Dough Notes

Alright, let's start with a picture illustrating what I was saying last week about bread in Norway. We were told that this was the best bakery in Oslo. We didn't stop there, so we just have to believe it, fact is, it looked very good through the window!

Now, for this week, we have to report some major drama... it started all so well! Last week there was a really interesting program on TV, called 'The Great British Back Off'. They were doing bread this time, so we watched and took mental notes. Not that our bread has been bad so far, but of course we're always ready to learn and improve. It's all about the yeast, the temperature, the amount of sugar and salt (that's possibly the reason why I like to be rather vague about those amounts, so nobody can claim that I was giving wrong instructions!)

So, here we are, and this time we tried to do it really 'proper' according to what we learned. Preparing the yeast with the right amount of warm water (1/3 boiling and 2/3 cold) and the right amount of sugar. Keep it in a warm place for about 15 minutes... the surface should froth, but maybe the bubbles where still there from the whisking? I don't know...
Nevermind, I got 400 grams of white flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, a dash of olive oil. Added some nice ale from Dorset to get the amount of liquid right (approx. 150ml for preparing the yeast, so we needed another 100ml, more or less). Now, one thing I seemingly always did wrong was that I worked the dough just roughly in the beginning and thoroughly after the 1 hour rest, in which the dough size should double. Okay, if that was wrong, let's see how it done right: Work the dough thoroughly, cover with a wetted tea towel and leave in a warm place for an hour. Guess what, it didn't rise! Something was not going according to plan, but we ignored the warning signs, kneaded the dough (that is to get the non-existing air bubbles out), let it rest for another 30 minutes, in which it didn't rise either.
Oh well! Still put it in the oven and 20 minutes later we had a lovely looking brick. Crust was not too bad, it sounded right when tapping, but when we cut it, it was practically raw dough inside. What a disaster!

Anyway, today we started all over again, used more yeast, more sugar. Warmed the ale before subjecting the yeast mix to it. To cut a long story short: The result is better. If that doesn't sound too enthusiastic it's because I'm not convinced. The dough did rise, but far from what it was supposed to. The bread stayed fairly compact, at least it looks really interesting! So, we did cut, we did try. Not too bad. Actually, it is better than expected. But the next time I'd like to see something more convincing... or is our baking career grinding to a hold? I hope not!