Begginer here. I’ve been struggling with shaping and the final steps of the process since the beginning.
I realized that the glass bowl where I usually cold proofed my dough has holding too much moisture, since the cloth always came out wet, so I decided to buy a round banneton.
Also decided to try the Oven off method that I saw posted here last week, and I think both of these things finally awarded my bread with its first ear! I’m quite happy with it.
It looks a bit under proofed to me, right?
Recipe:
500gr 00 flour (11% protein), 350gr water, 100gr starter, 12gr salt.
Process:
Mix water and flour, autolyse 1,5hr. Mix in starter and salt. Knead.
2 sets of stretch and fold every 30 minutes.
2 sets of coil folds every 30 minutes.
Bulk ferment at room temp until 70%. This took around 6hr.
Pre-shape, rest 20 minutes. Shape into banneton, fridge overnight.
Bake:
Pre-heat Dutch Oven at 250C, put in dough, score, lid on, and turn off oven. 20 minutes.
Turn back oven on for 10 minutes.
Lid off until brown, around 5 minutes.
by Basssico
9 Comments
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Looks great! What kind of banneton?
A tiny bit under yes, but very nice.
It’ll be maximum ear and crumb if you push the proofing as far as it can go without going over. One way to do it is to keep doing the exact same recipe, temperature and same steps, but push the fermentation a little bit further, and keep doing that until you go too far. Then you know what the dough is capable of.
And a slightly overproofed loaf is delicious, so it’s all good.
Honestly, that’s perfect.
I’m inspired to try a banneton after this post. Where does everyone get theirs?
Does not look underproofed at all. Looks under browned though. We’re all different but a darker loaf would give you more of a toasty sweet crust. Great job though!
Wow that looks spectacular!!! Amazing job🤩🤩🙌
From a fellow newbie, this looks fantastic! The colour on it is gorgeous! My first banneton is on it’s way, I can’t wait to use it!
>Pre-heat Dutch Oven at 250C, put in dough, score, lid on, and turn off oven. 20 minutes.
Why not score **before** putting the dough in? I feel like you’re introducing the risk of burning yourself with no added benefit.
Also curious about this technique of turning off the oven. A Dutch oven maintains heat extremely well, so the heat is probably not changing *that* much.
I think the reason you have a ear and such a nice crumb is because your bulk fermentation timing is pretty good (possibly just the tiniest bit under — maybe push 30 minutes to 1 hour more). Nothing more than this. There’s a lot of gimmicks people throw around here, like “take the bread out after 5 minutes and then score it again to get that ear”, but it’s all placebo; might as well do the hokey-pokey and throw rice over your right shoulder before putting your loaf into the oven.
Generally, here’s a good rule of thumb: if a industrial bakery can pull off hundreds of loaves with good crumb and ears on every loaf, do you think they’re doing it with all these extra steps? They’re not.
In any case, great job on this loaf!