Cap bread / Pan berretto bug fixes Author Elena Zheleznyak
🔗I have baked this wonderful, beautiful Pan berretto bread from Sergey already seven or eight times. After the first attempt, which I showed here, I came back to it again and again, it contains everything for me, my favorite "bumps" are collected, which I do not get tired of stumbling over: proofing and incision, patience and observance. This recipe has a lot of important points that bakers who are not accustomed to following the recipe easily miss, and I am in the forefront among them. Although, these moments are important when baking any bread, here they are critical, because the bread has a very specific type that will not work if you do not take everything into account.
Sergey's bread opened in a wonderful way. I didn't even make a cut so that the knife, that the cutter was simply stuck in the dough, had to be carried out several times with the blade to get a cut of sufficient depth. And then this cut, instead of swelling in the oven and opening prickly beautifully, treacherously blurred.
I began to observe the dough: I always got it of different humidity, or rather, no, the humidity remained the same, but the dough in its properties differed from each other from time to time. It was either too sticky, sometimes too wet, sometimes normal. Why??? I paid attention to the flour and remembered that each time I baked with different flour. I used one for several years, in the literal sense - three years ago I bought a lot at once, and baked on it until it was over. And when it was over, I went to the store and bought a "store", the most common. So, it turns out that I tried to bake the "beret" both on my "old" flour, and on freshly bought one. Experience is the son of difficult mistakes, so I will briefly share my observations of flour and dough.
I'll start in order, first about the wheat tower. It is not a secret for anyone that flour with the same characteristics on the package can behave completely differently and take in different amounts of water. As I said earlier, I used the premium flour from the store, and a century and three years ago. Both flours contain 10.6% protein, but the first one I buy in the store is relatively fresh, and "my" flour is already three years old, at least (and, if you count, even more, it is just the same age as my son ). So, during storage, Kharkiv flour began to significantly differ from that purchased in the store. She became drier, whiter and stronger. I read about the fact that flour changes its properties for the better over time, I read from Auerman, for at least 5 years it can be stored without damage at low humidity and room temperature and it only gets better. For clarity, here is flour with an unexpired shelf life, and here is the flour "mine".
The photo shows that the first is kind of lumpy, and it is slightly darker in color than the second option (it is not very noticeable in the photo that it is yellower, but, believe me, it is still yellower). The second flour is lighter, crumbly and dry. If you squeeze the first flour in your fist, you get a lump of flour with distinct fingerprints squeezing it. And if you squeeze the "old", it will not gather into a ball, crumble, this suggests that it is much drier.
To test both flours in action, I mixed it with water: 100 gr. flour and 100 gr. water. The first "sample" turned out to be clearly more liquid than the second, it took a little more time and effort to stir the second, the second dough turned out to be thicker.
The same pies with whole grain flour, just the opposite.The flour that I bought in the store when my homemade flour ended takes less moisture, although the difference is not as obvious as with the tower.
I noticed a difference in flour when I put the production dough on the back ferment. I make it 100% moisture using 300 gr. towers and 100 gr. whole grain flour. Usually, you have to pant to get a uniform dough. And when I put the dough on the store tower and whole grain, I got a more liquid consistency. By the next morning, liquid was cut off on the surface of the dough, which did not happen with the dough on the "old" dry flour. In the photo below, the first option is on the "fresh" tower, the second - on the "old" one on the second day.
In fact, it turns out that in 100 gr. "Fresh" flour contains more moisture than 100 gr. "Old" and, making dough out of it, we add additional moisture with it, which can sometimes quite strongly affect the dough. In addition, gluten is stronger in "long-lasting" flour. It is clear that my case is rather exceptional, there will be a few people who keep flour for so long, but it is still very interesting and expands the boundaries of understanding bread.
The fact that flour can be different and affect the consistency of the dough is half the trouble, it still needs to be kneaded correctly! For some reason, I was stumbling here, moreover, that I worked with wet dough more than once and I am familiar with the peculiarities of kneading. But then the memory lost. The dough for the "beret" is made from a mixture of premium wheat flour and whole grain, moisture content 77.5%, if I counted correctly, which means that there is a lot of water in it, and if you knead it as usual, pour all the ingredients into dash and turn on the start button, you get this:
You won't be able to work with such a dough; this is understandable even for an inexperienced baker. To get bread from such a dough, I had to add about 100 grams. flour. Well, and, of course, it turned out to be denser than it should be, like this:
But for comparison, the dough for "beret", kneaded in the right way
The ratio of flour and water is exactly the same, on one dough, the difference is in the method. And the secret is to take 60-80 grams at the very beginning of the batch. less water than in the recipe, wait until the dough sets, and add the rest of the water in a teaspoon. I added the next spoonful when the dough became smooth again, collected in a bun and stopped sticking to the sides of the bucket. In total, the kneading in my hp lasted about 40-45 minutes, in the end I got a dough that you can hold in your hands and at the same time it was not sticky.
It is important that not only all the water goes into the dough, but that it is of the correct consistency, with well-developed gluten, non-sticky and elastic. If you do not knead the dough, it will stick to your hands and spread out, it will be difficult to form and a good dense workpiece will not work, it will float in the proofer, the knife will get stuck in the dough during the cut, and during baking it will creep into a wide, smooth smile. Here's an example:
The moisture content of the dough also affects how the cuts open. At least, I have not yet managed to make good friends with the cuts, I have not yet cut enough to whack-whack - and beauty! I noticed that if I cut too deeply the wet dough, it often spreads at the place of the cut. In general, blurry cuts can be for several reasons. Because of the destroyed gluten, the cuts will "tear", everything will look like a hole, due to the fact that the dough is not able to stretch. Excessive steam humidification can also lead to problems with cuts - they will turn out smoothed and can shine like glossy. Here's an example:
Moistening this bread during baking can occur for those who, like me, bake under the hood. Due to the fact that the hood creates a rather tight space around the workpiece, and bread with a high water content and evaporates a lot of moisture, there may be an excess of steam. This was probably the hardest to understand about this bread. Sergei's recipe says in black and white: baking with steam for 20 minutes.I know that in 20 minutes under the hood my bread will cook, so I immediately reduced the time to 15 minutes, but it turned out to be a lot anyway, the bread turned out to be smooth and shiny, the cut was puffy and shone with gloss. Reduced to 10 minutes - similarly, a lot of steam. Reduced to 7 minutes - the bread did not open well along the cut, but it was torn from above.
As a result, on a last desperate attempt, I tried to air the bread after 5 minutes of baking under a hood and again, cover it for another 5-7 minutes. I will not say that it is a victory, but it’s better than it was before!
How the bread opens during baking is even influenced by how the piece is shaped. If it is tightly rolled or molded in some way, but tightly, this will give better opening than a weak and careless molding. I just sin with this, I shape it loosely and carelessly, although, perhaps, I would like it differently, but it does not work out. On the bread-beret, I saw the light!
and learned Zen After all, I can mold the way it suits me, but I like to twist the dough by weight, shaping both loaves and round blanks, then they turn out as needed: dense, elastic, with a noticeable tension on the surface of the dough. This epiphany happened to me closer at one in the morning, I was ready to immediately run into the kitchen and mold and oven! Here, for example, this is how the bread formed by the canopy was revealed! It is clear that there are still a lot of factors influencing, but also high-quality molding.
But that's not all that can affect how the incisions open. In this particular bread, proofing and fermentation temperature are of great importance - it should not be full, otherwise there will be no “explosion” on the crust, it should not be too hot in the room, otherwise the dough will “outgrow” and will not be able to open along the cut.
But, by the way, as a bonus, I baked this bread in a rectangular shape with a lid, molded it tightly, deliberately squeezing out bubbles. On the right is the result of "careless molding", it seems that I didn't even make cuts on the bread because of this, plus I overexposed it in the proofing. But the result was very amusing.
Using the beret as an example, I began to notice a lot, which I could previously close my eyes to or not pay attention at all. At least, this bread taught me a lot and continues to teach. I noticed for myself that up to a certain point such stages as "proofing", "cuts", "molding", etc., understood and perceived as completely separate, independent of each other manipulations with the dough. It's like in an Indian parable about three blind men and an elephant, when each one approached the elephant, touched it in different places, and then described it according to his feelings. And it turned out that the elephant looks like a tree, rope or fan. So it is with this bread: if you do not see it in its entirety, of course, you will get delicious good bread, similar to a loaf, a crescent or a bagel, but not a "beret". By the way, my "beret" is still far from ideal, somehow I have not yet seen the full elephant, or I still look half-eyes. But he changed a lot in my head, yes. And not only about bread
