Woman’s blog – STARCHDATE 110926.2
9:00 AM
Mikey made the most amazing French Toast from yesterday’s day old bread.
And, there is enough leftover to turn into croutons for Addie’s favorite salads.
10:00 AM
Today’s mission is to use the Classic Italian Loaf recipe again with two changes:
- Use Instant Yeast as the recipe intended.
- Add a water bath to the bottom rack of my oven to increase water content for better crust results.
1:00 PM
I follow all of the steps as I did yesterday but used 1.5 teaspoons instant yeast as the recipe calls for instead of my 2 teaspoons of dry active yeast that I had to substitute yesterday.
1:12 PM
My dough is ready to form into a ball… sort of.
She is way stickier than yesterday.
Did I measure something wrong on the scale?
I think as long as I wet my hands in cold water and knead on the floured surface we might still be okay. But something is definitely different…
30 second knead regardless…
Sings one 30 second round of “Happy Birthday”
And into oiled bowl.
I think it is going to be okay.
Cover and wait 30 minutes to an hour.
2:15 PM
Whoa… she definitely has NOT doubled.
Did I mess everything up?
I will wait another 30 minutes…
Walks past thermostat and sees it is 5 degrees cooler in the house than yesterday.
That can’t be it, can it?
Bumps heat up.
2:45 PM
There she is! She did it. She doubled. My little dough baby was just chilly.
Punch her down, flip her out, shape her up and let her rise again.
3:15 PM
Ugh… she’s struggling again…
What if…
I am going to give her another 15 minutes but place her in the warm but not hot upper over while my bottom over preheats to 450… wish me luck.
3:30 PM
WOAH.
That worked! She LOVED that!
Time to get her prepped for the oven and don’t forget to add a pan of water to the bottom shelf of the oven for today’s experiment.
3:02 PM
She is slit, spritzed and in the preheated pan with an added water bath in the bottom of the oven.
3:22 PM
I checked on her 5 minutes early and I love her color. I may regret this, but I think I am going to pull her early.
Her crust is beautiful and crisp to the touch.
7:00 PM
I am part excited and part terrified that she might be partially raw inside.
But the crust looks way better to me on day two than day 1.
Here goes…
The Results
All in all, from taste, to texture, to crust day two is an improvement over day one.
The process felt more hectic though.
I am not sure if the process was impacted by the yeast change or the house temperature OR if I made a measurement mistake.
I do feel like the oven water bath was a huge success though.
Shortening the cooking time for this loaf was the right call as well.
Experiment Updates for Future Bakes
- I will definitely make sure my thermostat is set to it’s normal setting. I am also thinking of using one of my gardening seedling heating mats as a way to keep temps nice and toasty as tomorrow the weather is going to get chilly again outside.
- I think I will try the instant yeast again before pegging the blame of today’s process on her. But if things struggle tomorrow, I am totally giving her the boot.
- I plan to keep the water bath.
- I think I will also use the residual heat in the upper oven again for my final rise tomorrow.
- I also plan to start a sourdough starter tomorrow… May the Odds Be Ever In My Favor.…
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