Reggie and I had the delightful experience of attending a demonstration
class given by King Arthur Flour on artisan breads last Thursday evening.
Reggie also went to the sweet dough class in the morning. The classes were
held in a hotel meeting room, so there was no baking - only mixing,
kneading, rising, etc. There is no charge for the class.
In the sweet bread class, the instructor mixed and kneaded a basic sweet
bread dough and then demonstrated numerous shaping, braiding and filling
techniques.
In the artisan bread class, the dough was started with a poolish and was
used to make bouls, baguettes and batards. Although the class was only
about two hours long, the instructor discussed many different aspects of
bread baking and gave us many useful tips, such as:
* Use bottled water or allow tap water to stand overnight to make the
preferment as the chlorine will affect the yeast. Use a very small amount
of yeast - the recipe may say 1/8 tsp because that's the smallest measuring
spoon but only a pinch or two (maybe 1/50th tsp) is enough.
* Thicker preferments give less flavor but have a wider time window when
they are at their peak.
* To get steam in the oven, use a massive container such as a cast iron
skillet preheated at 500 F for an hour along with the baking stone. Put a
pot of water on the stove, bring it to a boil and pour the boiling water
into the skillet. The instructor has a friend that uses a cake pan (8 inch)
containing 8 pounds of stainless steel chunks instead of the skillet. The
larger surface area of the steel chunks produces even more steam.
* The dough in this demonstration was about 60 to 65% hydration. It's not
necessary to oil the container in which the dough rises. To remove the
dough, sprinkle some flour around the edge, where the dough meets the
container. With your scraper, work the flour down the container wall.
Invert the container and the dough falls right out.
The sales pitches were minimal. There was a short talk about KA's flours
being better because of being unbleached and never bromated. There was more
about KA's tight control of the protein level in the flour. The Unbleached
All-Purpose Flour is 11.7% and the Special Bread Flour is 12.7%. These are
held to within plus or minus 0.2%. It was said that the typical supermarket
flour from the big companies varies by as much as plus or minus 2%.
There was a short demonstration of the consequences of +/- 2% protein
variation using some audience members - three people mixed a cup of water
into flour for a few minutes and the doughs were examined. The +2% dough
had pronounced visible gluten strands, the -2% dough was almost as runny as
pancake batter and the KA flour at 11.7% was in the middle. The instructor
pointed out that you will never get repeatable results if the protein level
of your flour varies by too much.
At the end of the class there was a drawing for door prizes. These included
bags of flour, aprons, dough whisks, several copies of the 200th
anniversary KA cookbook and three dough beds.
Our instructor is a retired Navy submariner who has been baking bread for
many years. He is an excellent teacher - very funny and a joy to listen to.
Reggie and I give it four thumbs up! Be sure not to miss this show when it
comes to your neighborhood.
Jeff