Wednesday 30 November 2011

Project Sourdough: Air bubbles part 2

Do you see those glorious air bubbles?

A quick follow up to my post on the elusive texture of sourdough. Speaking to Matt from Brasserie Bread and Tammi from the blogging conference I decided to give an extra long final prove a try.

I left the dough to prove for four / five hours in my banneton while I went out drinking whisky. The loaf had my best texture yet.

I had some great comments to my last post including the exotic sounding slap and fold technique which I'm yet to try.

I think some bread can be a bit ridiculous with air bubbles so large the contents of your sandwich are likely to fall through. I'd like to go for a bit more of an open texture still, but I'm nearly there.

4 comments:

  1. Looks good Richard! And very good use of proving time - I approve ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looking good, actually looks great! I agree with you regarding the holes. Just last weekend went to brunch with some girlfriends, and my meal was served with two pieces of toasted sourdough. One smaller piece on top of a larger one. The smaller one to all our amusement actually just covered the hole in the larger piece!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks good Mr Elliot. Are there many retained bubbles in it before you do the final prove? That can give you some more as well, as long as you keep the outside dough tight... err, know what I mean?

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Tina - somehow I knew you'd approve!

    @Sara - that's exactly what I don't want!

    @Brydie - I can sense some retained air bubbles before the final prove. How do you tell if you've got lots? Learning lots about kneading, handling the dough and keeping it tight. I need to work in a bakery for a while I think!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.