The loaf also rises
Jan. 25th, 2013 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI made pizza again; and since one batch of dough makes a lot of pzza, invited J. to an impromptu dinner - slightly risky, since she is our friendly neighbourhood Italophile, but I made no claim to authenticity, and she pronounced it good. The dough was 2:1:1 white flour:spelt:cornmeal, and that's a keeper - light, tender and crunchy. Whether or not the lightness is reproducible, the crunch is good.
Things to remember about pizza topping: you don't need as much as you think. The fennel and blue cheese was good, but less of it would have been even better (you will not often hear me say this) and moistening it with cream did nothing but make it harder to handle. Also, although it was good, the sliced beefsteak tomatoes were even better.
The next loaf was supposed to be a chestnut loaf to the same recipe as last time, except firstly that I didn't check the recipe (which is equal quantities chestnut, white and wholemeal flour) and misremembered it as 2:1:1 wholemeal:white:chestnut flour and secondly the dough was quite dry (the starter was less liquid than usual, but not sufficiently so to account for this; it's a mystery) and by the time I'd mixed in the wholemeal flour and the chestnut it had had enough. So I stopped; because erring on the side of too little flour does seem to produce better results.
Since cornmeal had worked so well in the pizza crust, I was keen to try the cornmeal and millet loaf from the Tassajara Bread Book. The only snag was that I couldn't find any millet meal. The Health Cabin had some fine millet flakes, and yesterday I tried using those: 2:1:1 white flour:cornmeal:millet flakes, and this time I added the white flour last so that if I used less of anything than anticipated, it would be that (naturally, since I'd taken this precaution, the case didn't arrive - the dough was if anything on the wet side). It was a cold day, and I didn't rush it - until the last rise, which I had started later than I intended and therefore had only an hour before I needed to get the bread into the oven. I'd divided it into a small loaf and five rolls, and I don't know if these smaller units had anything to do with it rising quite impressively, both before and during baking: it's the first time I've ever had a loaf rise above the rim of the tin. I realised as I was putting it into the oven that I had forgotten to add salt: again, I don't know if this is significant. If it is, I might learn to live with it - on the first mouthful I thought 'needs salt', but thereafter maybe not. Interesting flavour and mmm, crunchy.
Oh, and at lunch today I warmed through the last few slices of the cheese ring, to serve with borscht, and it was so much better than I had remembered, rich and flaky and the mild flavour worked so well with the soup - this was what it had been waiting for.
Things to remember about pizza topping: you don't need as much as you think. The fennel and blue cheese was good, but less of it would have been even better (you will not often hear me say this) and moistening it with cream did nothing but make it harder to handle. Also, although it was good, the sliced beefsteak tomatoes were even better.
The next loaf was supposed to be a chestnut loaf to the same recipe as last time, except firstly that I didn't check the recipe (which is equal quantities chestnut, white and wholemeal flour) and misremembered it as 2:1:1 wholemeal:white:chestnut flour and secondly the dough was quite dry (the starter was less liquid than usual, but not sufficiently so to account for this; it's a mystery) and by the time I'd mixed in the wholemeal flour and the chestnut it had had enough. So I stopped; because erring on the side of too little flour does seem to produce better results.
Since cornmeal had worked so well in the pizza crust, I was keen to try the cornmeal and millet loaf from the Tassajara Bread Book. The only snag was that I couldn't find any millet meal. The Health Cabin had some fine millet flakes, and yesterday I tried using those: 2:1:1 white flour:cornmeal:millet flakes, and this time I added the white flour last so that if I used less of anything than anticipated, it would be that (naturally, since I'd taken this precaution, the case didn't arrive - the dough was if anything on the wet side). It was a cold day, and I didn't rush it - until the last rise, which I had started later than I intended and therefore had only an hour before I needed to get the bread into the oven. I'd divided it into a small loaf and five rolls, and I don't know if these smaller units had anything to do with it rising quite impressively, both before and during baking: it's the first time I've ever had a loaf rise above the rim of the tin. I realised as I was putting it into the oven that I had forgotten to add salt: again, I don't know if this is significant. If it is, I might learn to live with it - on the first mouthful I thought 'needs salt', but thereafter maybe not. Interesting flavour and mmm, crunchy.
Oh, and at lunch today I warmed through the last few slices of the cheese ring, to serve with borscht, and it was so much better than I had remembered, rich and flaky and the mild flavour worked so well with the soup - this was what it had been waiting for.
