choosey

baking bread requires a lot of advance planning, more so if you only have a small oven that bakes one loaf at a time, and if you have to make many loaves. this is my schedule to make just three loaves. i've also decided to make the white wheat bread recipe from the american book my standard weekend bread recipe. that is, if i ever feel i need simple white bread to eat over the week, i'll use that recipe.
also, i've begun to trust the mixer to do the kneading. and i wanted to see if a sticky dough can eventually be tamed into a smooth ball without extra kneading. you can see the difference: in the first photo is the dough just after it's been kneaded. i did away with turning it out and shaping it into a ball. instead, i left it to rest and turned it out twice, at half-hour intervals, to fold. what i got after one fold you can see in the second photo. a good ball of dough with a smooth surface that doesn't stick or tear easily.
divided the dough into three after the second folding. i wanted to practise shaping and scoring the loaves. from this point, the schedule begins its work: to preshape and shape the first loaf, to continue degassing the other loaves as they're still waiting to be preshaped.
the first loaf was shaped into a ball (or boule in french). i wanted to score it with a big square. the problem was, i left it to prove and forgot to mist the cloth covering it, which resulted in the dough's surface drying out a bit. i think this got in the way of allowing the dough to expand fully.
the second loaf was shaped into a bâtarde. i followed hamelman's method for the shaping, and was pleased with the result. scored it with a big central diagonal slash, and two smaller ones by the sides. this loaf i made sure i misted as it proved, and already you can see the larger loaf volume.
like the first, i shaped the third loaf into a boule too, but i wanted to try scoring it with a pair of scissors. i made six cuts that didn't look very nice. next time, i'll try just four, and anchor one tip of the scissors at the centre of the loaf. still, it looks like a flower, just that the petals on one side are drooping.
four hours after i started at 10pm, the three loaves were finally finished. haha i've always wanted to take a photo like this: many loaves of freshly-baked bread, in different shapes and sizes, just randomly assembled together on the table. even better, maybe in a bread basket.
i think the result was consistent with what i had last week: soft, moist crumb with numerous small air spaces, and the occasional bigger voids. i also realised that unlike breads i made from other doughs, this one seemed to hold on to it's moisture better; the crumb remains moistly soft even after i leave it exposed for an hour or two - another reason for permanently making this my sunday bread. again, eat with good bought jam for a good breakfast.