There are few things more satisfying than good bread. Sadly, so much bread is mediocre. The good stuff tends to be expensive. I know why someone would charge $5-7 for a single loaf of bread--I understand that they have to pay rent, pay staff and that, too, they're aware they're selling a good prodct--but I always find it hard handing over that much money for bread. Even though I like it. Weird, I know.
Luckily, decent bread isn't hard to make. It's just time-consuming. Larousse Gastronomique offers a few bread recipes and this is the one I've decided to tackle first: the classic white loaf. Not because I'm conservative or anything but because I figure it'll go well with what I plan to do for my 59th Larousse Gastronomique recipe. The dough is made of 675 grams of strong plain flour, 400 mL warm water, two teaspoons of dried yeast, a teaspoon each of salt and sugar and 15 grams of butter. That last ingredient is interesting: the times I've made bread in the past, I've either used no fat or used olive oil. Trust Larousse Gastronomique's team of editors to work dairy fat in there somehow.
I've read or heard or seen somewhere before--multiple somewheres, even--that the amount of flour you need to put into bread dough can vary dramatically depending on climatic conditions and the brand of flour. I experienced this today. Using the flour:water ratio specified in the book I had flour and yeast soup. I had to add a lot of flour before I reached the smooth, elastic dough detailed in the recipe.
I sat the bread in the tin for ten minutes before turning it out onto the wire rack. My housemate, a trained pastry chef, told me this was a mistake. Indeed, the bread had sweated. My housemate said it should dry out okay while the bread sits.
The bread did indeed dry out just fine, although I know for next time to turn the bread out immediatly. It's a nice bread.
No comments:
Post a Comment