On the other hand, you have more fingers. I have trouble with
absolute statements about bread making... as soon as I make one,
someone with more/different experience tells me another way to do
things. Or that I'm wrong. In the end, it's about the bread.
Maggie Glezer <glezer@mindspring.com> wrote:
>But I know from experience that for a one-pound bread, and that is a
>big "if", 35 minutes at 350 degrees F should be fine.
Then Kees Docter, a baker I respect (the mad Dutchman in the BBGA)
adamantly insists that 350 F is too low a temperature to bake any
bread, unless you have a convection oven which he also disapproves of.
>Determining when a bread is done takes experience. I encourage my
>students to drop the thermometer. I cannot really figure out when
>this tool got to be in the home bakers tool box, but I can tell you
>I hate it. No professional worth their salt would ever poke large
>holes in his or her bread to see if they are done. Through
>experience you learn about the time and temperature a bread takes to
>be fully baked. That means sometimes erring to the too doughy, and
>sometimes erring to the over baked. But after some time, you can
>see and feel the results.
The problem for a professional baker is turnover. It is very
expensive to train a new baker to have the experience. You can't
sell under, or over, done loaves. So, you tell your trainee to poke
the bottom of the loaves, or that the poked loaves will be used for
sampling. But using a thermometer really speeds the learning
curve. Especially when a braided bread feels different from a boule,
which feels different from a baguette which feels different from a
sandwich loaf. Of course, every tool has it's learning curve, but a
number of good professional bakers use them. Admittedly, more good
professional bakers find them abhorrent, but the verdict is far from unanimous.
>If you are really nervous about the bread, here are a few other
>possibilities (to make you feel better about giving away your thermometer):
>Use a wooden skewer instead of steel--only really wet batter sticks
>to steel, but doughy crumb will stick to a wooden skewer. Poke it
>in in a very inconspicuous place. Better yet, look at the deep
>creases between the strands. If they look doughy, and feel mushy
>when gently pressed, the bread probably needs more oven time.
I'm not sure how sticking a loaf of bread with a metal or wooden
skewer is better than sticking it with a thermometer. Either way a
nice loaf of bread has a hole in it. If it's a learning tool, so is
a thermometer. I agree about the testing for a Challah. As does
George Greenstein.
>For French style breads, the Calvel rule is excellent, they almost
>always are under baked by home bakers--give it 5 more minutes. Pick
>the breads up and check their bottoms, they should be well browned
>and sound hollow when thumped.
I agree most Americans underbake their bread, and that includes
professional bakers. Many American professional bakers knowingly and
intentionally underbake breads because they have found they can't
give away a properly baked loaf, much less sell it. I am, at times,
convinced that many Americans are afraid of food with real
taste. It's certainly getting harder and harder to find. From beef
to beer to barbecue to bread to fruit to tomatoes to vegetables to
you name it, the taste has been eroding out of food for
generations. I encourage my students and web site visitors to bump
the baking time by 5 minutes each time they bake bread until they
know they've gone too far. It's amazing how many notes I've gotten
from people who say their bread is better now. 80% or more of the
flavor is in the crust. But the crust has to caramelize to get there.
Despite having been a hobbyist baker since the mid 1970's, and a
professional since 2001 or so, I have never been able to depend on
the "hollow sound" theory. Any more then I've been able to thump
water melons to see if they are ripe. It just seems like an old
husbands tale to me. Feel and smell, educated by judicious use of a
thermometer, do work.
>Remember to make plenty of mistakes and note the results, it's
>really all cause and effect. This is the only way to master bread making!
Heh, heh. No worries there. The only way to avoid mistakes is to do
nothing... and that's often a mistake also.
Best wishes,
Mike
*Bake With Mike <http://www.mikesbread.com>*
Mike Avery
Email to: mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
Mike's Bread Logo
A Randomly Selected Bread Saying Of The Day:
'With the bread eaten up, up breaks the company'
- from Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervanetes