Loaves 17 – Science! My Flour Bake Off
As the first step in my new Scientific Method for Learning How to Bake Great Bread (there is no acronym for this), I’m comparing the three flours that I’ve been using – Whole Foods Organic, King Arthur, and Gold Medal.
The Contenders.
I made three versions of 1/3 size batches of the French bread recipe using a different flour in each. Each one should make a nice small boule. The ingredients are:
- Flour – 227 g
- Salt – 1 tsp
- Yeast – 3/4 tsp Active Dry
- Water – 151 g
After watching a bunch of YouTube videos late last night I began to appreciate hand kneading, so rather than sending everything through the mixer I did these batches all by hand. Indeed, there was a real joy to doing it manually. Each one took about ten minutes to mix, rest and knead before heading to the fridge overnight.
22 hours later, they came out of the fridge all having risen the same amount. I shaped them into boules and let them rise for about two hours. To keep track of them I wrote on the parchment paper they rose and baked on, and I also cut a quick paper stencil of their initials. (W, K and G) and used that to put a flour stamp on each one before baking.
I baked them on a pizza stone in a pre-heated 500° oven that I remembered to lower to 450° to bake. I used a cup of hot water in a pre-heated pan in the bottom of the oven. They baked for about 22 minutes, and I rotated them a few times in case of hot spots in the oven.
Results
- Most importantly, they were all good!
- During the preparation process I didn’t notice a difference in how they behaved – I had anticipated that they may hydrate differently but that was not apparent.
- Visually they were almost identical, with the exception that the Whole Foods Organic loaf was a bit whiter.
- The crust and crumb were the same in all three.
- There was a taste difference. The Whole Foods Organic was undistinguished. The King Arthur flour had a hint of sour or tanginess, and was definitely chewier than the other two. The Gold Medal flour tasted sweeter than the others.
Our favorite was the Gold Medal, which surprised us. We thought that the most generic (or at least most mass-marketed) brand would be the blandest.
The next step in my scientific journey will be to figure out how to get a much more interesting crumb. But first, I’m trying making sourdough bread again with my starter, and I’ll probably make ciabatta for guests on Sunday since that is our favorite so far and I’m confident I can do it well.
Note: I could have counted this as three loaves, since they were made with different ingredients, but because it was a single process and experiment I opted to count them as one. Besides, I’m in no big hurry to finish.
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- The Contenders.
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- Equal portions, made in parallel.
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- Enjoying doing all the mixing and kneading by hand.
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- Gold Medal, ready to do a slow fermentation in the fridge.
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- The Nursery.
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- After a night in the fridge, they all looked like this.
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- Nice glutes.
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- Boules of each loaf, about the size of a baseball before rising. Marked on the parchment with pencil which is which.
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- After rising. Scored and with a flour initial stenciled on each one to keep track.
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- Out of the oven they all appear equivalent. W, K and G flour stencils still legible.
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- Another view.
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- Very similar crumb. The Whole Foods Organic flour seems a bit whiter.
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- Lunch!
