BREAD

HOME BAKING.
Baking bread is not the same as baking cake.  Cake baking is more reliable, as long as we follow the recipe to a T and with the right ingredients, the cake is here for us. I am very comfortable with it.
Bread baking can be done by following the recipe, too, but every baking can have different results.  It is because of the various things, they could be the flour, the weather and the method/kneading and the oven to bake in etc.
It is good to follow recipes for baking bread, but more so we have to follow our intuition.

Pictures of beautiful looking bread but they are not quite right.
I had a great time to do bread baking, and the following recipes were so much fun.

Baking French baguette is difficult, it is tough to achieve success.  I am a very keen learner, and I have been trying to bake the bread for some time now,  and yet I have not been successful, so I have to keep on trying.

Sourdough French Baguette.
Using sourdough starter only,  no extra baking yeast.

Freshly Baked Baguette

This baguette looks good just about all, but it is not good enough, look at the scoring, it does not spit as French baker would say, and I tell you what, it has not had decent crumb either.
I did follow a recipe, and also believe in my intuition, but no result, basically! Well, I may do better next time.
The baguette was sliced and delicious toasted.  I did not waste it.


There are so many aspects of failure in bread baking.  Learn from mistakes.

I have been following the recipes of The Larousse Book of Bread by Eric Kayser, thanks Rayner for the gift.  But the result obviously has not been right yet.  Now I have to refer and to read the book to learn more.

Home Bread Baking.
FERMENTATION
Central to the bread making process, fermentation arises from the development of natural 'wild' yeasts in the dough (the sourdough starter) or from the addition of commercially developed baker's yeast - or from a combination of the two.  Baker's everywhere manage this process daily, but, in fact, it is a complex physical-chemical operation.  A good understanding of how the mechanism of fermentation work will help you bake bread that will delight your family and friends. (Eric Kayser-pg 24)

Liquid Sour Dough Starter

I started by preparing the sourdough starter, merely following the recipe, and it is easy enough.

From the starter, the very first bread I baked was the batard,  it was good enough, the crust was not very crusty though, but the crumb was good.  Second I baked a batard and also baguette.  The scoring was not good enough, and the shaping of the baguette was too fat and too short.  I did bake it in a convection oven as I was supposed to do, but the result was not great.

 Batard

Baguette-the shape was too fat, and the scoring does not spit

No, definitely I won't give up, I will try again.  Maybe to start to bake a boule, followed by the batard and the baguette is going to be the last, after all, it is the hardest of French bread to do.

Sourdough bread, from Batard to Tabatiere.

Batard.
The batard was baked in a fan forced oven, the scoring was not successful, the crust too thin but the crumb was not bad.

Boule

The boule looked OK, it has a light crust, and I am not sure about the crumb just yet.  It was frozen right away.

Tabatiere
The tabatiere baked in a convection oven, using a baking stone, it was not cooked enough, and the bread was too dense. Another failure.

Batard,  Boule and Tabatiere

Freshly Baked Batard - the first bread I baked.

The Crumb of the Batard looks OK.

Boule-unsuccessful scoring.

Tabatiere

The crumb of the Tabatiere looks dense, and it was indeed.

It has been suitable for the past few months to do bread baking. The result was not right yet, but  I liked it. I enjoyed the flavour of the sourdough bread, and the family did too.
My aim is baking bread to perfection in my kitchen.

I shall be back, and I will show you my bread baking, and hopefully, this time, I could do a better job, and I can share the recipes with you. 


Until Next Post
Susy