven, and it’s always been between 205° and 210°, so I’m confident they aren’t undercooked. I did let the round loaves sit in the oven for about five minutes with the oven off and the door cracked open once they were finished, so I’ll try 10 minutes next time. A solution for this is to reheat the loaves in a 350° oven for 5 or 10 minutes before eating, which we recommended to the recipients of the loaves.

Sadly, I didn’t get to do the taste test because they were gifts, but my sister-in-law was kind enough to shoot a picture and send it to me. It looks really nice, and the taste reviews from both families were great.

Lessons

• I want to experiment with proofing times to see how that affects the crumb. I’ll probably do three or four loaves from one batch of dough and bake them in 1/2 hour increments after an hour of proofing.
• Giving away a whole batch is a bad idea. I should have made five loaves instead of four!
• I’m going to try leaving them in the oven for a longer time to see if I can retain a crisp crust.