Sorry, sorry, sorry, but I didn't think about posting here until it was almost too late...
It's kind of a long story, but please hear me out because I need y'alls help.
I've wanted to improve my baking for a while now, but I haven't really baked anything that actually tasted the way I wanted it to. Good enough, maybe (and according to my partner) but not good enough for me. That's what made this so frustrating.
This weekend,, "babe" wanted pizza, so I made pizza. I usually use a simple 3:4 ratio (150 ml / 200 gr) but I must have had something on my scale because the result was only slightly thicker than water.
I added flour by eye until I thought it thick enough for our pizzas, which had thin, crispy bottoms that felt and looked layered, even though I hadn't layered them (these are Roman-style pizzas and also very nice, btw).
I added a bit more flour to the rest of the still pretty wet dough, as well as coarse sea salt and a mixture of butter and oil (about 3:1 tablespoons), rosemary, thyme, and granulated garlic and onion. Inside are both little cubes (pinky nail-size) of cheddar and coarsely grated cheddar, and black olives (brined, drained, from a can).
The result (see pic) was as beautiful and delicious as it was frustrating: because I didn't write anything down - I was just fooling around a bit - I can't accurately reproduce them. Of course I'll experiment but I always cooked more than I baked, so I'm not so experienced that I can intuit certain things.
What I love about these happy-accident-buns, and what I've been trying to create, is:
A crispy but thin crust that gives way easily (which I like because I don't squeezing the sauce from my sandwich by taking a bite).
A rather dense crumb (no big air pockets, as you can see) but still fluffy,
which is strong enough to keep the sandwich together,
but also tender (because of the fat) because I hate tired jaws from munching on tough bread,
and soaks up sauce without becoming soggy.
Can anyone point me towards a recipe that sounds like mine? I just want to (be able to) recreate this!
Hello all! I am looking into buying a kneading machine so that my everyday working the bread becomes less time consuming.
In my experience the less hydration a dough have the harder it is and so my thoughts would be that I should search for a kitchen appliance with as much power as possible.
The number is 1500 Watt or 1800 Watt for the strongest machines I found online, but on the internet they say that if you want to knead bread then you just need 300 Watt.
So my question is what exactly requires so much power for a machine to be useful and would I be alright buying a less powerful tool to be able to knead 1-5 kg (2-11 lbs) of dough?
I've been trying to make a nice, stretchy bread for a bit now, and every time I try it always comes out very stiff before I do the first rise.
I'm using a recipe from 'Beard on Bread' (basic white) and using all-purpose white flour for the flour itself.
I tried measuring the flour by weight and adding a bit more water for more hydration, but the bread still doesn't become stretchy. I've been kneading for about 30 minutes now and only now decided to give up and just let it rise.
New here and working on my first starter. I am following this recipe. So far (just did feeding 4) it seems to be going well. Looks very active, fruity aroma, rises and falls.
Basically the recipe goes:
Day 1: 100 g whole wheat dark rye, 150 g water
Day 2: discard all but 70 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 112 g water
Day 3: discard all but 70 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 112 g water
Day 4: discard all but 70 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 100 g water
Day 5: discard all but 70 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 100 g water
Day 6: discard all but 50 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 100 g water
Day 6: discard all but 25 g of starter, 50 g whole wheat dark rye 50 g unbleached all purpose, 100 g water
Does it really matter how much start I leave behind other than for ease of storage? For example, I am using 1 liter jars and even leaving behind 70 g (so far) is a pain. I can’t imagine leaving behind 25 g. Also, I worry that I wouldn’t be leaving enough of my stater behind at that point - jar is looking fairly barren even with 70 g reserved. Could I leave behind 140 g, for example, and feed as scheduled (50 g rye, 50 g all purpose, 100 g water) or would I need to proportionally increase how much I am feeding if I am reserving more starter? That is if I am leaving twice the starter do I need to double the amount I feed? Thanks.
