Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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gil
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getting a soft crust on a loaf - how ?Had another go at soda bread (packet of Sainsbury's scofa bread mix  after the last few 'make it from scratch' disasters). Has turned out reasonably risen, bit damp in the middle, but edible. Result !
Apart from the crust, which is quite hard though not burnt. My teeth ain't too keen on that.
I 'dusted' it with flour as the bag instructions suggested, and cut a X in the top. Wrapped it in a tea towel when it came out of the oven.
How to get a soft top loaf ?
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mark
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Re: getting a soft crust on a loaf - how ? | gil wrote: | Had another go at soda bread (packet of Sainsbury's scofa bread mix after the last few 'make it from scratch' disasters). Has turned out reasonably risen, bit damp in the middle, but edible. Result !
Apart from the crust, which is quite hard though not burnt. My teeth ain't too keen on that.
I 'dusted' it with flour as the bag instructions suggested, and cut a X in the top. Wrapped it in a tea towel when it came out of the oven.
How to get a soft top loaf ? |
to get a soft crust on normal bread i usually put a bowl of (usually already hot ) water at bottom of the oven - the steam keeps the crust soft. I never tried with soda bread though
Mark
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gil
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thanks for that, Mark, will give it a go next time.
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Bugs
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Re: getting a soft crust on a loaf - how ? | gil wrote: | | How to get a soft top loaf ? |
My mum taught me to wrap soda bread in a thick linen type teatowel (clean) (usually) as soon as they came out of the oven if they were over cooked. It's mandatory to prop the wrapped loaf up against the wall to cool, too. The cloth traps a reasonable amount of the steam and softens the crust but doesn't make it at all wet.
I'm wondering, if your crust is too hard and the middle too moist, whether the oven's not a bit hotter than it says it is?
With "normal" (yeasted) bread, half milk to water makes for a soft crust - it's how I do baps anyway. It does make it a fraction sweeter but still fine for burgers and cheese rolls. Not a lot of use with soda bread though as it's mostly milk already 
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wellington womble
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Sometimes mine come out soft, and sometimes they don't. I don't know why. The only conclusions I've managed so far come to is the opposite of any common sense. bread risen under a wet tea towel (and therefore still soft when it goes in the oven) comes out really crusty, and bread risen in the open or a dry tea towel is softer. The softest bread is risen overnight in the fridge (for it's final proving) and makes the lightest white bread and nicest rolls of all. I give up on soft or otherwise now. I just take what I get!
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dpack
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steam ,
either a posh steam oven or have a hot metal dish in the oven and as you pop in the loaf /ves put boiling water into the very hot dish and shut the door asap
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Jb
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| dpack wrote: | steam ,
either a posh steam oven or have a hot metal dish in the oven and as you pop in the loaf /ves put boiling water into the very hot dish and shut the door asap |
I thought that was supposed to crisp loaves up, hence the sprinking water on french baguettes thing.
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james_so
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| JB wrote: | | dpack wrote: | steam ,
either a posh steam oven or have a hot metal dish in the oven and as you pop in the loaf /ves put boiling water into the very hot dish and shut the door asap |
I thought that was supposed to crisp loaves up, hence the sprinking water on french baguettes thing. |
I thought baguettes were supposed to be soft and french sticks crusty TBH  . I also put a deepish baking tray in the oven and add boling water when I put a loaf in and then cover it with 2 or 3 tea towels while cooling for a softer crust.. I sometimes use milk in place of the water to make the loaf (or 50/50 milk water) which is supposed to make for a softer crust too.
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mark
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spraying breads with water - and having team for first 15 mins seems to make them crusty!
egg glaze is great for a harder crust
(though sometimes canmake a soft brown crust if the it seals moisture in!!
milk glaze better for a soft crust
keeping the atmosphere moist in later stages of cooking seems to promote soft crust especially if you wrap loaf in a tea towel of similar when cooling so the damp steam softens the crust.
however tin loaves an open loaves and baggettes all seem to behave differntly and oven temparature is also important
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Jb
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| james_so wrote: | | JB wrote: | | dpack wrote: | steam ,
either a posh steam oven or have a hot metal dish in the oven and as you pop in the loaf /ves put boiling water into the very hot dish and shut the door asap |
I thought that was supposed to crisp loaves up, hence the sprinking water on french baguettes thing. |
I thought baguettes were supposed to be soft and french sticks crusty TBH |
You're right! My oops not yours.
But the concept is right the steam does seem to be used to make french sticks crusty
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Northern_Lad
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If you can, try baking it in a 'normal' oven, ie, not a fan-assisted one.
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gil
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I think the ordinary oven (fan-assisted) is a large part of the problem.
And the Rayburn oven cannot be temperature-set with sufficient accuracy for baking.
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hedgewitch
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I'm a bit confused...
I've been experimenting with making crusty yeast bread and have had some success. I've put a big bowl of boiling water in a hot oven, then put in the bread - french-stick shaped - for 15 mins on the high temp. Then I've taken the bread off the baking tray and turned the oven down a bit (hot=Gas 8, turned down to gas 6) for 5-10 mins. I also made the bread without any fat - just flour, water, salt and yeast. It came out nicely crusty.
So how does steam make a soft loft if it's making mine crusty?
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Northern_Lad
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| hedgewitch wrote: | | So how does steam make a soft loft if it's making mine crusty? |
I think the difference is in how you use the water, and also the flour you use.
French bread flour really doesn't hold much water, and you sray some water into the oven which instantly turns to steam.
High gluten flours can hold a lot of water, and when you put a bowl of water in the oven it created a moist atmosphere.
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james_so
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I'm guessing here so don't quote me on this, but I think that the steam would stop the crust from burning in a very hot oven allowing a good crust to form. In a (slightly) cooler oven it would help to keep the crust and loaf moist and soft. I'm sure someone will be along to correct me shortly 
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hedgewitch
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Thanks. I am starting to get ever to slightly obsessed with making bread  There are so many permutations from such basic stuff
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dougal
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Gil, I'm not a soda bread maker, but I'm sure that the simplest thing for you to do to soften a hard crust is to trap the bread's own moisture.
This is why your recipe speaks of putting a towel over it.
And why for deliberately crusty bread, you'd put it on a rack when it comes out of the oven, so the bread's moisture can continue to escape.
If the cloth didn't trap enough moisture to soften the crust of your loaf, there are two things to try -
- using a wet cloth. Remove it before the bread gets cool, so it doesn't go all soggy. The cloth will likely be dried by the heat of the bread... (you may need to re-wet it)
- or instead of using a cloth, put it hot from the oven into an empty biscuit tin, and put the top on, leaving it sealed in until cool.
You should probably alter the time/temperature of baking, so as to cook it through, without making such a horny crust.
The size and shape of the loaf (distance from outside to the centre) affects the time taken for the heat to penetrate all the way through, and so the temperature tends to be set so that the crust is properly done in that time...
Water/steam/moisture interaction with crust formation is complex. I'll scan an excerpt from the authoritative text this evening. (Its very very geeky.)
But it should be completely UNnecessary to muck about with extra moisture for soda bread! (Extra moisture at the start keeps the crust stretchy, and so the forming crust does less to restrict the loaf's 'oven spring' (not the same spring when using soda for rising) and at the end of baking more water will actually make the loaf crustier!
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lassemista
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| Quote: | | And the Rayburn oven cannot be temperature-set with sufficient accuracy for baking |
I'm surprised by this - I make bread all the time in my AGA the temperature of which varies wildly. I just have to adjust the time.
Andrea.
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gil
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Baking's not one of my strong points, as you'll have gathered.
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lassemista
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Well I maybe made it seem more skilful than it is. If it's not running very hot, then I just leave it till it's cooked 
Andrea.
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dougal
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| dougal wrote: | | Water/steam/moisture interaction with crust formation is complex. I'll scan an excerpt from the authoritative text this evening. (Its very very geeky.) |
It is.
| Quote: | THE EVAPORATION OF WATER AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF FLAVOR AND COLOR
Let's look at this process in greater detail. You know that water lost from the loaf during baking boils and turns to steam. As it does, it absorbs heat, slowing the rate at which the temperature of the baking dough can increase. This evaporation limits the temperature of the interior of an overcooked loaf of bread to 210 degrees Fahrenheit, just below the boiling point of water, and just above the desired temperature in the middle of a fully cooked loaf.
The temperature of the crust of a loaf, though, can soar above the boiling point of water, since the crust dries out more than the crumb. At elevated temperatures some of the sugar in the crust will break down, become sticky, and participate in two types of chemical reactions:
• First, sugar combines with protein breakdown products (amino acids) in the so-called Maillard reactions. These start when the crust is still moist, at temperatures below the boiling point of water. At higher temperatures the Maillard reactions can produce a deep brown crust color and a variety of flavor molecules.
• The second reaction is caramelization, a reaction in which sugars and their breakdown products interact at somewhat higher temperatures (starting at 275 degrees Fahrenheit, or 135 degrees Celsius) to form complex polymers. This adds brown color and some bitter taste compounds, but caramelization is not as important as the Maillard reactions in the proper browning of bread.
Together, caramels and Maillard products are responsible for much of the flavor and aroma of fresh bread, although of the two, Maillard products are much more intensely aromatic. Only certain sugars — not including sucrose, but including sugars produced in doughs by yeast enzymes — can participate in Maillard reactions. These are reducing sugars, such as maltose and glucose. Sucrose (table sugar) is not a reducing sugar, and does not contribute to browning to the same degree, although enzymes in fermenting dough convert some of it to glucose and fructose, which both promote browning through the Maillard reactions. The aroma of Maillard products differentiates some yeasted products from their chemically leavened counterparts, raised with baking powder.
If an oven is never hot enough to dry and bake the crust sufficiently, bread will cook through without forming attractive crust color or flavor. Bread cooked experimentally in a microwave never undergoes these reactions and is devoid of bread flavor: it's cooked paste. Interestingly, though, steamed or boiled bread is more nutritious in one way: some of the amino acids (especially lysine) in baking bread are degraded by the high heat in the crust, but are not broken down to the same degree when dough is only boiled. The same phenomenon of amino acid loss occurs when bread is toasted. Some nutritive value is lost, but flavor is enhanced.
THE EFFECT OF MOISTURE ON THE CRUST
High moisture content in the dough and high humidity in the oven in the early phase of baking increase the chewiness and color of bread crust. The moisture allows for more complete gel formation in the crust, higher sugar levels, and more sugar reactions. (011 the other hand, an excessively dry oven will produce a crust in which more of the starch remains in its original state.) After a starch gel forms in the crust, further heating and drying toughens it and makes for a strong crust. Heating is of course slower in the interior of the loaf and the crumb gels never get as dehydrated during baking as the crust. It is the push of the relatively liquid crumb, as it is heated, that thrusts apart the slash in the crust, forming the shred of theloaf and completing oven spring.
Because both gel formation (hydration) and gel drying (dehydration) form the crust, it is possible to make an especially crisp crust by either leaving the oven door open for the last few minutes of baking, or by spraying loaves lightly with water once or twice in the last phase of baking.
...
PERFECT CRUST
Moisture and heat are two of the secrets to chewy and colorful crust, the kind of crust that is hard to produce in a metal kitchen oven. The degree to which starch in the dough will gelatinize depends on the presence of adequate available moisture and the maintenance of temperature within a specific range. Because bread crust dries out in the later stages of baking, its temperature will far exceed the boiling point of water, while the crumb will not. This high temperature sets (dehydrates) the starch gel, but excessive drying will crack it and burn it.
One factor that the baker can manipulate is the availability of water during the early stage of baking, when the crust is between 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, during gel formation. At least enough moisture must be present to allow gelatinization before the crust begins to dry out. The crust really gets cooked twice: once wet and once dry. Moisture keeps the developing crust flexible and plastic in the early stages of baking so it can accommodate the oven spring of the dough without ripping excessively or constricting the loaf. Moisture is necessary for the action of the enzymes that release sugar in baking, after the yeast is killed. This sugar is necessary to the Maillard reactions, and the Maillard reactions themselves require the presence of water.
An appropriate moisture level is necessary for the normal formation of starch gels. In an oven that is too cool and too humid the crust gel will be too deep, making a thick, excessively chewy pale crust with little flavor. A hot, dry oven will make a thin, crisp, dark crust with a poorly baked crumb, while crust flavor may be poor because the crust burned too fast for good development of flavors. An oven which is moist and hot at first, and dry and slightly cooler later, will produce a moderately thick, slightly chewy, and moderately crisp crust with full flavor: hearth bread.
Although each loaf of baking bread will release enough water to make about three cubic feet of steam, that moisture is released too late to allow proper conditions for the development of a good crust for that loaf-unless the oven is very small, like a cloche. Ideally the highest oven air moisture level is reached shortly after the oven is loaded and the door is in place. Humidified air has a higher heat content, and will start the baking process that much faster, driving heat into the interior of the loaf. In contrast, a crust which is sprayed directly with cold water will be cooled, delaying gelatinization. Although brick-oven bakers have historically tried to pre-saturate oven air as they swab ashes off the oven floor, most or all of that moisture is immediately lost out the mouth of the oven. Instead, it is probably better to spray into the oven with a three-head fogging nozzle on a garden hose wand (the nozzles are usually used in greenhouses and nurseries) just as the oven is closed. (Pumpup garden sprayers also work, but use one that has never held chemicals.) Direct the spray over, not directly on, the loaves. If more moisture is desired, a wet towel can be draped over the inside of the oven door before it is closed. This should be removed in ten or fifteen minutes, to allow the bread to dry and the crust to set. Don't leave the oven door off for a long time in the early part of baking, as the dough at that time is quite delicate, with softened protein and little gelatinization. A fully loaded and tightly scaled oven shouldn't need supplementary steam after the first few minutes.
If your crust color is poor, look at your fermentation as well as oven conditions. Maggie Glezer addressed this point in an article in the Bread Bakers' Guild Newsletter. The Maillard reactions are catalyzed by the organic acids released in fermentation, and utilize sugars and amino acids that yeast releases into the dough. Over-fermentation will remove these sugars, and starch digestion during baking may be insufficient to restore them.
Small crust blisters are a frequent feature of the crust of hearth breads baked from lean formula dough (no added fat or emulsifiers), especially when the dough has been retarded (refrigerated) during proof. They are caused by escape of gas from the crust. Gas is lost more quickly in cool dough because cooling increases the solubility of carbon dioxide in water. *
*R. C. Hoseney explained that these blisters "are caused by gas being lost from the outer layers of the crust faster than new gas can diffuse into the cells. Thus the cells decrease in size and many are lost completely. Upon baking, the water in the crust will accumulate in the small cells remaining and form the blister" (personal communication). |
R Carl Hoseney is the author of "Principles of Cereal Chemistry" (2nd edn St Paul, Minnesota: American Association of Cereal Chemists, 1994).
The quotation is a small part of chapter 5 of "The Bread Builders" by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott.
Wing is an East Coast medic, and geeky home masonry oven baker. Scott builds wood-fired masonry ovens for his living, and personally bakes a couple of hundred loaves a week for his own customers, just for the fun of doing it. He's in California.
I know of no better book to explain, in detail, what happens and how to control sourdough bread baking. (Even if you can only dream about the wood-fired masonry oven stuff.)
It is NOT a recipe book (except maybe for the oven). Its about processes.
I think its absolutely terrific .
Soda bread isn't utterly unlike yeasted or leavened bread - at least in the crust department, if you allow for the lack of Maillard browning and flavour!
Note that too cool an oven produces a thick, tough crust.
And that a hot oven produces a thinner crust.
Would you expect that? Better believe it!
And water in the last part of the oven baking will harden the crust.
While I can assure you that moisture after the loaf leaves the oven will soften it...
So, bake in an oven that starts hot and ends slightly lower. Similarly the humidity should start high and end rather low. That'll help the loaf to spring and get your bread an interestingly chewy crispy crust that is neither excessively thick, thin, tough or hard.
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jamanda
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Dougal, all that looks worryingly like science! People won't like it!
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gil
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Got a better understanding now, though. Next time, I'll try putting a roasting tin with water in at the bottom of the oven to start with, taking it out after 10 mins and turning the heat down slightly. I might also dampen the tea towel I wrap the bread in as it cools.
****** fan oven !
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dougal
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| gil wrote: | Got a better understanding now, though. Next time, I'll try putting a roasting tin with water in at the bottom of the oven to start with, taking it out after 10 mins and turning the heat down slightly. I might also dampen the tea towel I wrap the bread in as it cools.
****** fan oven ! |
Gil, to *soften* whatever crust you have, the most important thing is to damp it as it cools out of the oven. In order of effectiveness, wrap in a cloth, seal it into a tin, or smother it with a damp cloth.
Now, with the clarity of morning thought, it occurs to me that for *soda bread*, you probably want a crust that is more like a scone or a rock cake's crust (barely there at all) rather than being like the crackly crust of a French 'pain de campagne'.
Hence, I think for a soda bread like that, I'd be trying to minimise the development of a "proper" bread crust.
And to do that, I think it'd be best to keep the humidity pretty *low* throughout. (You are probably going to be using a fairly soft, wet dough, enriched with various fats...)
Yes, do start the oven really hot, and turn it down to allow it time to cook through while preventing the crust burning.
/ gets on soapbox
For 'ordinary' good bread baking, I am convinced that its very important for a 'good' crust that the oven should start *hot* and humid.
As Dan Wing says (above) "In an oven that is too cool and too humid the crust gel will be too deep, making a thick, excessively chewy pale crust with little flavor."
And what 'hot&humid' means is that the humidity must be produced while dropping the oven temperature as little as possible.
With that in mind, I preheat an old iron dish (which holds a lot of heat) in the bottom of the oven as I am heating the oven. I also bake on a pizza stone (and not in a tin), so I allow plenty time for the oven, stone and dish to get up to full baking temperature.
My technique is to have the kettle boiling, slash the loaf, open the oven and land the loaf on the stone, then put (only a mugful or so of) the *boiling* water into the hot iron dish (mind the steam), and get the oven door closed again as fast as possible. (The nearly dry water dish comes out once the loaf has sprung fully, about 10 minutes in.)
Doing it that way, one hits the loaf with the maximum thermal punch, and plenty of water vapour, while minimising the oven temperature drop.
Other methods (of which ice cubes in a thin metal roasting tin just has to be the worst) are going to cool the oven much more, and deliver less water vapour - even if the vapour is condensing (because its colder) hence giving more lasting visible 'steam'. Its not *visible* (condensed, relatively cool) steam you need, its *hot* water *vapour* which isn't visible.
/ gets off soapbox
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hedgewitch
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| Jamanda wrote: | | Dougal, all that looks worryingly like science! People won't like it! |
Personally, I'm not sure I believe in all this science stuff But Cab'll be along soon to convince me there isn't a goddess of the oven, I'm sure.....
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Northern_Lad
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| hedgewitch wrote: | | Jamanda wrote: | | Dougal, all that looks worryingly like science! People won't like it! |
Personally, I'm not sure I believe in all this science stuff But Cab'll be along soon to convince me there isn't a goddess of the oven, I'm sure..... |
I can tell you now: he'd be right. Pixies live in ovens, everyone knows that. 
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hedgewitch
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