Today’s Bake

Another attempt at Paul Hollywood’s Basic White Bread. This time, I used only King Arthur’s bread flour. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention to the recipe, and I used 350mL instead of 270mL of water, which made my dough very sticky. I then ended up adding more flour as I kneaded, but I don’t think I added quite enough.

I let the dough rise in my home office, which was 5°F warmer than my kitchen. The smell was amazing.

One of the things I need to learn more about is the process of shaping the dough after the first rise, before it goes into the tin. I don’t think I’m doing it correctly. Either I’m handling it too much, or I’m not shaping it assertively enough.

I don’t think I let it prove quite long enough. I haven’t really figured out what I should be looking for. I just go based on the recipe and instinct, and I haven’t baked enough yet to have a good feel for it.

I baked it for 28 minutes (the recipe calls for 25-30 minutes. I think it could have used a bit longer, especially since it was bigger than what the recipe would have expected (since I added more water).

You can see that while I was closer to letting it prove enough, I wasn’t quite there. The tearing on the sides is more visible when you look from the side:

My understanding is that when the dough hasn’t proved enough, it continues to rise in the oven. If the crust has already formed, the additional rise will simply burst out, and that creates the tearing visible on this loaf (and all my previous bakes as well).

Still, it was decent for both sandwiches and toast and jam.