Goth Panda

I was thinking about trying to fit both Kaiser Rolls and Lavash Crackers in this past weekend, but as it turned out, I only had time for the Kaiser Rolls. I made the pâte fermentée on Friday, and then baked the rolls on Saturday.

First I mixed the dry ingredients: bread flour, salt, diastatic malt powder, and instant yeast.

Then I added my pâte, egg, oil, and water. Doesn’t this look appetizing? No?

For some reason, not only have I started to knead by hand, but I have also started to mix by hand. I start off with the dough whisk, but after it gets fairly mixed up, I feel the urge to reach in and smush it around until everything is well-mixed.

Then I start kneading with the KitchenAid, but usually take it out and finish it by hand. I don’t know what is wrong with me.

This dough was very sticky and needed more flour to come together.

Incidentally, has anyone been using an autolyse on any of these doughs? I don’t think Reinhart really goes into the autolyse in the BBA book, and none of the recipes direct you to do it. I was thinking of trying to incorporate it in one of the future breads and see if it makes a difference, since I have never done it before. I got the idea because I have been reading other bread books, but I haven’t had the time to bake anything from them, since BBA consumes almost all of my baking time.

I put my dough into the same KAF measuring beaker I used last week:

And yet again, my dough almost overflowed:

This is partially my fault, since I went out and didn’t get back until two hours had passed. However, I am starting to think that the tall shape of the beaker helps the dough rise higher. This may have no basis in fact.

I took out the dough and shaped it into boules. I did have six, although there are only five here for some reason:

I used my scale to get them roughly even, but I think each of them was more than 4 ounces.

Since I didn’t get a kaiser roll cutter, I decided to try the knotting method. I rolled the dough out and double-knotted it according to Reinhart’s directions: first like tying a regular knot, and then pushing the loose ends through the center again, one through the top and one through the bottom. Does that make any sense?

It kind of worked for me, although I had a hard time getting the dough to roll out long enough to make all the required knots.

I also decided to use my KAF roll pan for the rolls. I figured since I have a roll pan, I should use it.

I flipped the rolls over halfway through and then preheated the oven.

I decided to add sesame seeds to the rolls, so I spritzed them with water and sprinkled on the seeds. I almost regret doing this, because for the next few days I found sesame seeds discarded by my rolls everywhere. It’s a miracle even one made it into our mouths.

I baked these for ten minutes and then turned the pan. After fifteen more minutes they were ready. I took their temperature and all were well above 200 degrees F.

These tasted delicious. I am not a huge kaiser roll fan, but if I were, I would make these all the time. They were fairly easy to make and came out just like a kaiser roll should.

I think my roll pan caused them to spread upwards instead of out (like it does for my hamburger buns), so my kaiser rolls were rather taller than wider.

And here’s the crumb shot. We have been using these for sandwiches all week. It is nice to have another “small batch” recipe that isn’t going to take up residence in my freezer. I give these a 4 out of 5.

I have been neglecting both my bread baking and poor Goth Panda recently. First I closed on the house and moved all my worldly possessions. Then we started arranging everything, buying all the things we need for a house that we didn’t have (I don’t want to count the number of times or amount of dollars I have recently spent at Lowe’s), and hosting an open house. So this weekend, I tried to get back into my bread baking routine. I started by making the biga for the Italian bread on Saturday. But somehow I didn’t get to baking the bread on Sunday.

In fact, I was too busy to make it until almost the very last minute. The biga is supposed to be good for three days in the refrigerator, and I made it on Tuesday after work. I started by taking the biga out to warm up to room temperature.

Unfortunately I forgot about it and went out to caulk. [And also get eaten alive by mosquitoes.]

So after almost two hours had gone by, I saw the biga on the counter. I was almost afraid of it.

But I went ahead. I mixed together the rest of the flour, yeast, water, olive oil, malt powder, salt…am I forgetting anything? Oh, yes, and the scary biga. And mixed it all together. I started using the dough whisk, and then ended by mixing it by hand to make sure everything got incorporated.

Then I kneaded it for four minutes in the Kitchen Aid. You know, I bought my Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer not too long ago. I wavered between getting the Artisan and the Professional, and I remember reading a review that said the only reason to get the more expensive Professional was if you would be using it frequently for kneading bread. I thought to myself at the time, I won’t be needing it for that.

Little did I know.

Then I finished kneading by hand. I popped it into a King Arthur Flour measuring beaker.

It was almost 8 p.m. by this point, and I was really hoping that my bread would rise quickly because I wanted to go to bed at a decent hour. I will admit that I was willing to sacrifice bread quality for a decent night’s sleep.

Still, when I checked on my bread after an hour of rising, I didn’t expect to see this:

I quickly set about shaping. I think I did it badly, because the loaves turned out very similar to the baguettes of the last challenge, very long and slim. I think Italian bread loaves should be shorter and fatter than these.

I baked them on the sheet pan again, because my pizza stone is too small to fit both loaves. Since the move, though, I do have a standard-size oven. Maybe on one of my next trips to Lowe’s I should pick up some of those unglazed quarry tiles everyone is always talking about.

I will also confess that I didn’t “prepare my oven for hearth baking” this time. I was in a rush to get this bread finished, and I didn’t want to mess around with a steam pan or spritzing. I also have been wondering what the difference would be, so I thought I would refrain this time and see what happened.

I think the crust turned out softer and less crackly. I did hear the fabled crackling crust on the cooling baguettes last time, but no crackles this time.

I also think I’m not doing a good job of slashing. I was reading Reinhart’s instructions, and trying to keep the blade almost parallel to the loaf, but I think the result has been that I am not slashing deep enough.

My crumb shots came out overexposed, so you will have to trust me when I say the crumb was very even, with not a lot of big irregular holes. I wonder if I should have hydrated more?

However, the bread tastes really good. I was surprised at how sweet it tasted. I would like another try at this recipe when I’m not so rushed.

Since I now feel like I have fallen behind on my BBA baking, I am considering trying to knock out both the Kaiser Rolls and Lavash Crackers this weekend. This plan could get pushed to the side if the weather is nice, because our pool is still open and it hasn’t lost its novelty yet. I have a neat little pink pool float with a canopy shade and everything. If that is the case, I can almost guarantee that I will be busy making coconut rum daiquiris instead of working on my bread baking skills.